[AW] crumbling light

[Antiope]

of glory which the world hath known

stands she not nobly and alone

S

he isn’t expecting to be approached so quickly, but her Regency had come with a measure of notorietity that some days Antiope finds herself still adjusting too. It is different, to be famed on a battlefield that others fear your approach, than to be famed in a court that others desire to be near you and to know more about you.

Her sapphire eyes are verging on ice floes, lost to sea, as they settle on the woman who steps up to her in the night. At first, she is taken aback by how strangely similar they appear, like looking in some strange warped mirror. Only this woman bears three horns, and dapples where Antiope wears stripes.

She recognizes her, faintly. Has seen her around the court, before. Perhaps speaking to Isra on occasion—but she does not know the other mare’s name. “Nothing is amiss,” Antiope responds, as if to alleviate any fears lingering in the citizens still wandering at this hour. What she cannot do, however, is alleviate herself of the burning in her chest.

The Regent begins to walk, because standing still is like asking for all of the things inside her to come spilling out. She will never let that happen. So she puts hooves to cobblestone, and lets a raw winter’s night breeze dance its way over her skin. “I have always been a night type,” she says, rather simply.

First, because she was always planning battles, or fighting in them, and then because she had finally tasted freedom, and love, and didn’t want to waste it with sleep. Then, she had killed the gods and her anger had fueled her for days, brought her to Novus, where the lioness in her bones had paced and paced and paced. Now, it is often a habit, often a consequence.

“I apologize for not knowing your name, though I have seen you in the court,” it would be remiss of someone like Antiope not to notice everyone, even if she doesn’t know them by name. It is in her nature to take in every detail, to miss nothing. “Is there something you needed?”

But she doesn’t feel like a Regent tonight, doesn’t feel like she could help anyone with anything. She just wants to breathe down the cold air like a compress to her lungs and lose herself in the shadowed corners of the court she has come to know so well.

"Speaking."

@Noctiilucent

∞