no escaping what is coming
eternity of being nothing
There had been one thing most awful about her pregnancy besides the nausea, and that was her having to avoid the bar.
If someone asked Morrighan if she had a drinking problem, she would deny it, but it could very well turn into a bigger issue if she's not careful. There had been many nights she spent here just thinking and thinking and thinking. Some nights it was about Al'Zahra, some about Maeve, some about herself.
She'll often get stuck in a loop of when she told Al'Zahra the news. Her stupid little vulnerable heart was full of so much hope to start a family and maybe having some good in her life. How wrong she had been, how so very wrong. She was a fool to think Al'Zahra cared about her in any way besides just some fun fling. She was a fool to think she was special in the woman's eyes. They knew nothing about each other. They didn't know what the core of their souls looked like or how their hearts ticked. They only knew the lust and fire and smoke. It had been all passionate in the moment, but that was it. It was just a moment, nothing that ran deep.
Did she want that? Morrighan does not know. She doesn't even know why or how she's supposed to raise a daughter. One that is so full of light and life that makes Morr realize just how much she's lost. Did she ever hold that childlike innocence, or was it taken from her immediately by the war and the need to be a soldier? Did the fire consume it, never to be seen again?
She looks at Maeve and sees who she could've been. She looks at her and sees another fool. She does not want her daughter to turn out like a failure.
Failure.
The word repeats in her mind as she takes the last sip of her third drink. Her thoughts are becoming scrambled and her vision is blurry, but she can just make out the couple sitting nearby. They are close, they have that look, that stupid, lovestruck look. She looks over at them with wildness in her eyes.
"Yeah, don't get used to that. It's all fun at first and you think it's forever but then they rip your heart out of your chest like some fucking plaything," she spits - literally spitting on the floor as she talks. The couple is utterly repulsed. "None of it's real! None. It's all lies." She is rambling now and her speech is slurred, but she orders another drink anyway. The bartender looks on with concern at just how obviously drunk she already is. He warily fills a shot glass and passes it to Morrighan. Fortunately for him, she doesn't notice the difference.
"Bullshit, it's all bullshit," she mutters and guzzles down the entire shot.
Fuck you, Al'Zahra.
She took Maeve to Dawn Court for some festival and they were supposed to be back by now. With Morr's luck, she probably lied about that too or lost her daughter who knows where in Novus.
in me forever the charge of Other, the blood of my unconscious, the dark song in me from elsewhere—
The sovereign had wanted to talk to Morrighan about trying to get more information on the black market businesses she keeps hearing whisperings about. Whether that means hiring someone to get inside them or just going looking for information, she wants to know what is going on in the shadows and secret rooms of her court. Antiope is not foolish enough to pretend they don’t exist.
What she isn’t expecting is the scene she walks in upon entering the bar an equine in the markets had pointed her to. Morrighan, clearly having had one too many, ranting and raving at a couple who look like they’re just trying to enjoy themselves and have a nice evening together. Antiope lingers in the doorway, watching the whole affair with sharp sapphire eyes from the shadows.
Oh, she might not know what it is to love someone who does not love you back but she does know what it’s like to have love ripped from you. Antiope has lost both a love and a child, and there is no denying the things she has done because of it. She would do it again, even. But to have your joys stripped from you for selfish reasons had broken something in her. And all she had ever been made to do was kill. So kill she had, because it was the only thing she’d had left.
But this? Even if she weren’t sovereign, even if Morrighan weren’t regent, her behavior is insensitive, boorish and sets a terrible precedent. But she is sovereign, and this is the woman she had placed a large amount of trust and responsibility in. Is this how she intends to waste it?
As Morrighan takes another shot and begins to mumble to herself, Antiope moves. She all but stalks between the tables directly toward the regent, and if things hadn’t already been uncomfortably quiet from the scene the paint had caused, a hush falls over the patrons of the bar now as they notice their Queen. A hush like the quiet before the storm.
Antiope stops before the other woman’s table with all the command of a ruler, of a warrior, a mother, a goddess. “Get up, Morrighan,” there is no room for argument in her voice. Despite the dimness of the lights there is no lack of brightness, of flashing, in her eyes. Two ships have collided in the sea of her eyes. Everyone is watching.
no escaping what is coming
eternity of being nothing
Her thoughts are swimming now like a whirlpool. She can imagine Al'Zahra dancing off towards the horizon with Maeve trailing behind. Then a dragon swoops down and picks Maeve right up, but Zahra doesn't notice. She's too busy dancing. Even thoughts of Isra come through and how hilarious it'd be if she walked in right now. Morrighan would tell her the same even with Eik as her partner. It's all roses at first, but then you get your heart stomped on in the end.
But when she takes her shot and is starting her lecture at the couple, it's not Isra who approaches, it's Antiope. Maybe a part of her is disappointed, but her mind is too fuzzy to really make much sense of her own feelings right now.
She's ordered to get up and Morrighan just looks at the Sovereign with narrowed eyes. She knows of orders, that's all she was given growing up, but that doesn't mean she always followed them. Out of Morr's line of sight, the bartender looks at Antiope with relief and mouths a "thank you".
"I'm just giving them a reality check, much needed I thhhink," she slurs, her h's causing some more spit to spew from her mouth. What she doesn't realize is that the couple have already left the bar, afraid of what might've happened if they stayed any longer. The Regent shifts to the side to try and stand, but stumbles over. Some sparks fly up from her hooves involuntarily, but thankfully for everyone in this bar, it's not enough to ignite the place in flames.
She finally manages to stand, although her balance is completely off and she's wobbling all over. She has to lean against Antiope just to stay standing. "Okay mom," she grumbles, almost mocking the Sovereign because of her disapproving gaze. "Am I grounded?" At this, Morrighan starts laughing uncontrollably.
in me forever the charge of Other, the blood of my unconscious, the dark song in me from elsewhere—
Morrighan narrows her eyes at Antiope and opens her mouth, and the sovereign already knows that whatever will come out is not going to help her dig herself out of the very deep hole she has put herself into.
It doesn’t.
The one saving grace of this entire situation is that neither of the pair had decided to take the regent to task for her indecency. The one thing Antiope will not tolerate is her regent starting unnecessary fights with their citizens, and she knows too well that Morrighan is hard pressed to back down from anything. And in this state? Who knows what she might do.
Eventually Morrighan gets to her feet, though not without much stumbling and general unbalancedness. When it becomes clear that Antiope is going to have to shoulder much of the other woman’s weight to keep her on her feet she pulls on her magic.
Her eyes pool to gold, and the regent’s weight becomes like nothing more than a pressure against her side. The night court Queen’s magic has been growing, and she can feel it threading its way warily around Morrighan, for how closely they are standing together.
She knows she could give enough energy to the paint to temporarily clear the effects of the alcohol, but she doesn’t.
Antiope selfishly draws back her magic to her core, the lioness in her bones weaving her way through and through her. Honestly, with how often Morrighan visits bars one would think she could hold her alcohol better. Maybe the pregnancy removed all of her tolerance.
And that’s when the sovereign realizes why she’s angry. Because this woman has a child that needs her, to love and to care for, and she is here commiserating in her self-pity, shirking her duties, as if she is all alone in this world, as if there is nobody who could or does love her. Perhaps it is not the bar patrons who need a reality check.
“You’ll be lucky if that’s all that happens,” Antiope responds flatly, as she pushes open the door and shoulders them out into the street. Fortunately only a few eyes turn toward them, and she carefully turns so Morrighan is between her and the building, and Antiope between Morrighan and the eyes. She leads them down a quiet side street, residential buildings on one side and business the other.
She slows and eventually stops, until it is only them and the walls. Her eyes are no longer gold, but blue and cutting. Like the edge of her axe, like the facet of a gem. She wants to be furious. It is bubbling inside her like a spring, rising like a tide. She wants to tell Morrighan that this is not the reliability she is looking for in a regent.
But, gods, the woman looks pathetic.
“What were you thinking?” Antiope says, as though not really looking for an answer. She holds back a sigh, bites down on all the things that she wants to say. Any reprimand she could give now would probably be forgotten, anyway, if this is how bad off the regent is. “I’m sure you disagree right now, but this is not going to make you forget about her, or bring her back to you.”
Her disappointment is bitter and black, like tar, but more than that is the twisted way that Antiope thinks she understands how Morrighan feels. Killing the gods—as satisfying as it had felt—and choosing not to think about Rezar and her daughter, had not brought them back to her.
It had not made it hurt less, not having them in her life. Sometimes, it still hurts. On nights dark and long and deep, when her body is too restless to let her sleep. When she sees someone with eyes bright and green, or skin black and gold. Even the laughter of children still brings the familiar pangs of loss, because they will always be missing. They were hers, and now they are gone.
But Morrighan is punishing herself for something else entirely, and she still has a child out there. That is why her disappointment tastes bitter on her tongue, when she looks at this woman who had stood in the market square and promised she could trust her.
a war is calling
the tides are turned
07-08-2020, 08:20 PM - This post was last modified: 10-17-2020, 11:59 AM by Antiope
no escaping what is coming
eternity of being nothing
There is a tickle in her mind, but she doesn't think much of it as Antiope uses her magic to get her out of the bar. Many heads are turned and she can hear them whispering their gossip. Morrighan will likely hear about it another day when she's sober. At that point, she probably can't promise to Antiope that she won't threaten a few for it.
For now, she is led out the door and they turn down to a side street. "Are we going on a stroll now?" she asks, somewhere between loopy and frustrated. There is also a part of her wondering if the Sovereign will actually punish her for this, but it's a very small thought in the very muddled mess of her mind right now.
When they make it to where the mare had determined to be their destination, she can see the color of Antiope's eyes change back to normal. The walk managed to sober her up slightly, but it didn't do much good for her emotional state.
"What were you thinking?"
Only that's exactly it- she's been thinking too much. She wants to drink until she can't think anymore. Until the pain goes away and she just feels numb. When she's numb she forgets her heartbreak and forgets how stupid she had been.
Antiope says this won't help. What does she know? But a memory manages to make its way through- she had a family once. In some way, maybe she does know.
"I didn't want to think anymore," Morrighan mumbles. Her words are no longer slurred, she's just starting to break. "I looked at that damn glass and my head just kept playing the same thing over and over. I wanted to forget." She finds her legs sinking down to the ground now, feeling the cool stone on her knees. It does nothing to comfort her, but she feels too weak to stand anymore. "I wanted to forget what she did to me." I just wanted to forget her. Everything about her. Everything with her.
The Regent doesn't know what Antiope wanted her to say or what she might still want her to say. She's torn between letting herself be vulnerable with the woman here too or sucking it all in. The alcohol still in her system doesn't really give her a choice. She can feel her eyes getting watery.
"I'm sorry."
It might be clear she's still drunk because she's too prideful to ever say those words sober. But it's a genuine apology, even while she's trying to swim through her thoughts and emotions. She feels exposed now, like she's just laid out everything in front of someone who she should consider a close friend and confidant.
in me forever the charge of Other, the blood of my unconscious, the dark song in me from elsewhere—
Antiope looks at Morrighan and feels an unsettling mixture of emotions that have her stomach churning. Anger, disappointment, empathy. It’s clear the woman is a mess, and how exactly things got to this point the Denoctian sovereign is not entirely sure, but they’re beyond that point now.
Now, they are at the point where she is letting it affect her work and her life. That is worse than any punishment Antiope could possibly give her, except perhaps to remove her from her position. At the moment, that won’t be happening.
“I’ve got a hard truth for you, Morrighan,” Antiope says, releasing the words with a breath. Her voice is not as hard as it had been earlier, but it’s clear that she doesn’t intend to be soft and gentle and coddle the woman. “There is no place for you to decide you just don’t want to think, anymore,” when the Regent sinks to the ground of the quiet alleyway, Antiope remains standing, “You have a job to do. You’ve made a promise to me, and to these citizens.”
Her eyes are still seas at storm, still dark waves crashing over themselves, swallowing themselves whole. “And beyond that you have a daughter that needs you. You don’t get to decide to not think when she’s relying on you.” Though her tone is sharper, there is genuine concern in her voice.
Then, Antiope relents and sinks to the narrow street across from the other woman. “When I told you that I had lost someone I loved, and the child that we’d had together, what I didn’t tell you was that it was the gods who had killed them.” The sovereign looks up at the thin strip of sky visible between the looming rooftops.
“They made me, the gods, and when I stopped doing what they wanted—when I fell in love and saw there was more to the world than death—they took the only ones in the world that I had. The ones that they associated with my treachery.” Although Antiope doesn’t know how much of this story Morrighan will actually remember, she feels it’s important to tell it. Maybe she will understand.
“After I found out what they had done, I went to their temple,” she doesn’t think she will ever forget that day. The sky, deep and red. Her burning, burning, burning. “I killed them. I killed them because I was so angry, because I thought that it would help, somehow.” She, god-killer, once-mother, once-lover.
She, made for death, for war. “It didn’t make the pain go away, what I did. It didn’t make me forget.” Antiope had left, after that. She had traveled, and she had ended up here on Denocte’s shores. Perhaps the place in the world where she needed to be most.
They had all paid the price for their actions in the end; but as much as she felt that the gods being gone meant they could no longer hurt anyone else the way they had hurt her, killing them had fixed nothing inside her. Being here, opening up to others? That is. Slowly, perhaps, but everyday she feels less like a monster made for murder.
“I don’t want you to be sorry, Morrighan,” Antiope says at last, “I want you to get up and do the right thing by your daughter, by your people, and by yourself.”
a war is calling
the tides are turned
10-17-2020, 02:24 PM - This post was last modified: 10-17-2020, 02:25 PM by Antiope
no escaping what is coming
eternity of being nothing
Maeve.
The image of her daughter becomes clear in her mind, almost as if she is standing in front of Morrighan now. She is confused and scared and looking at her with wide eyes. Just like Morr has seen so many times before when her fire is unleashed. Even during the times they walk by a bonfire or torch, she twitches or hides behind her to get as far away from the flames as possible.
She sees disappointment.
It's not the disappointment in Antiope's words that shakes her out of this, it's that look in Maeve's eyes. It's what her daughter would think if she saw her like this. A mess, a failure, a monster.
This is not the kind of mother she wants to be. She wants to be the rock, the one that Maeve can rely on, unlike Al'Zahra. The woman will never be a true mother to their daughter and she would always prove that wrong. How can she, if she's doing this shit?
Antiope makes her confession and Morrighan feels for her. Although maybe the woman is long past that point of needing pity, so she says nothing. She just gets up and shakes the dirt off her body (maybe, symbolically, shaking off all of this too). Her balance is still off, but she's feeling a little better than before.
She clears her throat first. "You're right," the words sting. For Morrighan, she is always right and no one else, but trying to be prideful isn't going to help now. If anything, she has no more words. She doesn't want to give them.
"I just… need some space for tonight. I'll be back at it in the morning," she says and she swears by it. But first, she just wants to rest. She wants to put all this behind her.
So with that, she leaves Antiope and all the watchful eyes from the tavern behind her. She leaves all of this behind her and vows to never speak of it again. Hopefully, others will do the same.
in me forever the charge of Other, the blood of my unconscious, the dark song in me from elsewhere—
When Morrighan stands, Antiope does too. She rises alongside the other woman, as though they are one, as though they are in this together. While the sovereign cannot fix Morrighan’s problems for her, while she cannot make up for the time and the moments that she has already lost, she will be there to help the woman in any way that she needs it in the future.
While it should not have come to this, now that it has, she knows that the Regent will likely need support, and perhaps a more watchful eye over the coming weeks.
Morrighan clears her throat, and speaks. Antiope says nothing, because she has said everything that needed to be said. There is little use in rubbing further salt into raw wounds, so all she does is offer quiet, understanding silence. A sort of knowing reticence. What Antiope hopes is that she can take her Regent at her word. What she hopes is that this intervention, as it were, has really worked.
She nods solemnly as Morrighan turns to go, and for a long moment simply watches her leave. Antiope has never truly known friendship, before. Not in the jungles, or on the battlefield. She did not have friends but followers and reverence. She wonders—as she turns back the way she had come—if this is what it is to have friends; to collect them from the dark, and carry them back to the light. To right them, when they are fallen, and guide them when they are lost.
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