[P] forgive a lovely woman's lies

[Antiope]

my roots run deep into the hollow

The golden woman steps closer and Antiope does not move away, even when there is but a whisper of breath between them, even when she draws the axe further away because she knows how deeply it can burn. There is something wanton, something carnal, in the way the lioness prowls through her veins.

It takes her awhile, but Antiope realizes the lioness is not looking for a meal, not hungry for the things she is usually hungry for.

When she looks into the eyes of the other mare, it is easy to see why. Her skin is ichor gold, like the color of Antiope’s eyes when she uses her magic. Her hair, even dampened by the rain, is voluminous and ivory white, almost silver in the night, and limned with gold from the light of her axe.

And something, something about this stranger, makes her think of gods and jungles and a time before summer green eyes. In another life she can imagine pushing the hair away from this girl’s face, to reveal the simple, ageless beauty of it. Like a statue, carefully carved with the finest of tools.

There is no before summer green eyes anymore, but for everything that she has done: god-killed and mothered and loved, and everything that she cannot claim to be: gentle and whole and harmless, she is trying so hard to forget them all. Is that not why she is here, to be something more, something else than the other thing that she is?

“And what,” she breathes in the musty smell of the rain washed court, dampened spices and a lingering something she can only name sun soaked, “are your desires?” Her sapphire eyes, darkened by the storm and the late hour, goldened by the light of her axe, are still keen and bright. They say: tell me something in your heart, tell me what feeds you.

"Speaking."

credits

@Bexley c;