[P] restless, breathless

[Antiope]

antiope

forever may you reign
forever may you reign

S

he doesn’t immediately open her eyes when he speaks, although even in her exhaustion she hears him approach. Even in her exhaustion, she never gives up her alertness, all the things she is built with. Her ears are twisted toward him starting from the moment he lands, until the time he stops a few feet away and poses his question into the air between them.

Antiope can feel the grain of the bark pressing itself into her skin like a memory, but she doesn’t move away from the tree. Her blue eyes slip open, slicing through the strands of white and mahogany hair that have fallen free from their binds and across her face. He is as she remembers, and she had said she would never overlook him again.

He is keen, she notes.

The tigress wonders how much he had seen, and decides that no matter what amount it is enough to answer the question for him. “Yes,” Antiope lifts her head and regrets it, grinding her teeth and fighting back the wave of nausea that swells up within her. She will sleep, long and hard later, she knows. If she did not stop when she had, worse thing would have happened. It is the price she pays for her magic, here, in this world. She hates it.

When the sick feeling passes, Antiope pushes slowly away from the tree. Her legs are steadier, though her steps are noticeably careful and there is a shiver to her skin as if she feels a chill. Her expression is composed but inside she roils.

Oh, the lioness in her bones is pleased. It cannot feast on the sacrifice of others so it must feast on her own sanctuary, but the lioness is not picky.

She brushes past him, shortening the distance between herself and the lake until she is close enough to dip her muzzle in and take of its refreshing, cool, water. In her reflection Antiope sees how her hair has begun to come undone from her bun and how there is a sheen to her coat and she looks into her own jewel blue eyes and wonders how is that she got here.

She knows, of course. But why had it needed to be her?

“Energy,” she says, when she has finished and is upright once again, glancing over her shoulder toward Septimus. No doubt he will ask, what it is. “My magic. I can draw on energy, to make myself more powerful,” her eyes darken, like a storm passing over a sea. Like waves, tossing, rising, rising, crashing, “But I have never had such limitations, it is as though my body no longer remember how to use it.”

@Septimus c; "speaks"

rallidae | rhiaan