only one will stand at the end of it all
I know that I am not alone before I see whoever it is that has chosen to walk the forest with me. I know, because my magic hungers lustfully for their life energy, and I know it is no bird in its nest nor a squirrel upon a branch. The energy is too big, too large. The lioness in my bones wants to consume and I am almost tempted to let her.
I follow the source like a blind dog following a scent, my steps carrying me off my set path and elsewhere into Viride. My striped body slides in and out of the soft shadow of trees and past the reaching tendrils of unfurling ferns. I am more at home here in the woods than anywhere else in Novus, I realize. It is easier to slip back into the predator I was made to be here, to remember the tigress I had once been, the killer I’d had to unbecome.
Rounding a wide tree trunk brings me almost face to face with the other woman. We are but a few feet apart, now. I am watching her walk, watching the way the wan light reflects off the gold on her skin and the pale ivory of her hair. The lioness in my veins licks her lips and prowls and prowls and prowls. I try very hard to push her away, clearing my throat as I step out of the shadows.
They peel away from me like a second skin, revealing marble white splashes cracked and broken by the earthen tiger stripes covering me. My sapphire eyes are darker in the shade, the bright red of my paints and ribbons violent and feral like blood. “Headed west?” I am trying to remember my pleasantries; trying to remember who I was before the mountains and forget who I was after the temple.
"Speaking."
I follow the source like a blind dog following a scent, my steps carrying me off my set path and elsewhere into Viride. My striped body slides in and out of the soft shadow of trees and past the reaching tendrils of unfurling ferns. I am more at home here in the woods than anywhere else in Novus, I realize. It is easier to slip back into the predator I was made to be here, to remember the tigress I had once been, the killer I’d had to unbecome.
Rounding a wide tree trunk brings me almost face to face with the other woman. We are but a few feet apart, now. I am watching her walk, watching the way the wan light reflects off the gold on her skin and the pale ivory of her hair. The lioness in my veins licks her lips and prowls and prowls and prowls. I try very hard to push her away, clearing my throat as I step out of the shadows.
They peel away from me like a second skin, revealing marble white splashes cracked and broken by the earthen tiger stripes covering me. My sapphire eyes are darker in the shade, the bright red of my paints and ribbons violent and feral like blood. “Headed west?” I am trying to remember my pleasantries; trying to remember who I was before the mountains and forget who I was after the temple.
![[Image: 13716916_Rc8f5hGvZkB3cYP.png]](https://file.toyhou.se/images/13716916_Rc8f5hGvZkB3cYP.png)
a war is calling
the tides are turned
the tides are turned
