[P] half-gods

[Antiope]

i feel divinity in my bones like aching; like fire

Spring is still a foal when Antiope sets forth for the mountains. Still new and wondering, still walking along on wobbly legs, being coaxed across the nation with wide and bright eyes. She pauses, for a moment, where the path cuts up into the trees and away into Arma. She pauses, for a moment, beneath the shadow of scaffolding and half formed plans. It is too early in the day for the builders.

She has not slept, as she pushes forward in the washed out grey morning light, on toward the pass. There is nothing to mark her leaving but the sound of her hooves scraping against stone. There is nothing to accompany but the shine of her axe and the echo of her own thoughts against the high ridges and deep ravines.

It is late afternoon by the time Antiope pushes through the gate of the Solterra proper, sand clinging to her skin, gold fading from her eyes like the ichor is draining from her bloodstream. The Denocte Sovereign stops, for only a moment, to take in the golden city and its sand covered streets.

It is like nothing she has ever seen before.

Everything is bright and burning in the sun and the tigress is a slash of shadows and marble on its walls, a spray of blood on its floors. Her sapphire eyes are sharp, sharp, sharp, as she pushes deeper into the crowd. She can’t tell if this place makes her feel more like a serpent or if it’s just the way some of the citizens are looking at her.

When she rises up the steps of the citadel, some stop and stare. Some whisper, and wonder.

The guards stop her at the top. “I am Queen Antiope of Denocte,” she says, but it feels wrong coming from her lips. She still remembers the day she had stood at the entrance to that pass in Denocte and thought that one day she would cross it—one day, she would see the rest of Novus—but then she hadn’t expected that moment to be as Sovereign.

“I sent a raven ahead of my visit, I should be expected,” but here, in the Sun City, Antiope can almost forget the eyes of Caligo watching her from on high every night. Here, in a warrior’s court, she can almost forget what it is like to not know whether or not you can trust yourself.

"Speaking."

∞
@Orestes