C"speech."



What a strange land. The salty witch would wonder as she waded from the sea and up onto the shore, not bothering to shake the water from her pelt- she didn’t intend to linger long. The stench of many lions lay on the border, a warning and a threat. Yet the sea witch paid it no mind as she slunk forward, keeping her frame low to the ground. Gaze shifting over this and that as she went, learning this territory as best she could without being seen. It was a nice little Lagoon, sheltered and protected by the salty waters, but it had a weakness, a sand bar that allowed others to travel back and forth without drowning. How unfortunate.

The merle lioness would pause once she found a decent hiding spot, still within earshot of the louder talkings and in perfect view of the fighters that fought in the center…or well…would fight…when the other showed up. For the time being she would wait and listen, observing these strange lions without being seen while she could. They would be her new customers after all…and having background knowledge on them would only help- should they ever require her services.

The sea witch was no fraud, believing wholly in her craft, but knowledge was power and power could tilt the fates one way or another when it came to readings. So there she lay, listening to the conflict between two different groups of lions. A piebald male and a red lioness was quickly being surrounded by members of another group, tension hung thick in the air and she loved the taste and smell of it. It seemed this interaction would be far more useful to her than the actual fight would be. With baited, fishy breath, she would listen and learn. One rather curly boy would order another, addressing her as ‘woman’, her nose would wrinkle at such callous display of sexism, were all the men there brutes or was it just him?



-- Cordelia is attempting to hide in the bushes

--+10 - sneak into a pride without getting caught (1/2)
+10- successfully stay hidden for duration of thread (1/2)
+5 gather information about a character (Ronin and Neph) (1/2)

code by corvus

“What are we doing here?”

Mithril would’ve asked the very same question, had @Mirime not already done so. The shadow frowned deeply as @Fernweh led her splintered family down the coast, where the ground was loose and fine under his paws. He immediately disliked it, but he disliked everything anymore. He was moody, and had been ever since their so-called father had betrayed their family for another. However, he kept his disapproval to himself, reluctant to be like András and cause his mother more suffering.

“Mirime,” he beckoned his sister, trying to draw her away from their mother. He approached the pair, his body moving to gently separate the mother and daughter, to herd his sibling to the side. “We need to stay out of the way.” He dropped his head to bump Mirime’s shoulder, in case she needed any additional encouragement.

However, he would not leave without offering their mother some, too. “Sie müssen dies nicht tun.” ”You do not need to do this,” he murmured in their family’s language. “Wir können ein anderes Zuhause finden.” “We can find another home.” She did not need to take one, especially given the consequences. Mithril could feel the tension in the air and hear the exchanges from the crowd. They were not happy.

“Ich liebe dich,” he reminded her, softly. ”I love you.”

Then, leaving his mother to decide her course, the shadow turned back to his sister, motioning for a quiet place away from the escalating chaos.

 

Medic +5 Attend a challenge to assess the wounds

Outlaw +5 Witness drama between prides (Alaric and allies vs. Ronin and allies)

He hadn’t been patrolling hard enough it seemed for a challenge had been issued and by the time the stone faded beast had arrived many had crossed over into the sands. What was it that made the lion and lionesses of this land disregard borders so carelessly the moment a challenge was issued? It was like they just wanted trouble. In any case he came. Ears pinned and chin tucked into his mane protective of his throat. Eyes narrowed as he looked out at the gathered before settling on @Tinúviel and @Lyric.

Coming to stand squarely next to his pride mate and is Queen, he bent his hind legs ready to charge forward. Toes spread to help give him balance, as he looked around with a scrunched face. "Who the enemy? Who may I bite and show out?" He asked Tinuviel as he scanned before looking at the woman waiting on Tiamat to arrive to fight her. He wanted to see his Queen rip her a new one and throw her out on her rump, but with this many here? He also wanted to help take out the trash. Eyes turned to @Ronin as he heard the tail in of the interaction. "Him. May I bite him?" He said asking permission to start trouble in the crowd. His chest puffed proudly as his tail thrashed out behind him for balance and also in an annoyed fashion even though his face was completely stoic.

( Dagge is open for interactions and fights up to minor maim. )

"SPEECH"

code by scorpixia♡︎

Leonie arrived, materializing out of thin air to reveal to all the dirty deeds of the Lagoon leader. He would frown, turning away from that conversation for now. Instead he would focus on @Tinúviel as she was quick to cut him off when he spoke to his wife. His brow would quirk at the sharp edge to her voice. How bold of her. Ears would shift forward.

“It’s good then, that I don’t take it as an insult.”

He spoke, tones neutral, calm. His eyes saying the truth ‘I don’t believe you’. Yet with her words, tears would stream from her eyes speaking and bringing up the past- past he had thought she had forgiven him for. Clearly…that was not the case. All of it for nothing, for Fernweh. He would look at her with confusion…. What was she talking about?

“Friendship is a two way street. My home has been open to you, yet you never visit. At least I made the trip here to talk to you.”

His tones were passive, smooth and calm, the Murik that she knew in the past. There was a sense of tiredness in his gaze as he spoke. He was tired of proving himself to her, that he was her FRIEND. Truth being he had been busy, but he had not forgotten her. Tongue would roll over his lips as she finished with a ‘fuck you’ head lifting slightly but his gaze remained the same. ‘I don’t believe you’

Others arrived but his gaze remained on her. That is until one in particular sidled up next to the Queen. Awaiting instruction on who to bite. When the man’s gaze landed on Ronin, the warmonger would shift his attention briefly to @Dagge. It was fleeting, before his head shifted to Tinny.

“Yes, do you want him to bite ME?”

He would ask, his tones still smooth, he need not threaten or make promises. She knew from patching him up what he was capable of. From watching him climb a mountain while injured- she knew what he could endure, how far his limits were. Did she want her pride mate beneath his wrath? Did she want Dagge’s blood on his teeth and claws? Subtly; he would shift, flank bumping Nephthys slightly, so that his weight was more even, ready to launch himself at Dagge should she give the man such a command.

Nephthys grows irritated by Ronin's insistence that the pretty little healer hadn't meant it. She's quick enough to defend herself, however, saying she did in fact mean what she'd said. And yet her husband continued to act as though everything was fine; he wasn't getting pissed off at the lioness like he would have with her. Nephthys' tail twitched irritably. You're a fucking joke, she sneered, her hackles rising along her spine as she hissed at the woe-is-me little healer. Ronin calmly brushed it off and Nephthys clenched her teeth, bristling even more as he came to defend her against some random man while still letting this cunt speak so inappropriately to him. Don't talk to my husband like that. Her voice was ice and steel as she narrowed her gaze on Tinuviel. Later, she would speak with her husband and his choice of friends.

Lucanus had not been in Amaryllis long, but the word that came to mind when he thought of her was turmoil. Yes, he had not been here long, and yet how many challenges had he witnessed? No, not just challenges but wars. It was becoming more and more apparent to the young Savante that such was the blood of life. Peace was a child's lullaby, an empty promise sung to lead the innocent to rest until they grew old enough to cut their teeth on the flesh of their enemies. He'd been hardly a yearling when he'd first cut his.

Such thoughts hung darkly over his head as he made his way toward the challenge, his pace steady but aimless until he spotted a familiar figure. @Alexander ♔. Beneath the tender, watchful eyes of his son, it seemed to Lucanus that his father had his own cloud hanging over his head, but he made no mention of it as he sought to find a place at his father's right hand, giving his greetings with a warm chuff and bump of his shoulder against his dad's.

He stands beside her and he feels his temper flare. First as Nephthys slides up beside her mate, casting insults upon his wife while attempting to stay him in the next breath. A growl rumbles in his throat and it is a tenuous leash that holds him back, now. Hackles raised along his back, head lowered, ready for any fight that may erupt.

There are others there, friends and family alike. The sight of his youngest sends a jolt of fear through the beast, but @Bruno ♔ is quick to direct Drena and Astarte to watch her. Still ge keeps an ear turned that way, a quick warning lol given to small @Hekate. He trusts Slaine to help, always, no matter how icy his queen has become.

An iciness he deserves, perhaps, though he had never hidden his true self from her.

Ronin and Tinny have words but it is Nephthys, his friend who earns his ire. “Shut it, Neph. Don’t talk to my wife that way.” He throws her words back at her as he stands beside the Scillian Queen, feeling the weak attempts at alliances crumbling around him. Isn’t this what he had feared when he had released her to Ronin? He had (mostly) held his tongue against the Svend out of respect for her and their friendship, but he would expect the same in return, clearly._{BG — ART — CODE}

The heat was rising; it was overbearing, it was palpable.

Tinúviel was crying, now. Her cheeks wet with tears, her eyes bleary in their corners, reddened and angry. Her lips trembled, her resolve faltering as the overbearing weight of being oh so strong, oh so perfect began to slip free from her desperate grasp. She wanted to falter, to give in, to apologize over and over and over again for it was her who caused all this, hadn't it? If she had never stuck her nose into his business, if she had remanded herself of him simply because he was her husband's enemy? Were this some grand punishment, some divine providence sent here to rend Tinúviel asunder for trying to love them all? To find a moment to breathe between the dry heaves?

She could feel the intensity of @Sláine's solemn gaze, could see the shame in @Alexander ♔'s as he came to pass, as he moved away. Even the reassuring presences of @Alaric, and @Astarte, and now @Dagge seemed like a distant dream, like something she did not deserve. Even as her husband defended her so valiantly against a woman he'd considered a friend, she felt so very undeserving. A hard lump welled in her throat; an awful, sobbing noise that threatened to burst forth. How awful had she been, then; to not have left the Lagoon to visit Ronin when her nights had been spent slipping between the Lagoon and the Mire; how long Wither had slipped under her nose, how long the woman had suffered because Tinúviel had simply not seen, not listened.

How awful a woman she had become. How base, how cruel.

And how an ironic fate it was now, how her past seemed like a simple thing. How she would so readily crawl back under the foreboding claw of Viridian if only to escape from this.

I want you to! She cried, a paw stomping on the sandy earth, spurring a soft cloud of dust before her. I want it to hurt, I want it to sting; raw, relentless.

But he were right, in a way; betwixt the loss of her cubs and the wars that ravage Amaryllis, Tinúviel had scarce the time to breathe. She had only just found Wither, and had only just realized she had gone missing; she had only just hastened the welcoming to new Scillan cubs that were not her own; she had only just bore the weight of having to choose between the family she had chosen and the pride she had to protect; she were only just a woman.

Pick a side. Pick a side. This is what fate has forced unto you.

She opens her mouth to speak, but Dagge's voice reaches her first. How easy it would have been to have commanded him, to flex her true power as a Queen, to revel in the way lions would bend to her command. How delighted her youthful self would have been, how tickled she might have felt to have an army so easily. But what girlish youth was left of Tinúviel had been blighted, rent asunder by a man who'd leashed her for years; and when that leash finally snapped, Tinúviel stumbled into the wild world without a guiding hand, without any way to know what was wrong, what was right.

What a broken little bird she was.

Yes, do you want him to bite me?

No. She commands, resolutely. Her heart hastened in her chest, so loud is thrummed in her ears like drums of war. If any should feel Ronin's wrath, it would be Tinúviel. It will be me.

Broken little bird, with broken little wings.

Tinúviel vs Ronin
for uncertain
o of ?

Again her travels led her towards the sandy shore of Amaryllis' east coast. A beautiful place that was sandy, wet and hella salty. She had only been meandering around the Lagoon's coast when she had caught her ex-King's scent and followed it wherever it may be. Casually seeing from a distance that he was talking to none other than Alaric himself and a few others. It was none of her business so she was happy to just pop a lay right there in the warm side and get cozy.

Pushing her paws out in front of her for a stretch before her stomach settled nicely into the sand. It wasn't the oasis sand but it was close and did the same thing. A nice little sunbath in the midst of a pride fight was always nice. At least out here in this beautiful lagoon as her eyes glanced around, the palm trees were plentiful and the plant life blooming but the tea really was flowing here. Out here there was sunshine for days with a lot more shade if one needed it, though she supposed the water was a little saltier out here too... though you couldn't tell just by looking at it.

+5 - Study the natural world
+5 - Sunbathe or take a nap

^{ART BY ALE-TIE2015, CODE BY CALA}

The chaos unraveled; heated debate, spat hatred. Mirime's wide and wild eyes scoured the battlefield fervent, frightened. @Fernweh was preoccupied with her call to arms, enough that Mirime scarcely noticed @Mithril come up beside her until he was there, and she'd nearly jumped six feet in the air when his voice wrenched her free from her terrifying thoughts. And no matter how much sense her brother made it still felt awful to leave, to keep herself safe, as it felt as if it were some cruel abandonment. Her lips pressed together in a firm, thin line, but she did not relent as her darker brother came to brush the brunt of his head against her shoulder. Rather, she reveled in the quiet, selfish comfort it brought.

It was all she had, now, that they'd lost everything.

The mountains, her royal playmates, a happy mother, a father.

You're right, she breathed softly, taking a few steps back from their mother. Her greenish gaze lifted back toward the striped lioness, her mouth pulled into a girlish frown as her brother spoke for the both of them. Können wir zurück zum Gipfel? she whispers, the tail of her question accompanied by a soft sniffle. Oh, how she wanted to go back to those easier days; when her belly was full and her pelt not tangled with dirt.

But as Mithril turned to her, the grim reality of their situation took hold, and Mirime's lips pressed into a firm, thin line. As her brother moved to leave past her, Mirime turned; sparing one last glance toward her mother, before accompanying him to safety.

---

¹ Can we go back to the Summit?