Antiope
the voice begins to call you while you hunger
a taste of destiny you're searching for
the voice begins to call you while you hunger
a taste of destiny you're searching for
The pass through the mountains is a place that Antiope has yet to venture. Beyond is unknown. The other courts, of course. New lands, strange faces, all things she is sure one day she will come to know with time and adventure. There is a lifetime of lifetimes ahead of her—endless, stretching horizons—which means plenty of chances to discover the world beyond this place she has come to know as home.
But that is not why she is here today, standing at the entrance to the trail that winds and twists its way through the trees like a serpent. To tell the truth, Antiope herself isn’t certain why she is here today, except that now she is standing where a gate had once stood that her citizens say had once blocked them off from the rest of Novus. But then a beast had knocked it to the ground.
All that is left are pieces of crumbled pillars and fragments of stone, strewn off to the side, thrown halfway into the woods. Nature and time have reclaimed some of them, moss beginning to grow upon their surfaces. Any wood that remained of the doors has long since succumbed to rot and rain; or, perhaps, kindling. The Regent steps closer to a pile of rubble and finds half of the head of a raven, its single eye looking upon her with great scrutiny.
She looks into its stony eye and wonders how harshly it judges her, if it had been expecting its demise. Antiope can almost imagine the grandeur of the gate, but more than that its oppressiveness. It reminds her too much of other prisons that never look like prisons, like a rumbling hunger in your bones that you cannot escape, or a quadruplet of gods who made you to be a certain way and who would rather kill to get you to do what they want.
The striped woman turns away from that judging eye, puts her back to it and all the things that it represents. There is so much history here in this rubble, in these ruins and debris. Not all of it is good, but it makes her feel good to know that the Queen she stands under helped to free them and that she can now be a part of ensuring that such a thing will never happen again. Perhaps, one day, she really could go beyond these mountainous walls.
"Speaking."
But that is not why she is here today, standing at the entrance to the trail that winds and twists its way through the trees like a serpent. To tell the truth, Antiope herself isn’t certain why she is here today, except that now she is standing where a gate had once stood that her citizens say had once blocked them off from the rest of Novus. But then a beast had knocked it to the ground.
All that is left are pieces of crumbled pillars and fragments of stone, strewn off to the side, thrown halfway into the woods. Nature and time have reclaimed some of them, moss beginning to grow upon their surfaces. Any wood that remained of the doors has long since succumbed to rot and rain; or, perhaps, kindling. The Regent steps closer to a pile of rubble and finds half of the head of a raven, its single eye looking upon her with great scrutiny.
She looks into its stony eye and wonders how harshly it judges her, if it had been expecting its demise. Antiope can almost imagine the grandeur of the gate, but more than that its oppressiveness. It reminds her too much of other prisons that never look like prisons, like a rumbling hunger in your bones that you cannot escape, or a quadruplet of gods who made you to be a certain way and who would rather kill to get you to do what they want.
The striped woman turns away from that judging eye, puts her back to it and all the things that it represents. There is so much history here in this rubble, in these ruins and debris. Not all of it is good, but it makes her feel good to know that the Queen she stands under helped to free them and that she can now be a part of ensuring that such a thing will never happen again. Perhaps, one day, she really could go beyond these mountainous walls.
![[Image: 13716916_Rc8f5hGvZkB3cYP.png]](https://file.toyhou.se/images/13716916_Rc8f5hGvZkB3cYP.png)
a war is calling
the tides are turned
the tides are turned
