[P] Candy Clouds of Lullaby

[Antiope]

Things haven’t really changed.

At least, they haven’t really felt like they’ve changed. If Antiope disregards the fact that everyone looks at her a little differently now, a little more like she’s something else, something more or other—that they all speak to her like she is Queen—then she might be able to convince herself that Isra has not gone.

Perhaps when the court is quiet and the streets are empty and there is no one around to remind her of the position she has taken, of the crown that she now wears, she could convince herself that Isra has not gone. But by the light of the sun, by the bustling of the crowds and the messengers who continually come to her door, there is little way for her to pretend.

She has been a Queen before, a jungle Queen of a predatory tribe who wore shadows like a second skin. But leading them was like breathing. They revered her, because they knew what she had been; they knew that the gods had made her to be their salvation. They would have done anything for her. They had died for her.

Antiope had let them die for her.

This time… this time is different. It has to be different. She is determined that it will be.

The recently ascended Sovereign is distracted from her thoughts by a flash of iridescent light, thinking she had been alone in wandering through the prairie. Evidently, however, she is not as Antiope looks up and her sapphire blue eyes see the gossamer winged equine landing hooves upon the ground only but feet from where she is walking. The hill she is cresting must have mostly hid the other from view.

The tiger striped woman recalls having seen them around the court, before. A medic, she thinks, as she approaches. “Hello,” Antiope greets, thinking that their wings are quite fascinating and that she can’t imagine how something so delicate can hold a horse, even in a world filled with magic. “Enjoying the weather?”

She imagines many of the court medics are glad for the spring, glad to take to the world and restock their supplies. Glad for the seemingly endless line of sick equines lessening, as colds and other winter illnesses take their leave for the year.

"Speaking."

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@Caelum

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