N E F E R T A R I
These past days had been filled with excitement, with revelry. Food and drink had always flowed freely for Nefertari, but with the shifts in power and the desire to forge a sense of community in full swing the feasts had spilled into the streets and the taverns turned their liquors loose like an unruly tide. She had not expected such comforts to carve a hollow place in her chest. To build a temple of longing and loneliness.
It had been several years now that she had called Solterra her “home”, though it would never truly feel that way. Since the first day she set foot outside of Denocte, the first stride over her carefully guarded borders like a secret whispered among lovers, she had felt like nothing more than a fugitive. The parties, the showmanship, the festivities had all been beautiful distractions. And how could one not feel a sense of belonging, of joy in the presence of gilded halls and sparkling boys and bejeweled girls? It was easy there to forget about loneliness, for a time, at least. Still, that fearsome beast would come; not as a ferocious bear to knock down the walls you’d built, but as the creeping of ants, slipping between the cracks and nestling in the deep places to consume you.
01-29-2021, 10:19 PM
- This post was last modified: 01-30-2021, 06:08 AM by Nefertari
She wasn’t sure when they had gotten in, but the crawling sensation in her skin had become overwhelming. And as any other occasion when she could not sleep and found no comfort in plush furs and soft silks, she made her bed under the stars. She had found the night to be her one last connection with her home, the last comfort she found from the place in which she had run. After all, she had fled from her family, not her goddess.
The mare took each step without looking at it, without taking count of where she would go. She never had, when she was restless in her heart and mind. Somehow, her legs knew how to take her where she needed to go. It was no surprise that they brought her to the edge of the oasis, the one sanctuary among the dry sands of Solterra. The stallion, however, was unexpected.
She watched him, his face lifted to the sky, the curved bones of his horns reaching like slender fingers to caress his backside. The bulk of feathers were tucked neatly at his sides, but they did nothing to hide the lithe muscle that was clearly there. He was beautiful, but he was also achingly lonely. Nefertari did not need her goddess-given family-cursed gifts to tell her so. Whatever the stallion carried with him weighed as heavily on his heart as hers. Like would always recognize like. Forget the “opposites attract” narrative. Those twin flames would always find each other, those whose love whispered and rejoiced. Those whose pain screamed until their throats were raw and their whimpers were swallowed by the night.
The mare felt hot tears threaten to invade her golden pools, though she was unsure why. Perhaps it was her own loneliness consuming her, her own regrets, her own desires. For a woman who was very used to immense feeling, it was nearly consuming, this ache, not a dull roar but a bone-deep ache that reached out and twisted the soul. Perhaps it was this place, this beautiful oasis. Or perhaps it was this stallion, a mirror which she did not expect to come by. She took a deep and unsteady breath, her bodice shuddering with the effort.
Nefertari lifted her gaze to the sky. The stars were so beautiful.
