Luvena
The stories she had told them, of course, had been sugarcoated. Some were old Herstillian fairy tales. Many of which cautioned against magic, and so she spun them in her own way, so that the boys knew to be cautious of magic, but not to fear it. She told them the story of Herstials fall, but in her version, Obyana was a big black dragon. A creature with no soul or remorse. Both were true of the man as well. She left out the part where she had fallen in love and married him. The part where he had taken then crown first. In her story, he flew in on an east wind, carrying the smell of smoke, and he burned the kingdom down and carried her family away in his claws. Later she told them, that it had been the same dragon who had burned the woods. This was a lie, although that time, it really had been a dragon.
Drawn out of her thoughts once more she laughed at the girl's response. "Perhaps!" she replied. "Tired souls as we must be drawn to Novus" she smiled softly. Wondering if Liatris was tired if he was alive. If he too would be drawn into Novus' grasp. If he would become entangled in one of the four realms of time, as she had been ensnared in Dusk. Taken by the beauty of the setting sun, just before the skies turned purple. "I will. But I intend to spend my final years enjoying what I can to it's fullest. Anyone who knew me before would tell you that I am as stubborn as a goat, and truthfully I won't deny it"
She could see sorrow blooming in Elena's eyes. It seemed the golden mare too had been through far too much in her life. She gestured beside her "Come lay down. The herbs can be finished later" she invited her. She knew what it was to be broken, to be lost. But they were in the present now, and if nothing else they could have each others company. She nodded as the mare made her confession. "It's never easy" she murmured softly. "It's easy to wish we hadn't but..." she paused, thinking back to Elysium, to Herstial. "We can't change what's been done."
She closed her eyes as she pictured them. She did so often, to make sure she didn't forget. But even so, details slipped her mind. Did Liatris have Cavalier's horns? or did Eremurus? Whose eyes did Liatris have? forgetting that the answer was neither. "I suppose you'll find out" she suggested "I'm not sure anyone knows until it happens. I never thought it was mine until I met Cavalier, and then things changed"
She shook her head sharply at the mares next words. "Don't be" she chided, her words sharper then usual. "It's not your job to be sorry for the sorrows of others. You can share in my sorrow as I share in yours, by no means stop yourself from feeling. But don't be sorry. If you're sorry for everyone, and everything they've done. How will you have any room left to apologize for yourself. Aknowledge that you are sorry for your own past, and grow from that." she didn't say it harshly, or to let down the girl. But rather to show her to care for herself too. Luvena had spent a good time being sorry for the actions of everyone else. For Oberon when he had lost his mate. For all the citizens of the woods who had been thrown by the changes rapidly tossed at them. For Cavalier. And, it had nearly destroyed her. She had learned her lesson the hard way. But, she had learned it, and she would not forget it.
"tell me" she started "Where do you come from? What's your story?"
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Table © Camy
