Numb.

It was what happened when there was too much to process, too much to try and understand.. And it was all her fault. Why had she behaved the way she did? Was she justified? They had taken so much from her, two lives that were witnessed, and countless others missing, what else was she to do? The DragonHeart was not a warmonger, she was not one to take that which she did not need - she did not need any more lands to call her own, she did not need to dominate nor enslave those who would not willingly follow her lead. But she had to prove a point. She had to make a stand, an announcement that would get noticed by those who needed to heed it, but she wouldn't disadvantage her family, her kin, her followers, by sending them to an unknown realm, to fight on grounds they didn't know, to lose their lives and their home in one foul stroke. No, she had to do it the way she planned, she had to lure them south, to where she would have the upper hand, to where she and her family could win, triumph, succeed. And it had worked. Despite all odds, despite the Basin employing the Grey to boost their numbers, despite their attempts to overthrow two herds simultaneously, the Qian and the Tuuli had won.

It was bittersweet. Had she behaved shamefully? Without honour or nobility? Had she brought shame to her family for her actions, even though she had done them in order to protect them?

The mare stood on the shore. A dragon, her golden scales flashing brightly in the lightning that split the sky, darted above her, riding the storm like she was born to. She met with the white above the ocean, and they frolicked with careless abandon, immune to the woes their bonded's shared. The little shadow watched the stallion argue with the ocean, though her ears were barely able to discern his cries of anguish from the angry torrents of the tempest that raged above and around them. It was a replay of the second time they had ever met, and she had been drawn to him then too, soon after he had elected to travel a path of his own. He had warned her this time too, to leave him alone. That last time, she had called out to him, she had transformed, and then, she had pardoned him for crimes he had committed in Isilme, crimes that had not affected her directly but that he had pleaded for her opinion on nonetheless.

The tables had turned now. The mare was awaiting his judgement now.

@[Lace]
Sorry for the wait love