“train your soul to remember where the weapon and the world divide”
Morrighan begins to openly tell Antiope of the place where she came from, of her time there, what she did. She speaks so plainly about it, laying it out between them on the cobblestone. Did the Warden simply not mind sharing her story, or did she trust Antiope with such details of her past?
They have both known worlds at war. Her body remembers battle—though not fondly—like an old friend. It remembers how to heft a weapon and how to look behind her while also looking in front of her. She will never forget what it is like to be at war, and it is why she doesn’t want to fight anymore.
This is a foolish hope. For someone like her, who was made to do nothing but fight. For someone like her who was made, she knows there will always be another battle on the horizon. And now, more than ever, she truly knows what it is like to lose. She knows what it is like to have something she wants to protect.
“Wolves?” Antiope asks, surprised. Two completely different species, joining together in order to kill one another. It occurs to her, then, how strange it must be for the Warden to have a wolf as a bonded. Surely that is the work of some god.
The Regent thinks again of the moon carving, getting further and further behind them with every step the pair take. Gods… can they all truly be so fickle? She grits her teeth and drags her feet, glancing sidelong at the shops lining the street. How can she trust them, if this is what they do? How can she trust them? How can she?
Her thoughts are muddled by sleeplessness, winding through her head like a lazy breeze. Antiope knows she should rest, but it has never been her strongest skill. She so often relied on her magic to keep her going, even after days. In war, there is very little time for sleep.
Morrighan turns the Regent’s question back on her, and Antiope breathes in a slow, even breath. She looks back at the other woman with stormy blue eyes, somehow darker than they usually seem. “I was born into a world ravaged by war,” she says. That is the easy part, that she had come into a world that had been dying and fighting. “It had been going for nearly 50 years, and I was supposed to stop it.”
Not alone, of course. There had been her sisters; each of them had been tasked with working to put a stop to the fighting. Each of them had been asked to fight, to put an end to the war. Each of them had been made to kill. Antiope looks at the Warden and wonders what the mare sees when she looks at her. No scars, the permanent stains of blood red dyes.
Does she look like a goddess, or a warrior, or a murderer? Are they not all the same thing, anyway?
“Then one day I fell in love, and he showed me that there were other things in the world besides death,” her heart begins to beat quicker, she pulls her eyes away and turns them toward the crowd. They pass without realizing the history that is being spilled like blood at their feet. “But then, death took him anyway. Him and our daughter,” Morrighan is the first to know besides Isra. It still doesn’t feel right to talk about them out loud.
How can she trust the gods?
She doesn’t mention going to the temple to kill the gods, on the cusp of a sunset so deep and red the world looked like it was on fire. She doesn’t mention how brightly, how harshly she burned. Hotter, deadlier, than any flame the Warden can conjure. “I didn’t stop it,” Antiope says, “the war.”
The gods had perished by her blade and then she had boarded a ship and left. It had brought her to Novus. She doesn’t know what happened to the war, or the equines she knew, or her sisters. Perhaps with the gods dead the fighting had simply ended on its own. Perhaps, they had all ended each other instead.
The gods should not trust her. There is quiet, for a moment, between them. “It seems we have both only ever known battle and bloodshed,” it is strange, how similar they are. Why is it Antiope keeps turning corners and finding things and places and equines here that reflect so much of what she is inside. It is like magic, purple and strange and mysterious. “Perhaps Denocte is out to remake us into something new.”
“Speaking.”
They have both known worlds at war. Her body remembers battle—though not fondly—like an old friend. It remembers how to heft a weapon and how to look behind her while also looking in front of her. She will never forget what it is like to be at war, and it is why she doesn’t want to fight anymore.
This is a foolish hope. For someone like her, who was made to do nothing but fight. For someone like her who was made, she knows there will always be another battle on the horizon. And now, more than ever, she truly knows what it is like to lose. She knows what it is like to have something she wants to protect.
“Wolves?” Antiope asks, surprised. Two completely different species, joining together in order to kill one another. It occurs to her, then, how strange it must be for the Warden to have a wolf as a bonded. Surely that is the work of some god.
The Regent thinks again of the moon carving, getting further and further behind them with every step the pair take. Gods… can they all truly be so fickle? She grits her teeth and drags her feet, glancing sidelong at the shops lining the street. How can she trust them, if this is what they do? How can she trust them? How can she?
Her thoughts are muddled by sleeplessness, winding through her head like a lazy breeze. Antiope knows she should rest, but it has never been her strongest skill. She so often relied on her magic to keep her going, even after days. In war, there is very little time for sleep.
Morrighan turns the Regent’s question back on her, and Antiope breathes in a slow, even breath. She looks back at the other woman with stormy blue eyes, somehow darker than they usually seem. “I was born into a world ravaged by war,” she says. That is the easy part, that she had come into a world that had been dying and fighting. “It had been going for nearly 50 years, and I was supposed to stop it.”
Not alone, of course. There had been her sisters; each of them had been tasked with working to put a stop to the fighting. Each of them had been asked to fight, to put an end to the war. Each of them had been made to kill. Antiope looks at the Warden and wonders what the mare sees when she looks at her. No scars, the permanent stains of blood red dyes.
Does she look like a goddess, or a warrior, or a murderer? Are they not all the same thing, anyway?
“Then one day I fell in love, and he showed me that there were other things in the world besides death,” her heart begins to beat quicker, she pulls her eyes away and turns them toward the crowd. They pass without realizing the history that is being spilled like blood at their feet. “But then, death took him anyway. Him and our daughter,” Morrighan is the first to know besides Isra. It still doesn’t feel right to talk about them out loud.
How can she trust the gods?
She doesn’t mention going to the temple to kill the gods, on the cusp of a sunset so deep and red the world looked like it was on fire. She doesn’t mention how brightly, how harshly she burned. Hotter, deadlier, than any flame the Warden can conjure. “I didn’t stop it,” Antiope says, “the war.”
The gods had perished by her blade and then she had boarded a ship and left. It had brought her to Novus. She doesn’t know what happened to the war, or the equines she knew, or her sisters. Perhaps with the gods dead the fighting had simply ended on its own. Perhaps, they had all ended each other instead.
The gods should not trust her. There is quiet, for a moment, between them. “It seems we have both only ever known battle and bloodshed,” it is strange, how similar they are. Why is it Antiope keeps turning corners and finding things and places and equines here that reflect so much of what she is inside. It is like magic, purple and strange and mysterious. “Perhaps Denocte is out to remake us into something new.”
![[Image: 13716916_Rc8f5hGvZkB3cYP.png]](https://file.toyhou.se/images/13716916_Rc8f5hGvZkB3cYP.png)
a war is calling
the tides are turned
the tides are turned
