the ending won't be forgotten
it's written in the stars and the hieroglyphs
it's written in the stars and the hieroglyphs
When he tells her what the shapes and markings and designs upon his skin are: magical scars, Antiope gets the urge to reach out and touch them. An urge that she has no choice but to ignore, to push aside and down. But it makes her wonder, not for the first time, what other equines think when they look at her.
A warrior with no scars.
Oh, she has many, but they are not the kind you can see with your eyes or feel with your touch. Even the place over her ribcage where the spear had entered and pierced her lung, that place that should have killed her and didn’t, there is no scar. When she had woken it had been like she was born anew.
The gods had made her many things, any hard to catch had certainly been one of them. So, when she passes equines on the street and they look at her axe and the stains of her tattoos and the red at her throat, do they see someone who is more powerful than she looks, someone to be feared?
The Denoctian sovereign does not reach out to touch his scars, no matter how she might want to. And even then, she is giving him her energy—or trying to—and then he is smiling at her with brighter eyes and now he is glowing, she notices, and the moment is past.
“I am glad to hear it,” she responds with bright, bright eyes, as Antiope turns into his side and steps through the opened door and into the sunlight. She basks in the heat and the light like a wildcat, and realizes how refreshed it makes her feel without need of her magic for herself. Her eyes take in the sight of the high sandstone walls and the exotic plants. The fountain rings in her ears long after they have passed it.
He glances at her as they step into the streets and she is taken again by the sight of it. “Perhaps you are not looking in the right places for the beauty,” the queen says, because all she sees is burning, burning, burning. Brightly, like the sun. Blazing like a flame. Perhaps it is her magic, but she can feel the energy everywhere.
It is alive.
“What you are doing for them, after everything they have been through,” Antiope stops, and looks at Orestes. Again she is struck by the lines etched upon the curves of his skin, somehow more prominent it seems out in the sun, “Thank you.”
She does not tell him that Raum did not deserve to walk this earth, but there is knowing in her eyes, dark and rumbling like thunder. It was she, after all, who had told Isra that sometimes things just need to die.
But he is giving them something that they have not had in a long time. She wonders if he is struggling to see it, but Antiope knows well a land ravaged by war and loss and someone who thought that they stood higher and taller than all else. Perhaps she can feel it because it is the thing she came to Novus so desperately searching for: peace of mind. If these people know anything, they know Orestes will not harm them. Not like they have been harmed before.
She has to smile at his words, because he is right. She appreciates his forwardness. “You might be surprised how much more time I have for pleasure this time around,” Antiope quips, surprising herself but realizing how true it is. When she had been leading the kingdom in her old world, war had occupied all of her time. War, and planning for war, and never anything else.
“I came because our previous queen, Isra, has gone to sea, to a land far beyond it,” she thinks of that night by the sea, when Isra had boarded that ship with the others and went, smaller and smaller to the horizon until they had disappeared. “If I am to be queen, I want to know Novus. I want to know Solterra, and Delumine and Terrastella as much as I know Denocte.”
She lays her eyes upon him. “I want to know your people, like my people,” how else, Antiope wonders, can she be expected to understand and trust them? How else can she expect them to understand and to trust her in return? “I want to know you, if you would like to know me.”
"Speaking."
A warrior with no scars.
Oh, she has many, but they are not the kind you can see with your eyes or feel with your touch. Even the place over her ribcage where the spear had entered and pierced her lung, that place that should have killed her and didn’t, there is no scar. When she had woken it had been like she was born anew.
The gods had made her many things, any hard to catch had certainly been one of them. So, when she passes equines on the street and they look at her axe and the stains of her tattoos and the red at her throat, do they see someone who is more powerful than she looks, someone to be feared?
The Denoctian sovereign does not reach out to touch his scars, no matter how she might want to. And even then, she is giving him her energy—or trying to—and then he is smiling at her with brighter eyes and now he is glowing, she notices, and the moment is past.
“I am glad to hear it,” she responds with bright, bright eyes, as Antiope turns into his side and steps through the opened door and into the sunlight. She basks in the heat and the light like a wildcat, and realizes how refreshed it makes her feel without need of her magic for herself. Her eyes take in the sight of the high sandstone walls and the exotic plants. The fountain rings in her ears long after they have passed it.
He glances at her as they step into the streets and she is taken again by the sight of it. “Perhaps you are not looking in the right places for the beauty,” the queen says, because all she sees is burning, burning, burning. Brightly, like the sun. Blazing like a flame. Perhaps it is her magic, but she can feel the energy everywhere.
It is alive.
“What you are doing for them, after everything they have been through,” Antiope stops, and looks at Orestes. Again she is struck by the lines etched upon the curves of his skin, somehow more prominent it seems out in the sun, “Thank you.”
She does not tell him that Raum did not deserve to walk this earth, but there is knowing in her eyes, dark and rumbling like thunder. It was she, after all, who had told Isra that sometimes things just need to die.
But he is giving them something that they have not had in a long time. She wonders if he is struggling to see it, but Antiope knows well a land ravaged by war and loss and someone who thought that they stood higher and taller than all else. Perhaps she can feel it because it is the thing she came to Novus so desperately searching for: peace of mind. If these people know anything, they know Orestes will not harm them. Not like they have been harmed before.
She has to smile at his words, because he is right. She appreciates his forwardness. “You might be surprised how much more time I have for pleasure this time around,” Antiope quips, surprising herself but realizing how true it is. When she had been leading the kingdom in her old world, war had occupied all of her time. War, and planning for war, and never anything else.
“I came because our previous queen, Isra, has gone to sea, to a land far beyond it,” she thinks of that night by the sea, when Isra had boarded that ship with the others and went, smaller and smaller to the horizon until they had disappeared. “If I am to be queen, I want to know Novus. I want to know Solterra, and Delumine and Terrastella as much as I know Denocte.”
She lays her eyes upon him. “I want to know your people, like my people,” how else, Antiope wonders, can she be expected to understand and trust them? How else can she expect them to understand and to trust her in return? “I want to know you, if you would like to know me.”
@Orestes
![[Image: 13716916_Rc8f5hGvZkB3cYP.png]](https://file.toyhou.se/images/13716916_Rc8f5hGvZkB3cYP.png)
a war is calling
the tides are turned
the tides are turned
