Well the shit just hit the fan. Might as well have sounded off a bomb. The smirk upon that golden’s lips twisted, irked by the sharp voice cutting in from the crowd. At first he does not turn. His eyes only hardened and jaw clench. If she had stopped there it might have been alright. He would have had felt the boiling of his blood rise, but that pale princess was valuable. Though certainly she had done as much as others. Who or what did she steal through stealth to add value to their home? What part did she play in the gathering of information to keep what he was sure, was her precious peace? She had fought in the invasion, her loyalty proven, but Hotaru had organized it, and the golden himself lead it. Their rankings were set clear by what they had done. It was the one moment the golden was actually fair about his favorites. But apparently someone had gotten too big of britches.

She begins to snap at Deimos, and the golden can feel the rage that Ophelia awakened, washing over him again. His crowned head snaps to her, and those horns, feeling the weight of their threat rise. Haldir, looks to his bonded and back to the doe. The tension he could feel in the bond caused him to slink back from the golden. Oh but that girl, she had months, and years of resentment ready to spit out in front of them. The golden was filled with enough hate. He would have no one questioning his place.


Then she turns to him. Harks pin back and teeth bare, and all that keeps him from letting his horns interrupt is the anger bursting inside. Touch winters. Hard seasons. The golden anger flew back the accusations with memories, thankfully his fires too hot to pause upon the pain they also bore. Try burning sands, and yearlong droughts. Try to feed dead children with dead mothers. You would welcome the darkness, he wanted to spear, but she kept going. Mentor die?! What the fuck did that matter. If she had a mentor is was a pathetic excuse for one he was sure. She actually gave a shit. She actually gave a shit. How about Arah every giving a shit. The golden did not watch the princess for others took her place. Oh but she wasn’t done, she kept going and going.

She was not wrong, but that might be why she was so in the wrong to the golden’s eyes. He had been responsible for her damnit! Who answered Gaucho’s call for her presence? Did she not know what risk it was to toss aside his guide for her? (Of course that was not the point then, but it seemed a grand one now) He was willing that day to stand in front of her and charge the wildfire from the Basin no matter her act. He was anger for she saw nothing of the ‘upstanding’ qualities he would claim. She was throwing out a one-sided story of a pathetic tale of do nothings.

Oh but she kept going! Hotaru was next, and the white dame had the nerve to blame the girl for everything she too young to do. The golden was the pink spy’s competitor. And in his breast rolled a bitterness for her. But she was still his. Her actions protected as Arah’s were the day Gaucho called her name. She was not gifted it lightly. She had earned it. The girl had been there to capture Confutatis. She had followed the hot trail of murders, so much so she paid her freedom. She had slide one of the largest most stubborn creatures in Helovia to peace without lifting a hoof. She had swept through the Falls and stolen their most precious and watch possession. She had been the Basin’s strength. And these great moments missed? They were the Basin’s downfall. The Basin had lost in the Throat. The Basin fell to the darkness. The leaving of leads can not be blamed on a child! Though you may witness them you are the dust that people blow away from the story. You are a clinger, not a maker. Where was Arah’s name at the head of these stories? Not mentioned but in passing, a footnote, an end credit. Even the golden had sense enough to argue this, but she kept talking!

There name whispered in fear? For what. It made no sense! They whispered it for pain of death upon a racist horn! The very crime of copying she pulled to blame him! It made no sense. Whether from his rage or from actual reason, when she spat her pathetic attacks it simply made no sense. Look at us now? You will fucking look at us now. Though the Basin found weak moments the threats were still strong enough to banish thoughts of attack. The Edge sent a request for allies not surrender. They were strong. Stronger than her precious friend Midas had been. What was she wanted? Total war? That had caused the Basin to fall. Did she want full diplomacy? That had failed Midas. No one dared move to stealth upon it for the spies, were like hornets. All kept hushed tones still, not for death, but for knowing others lurked near. And what part had she played in that?! Nothing. What she done? One measly stealth. And nothing else but a haunting of the Basin. When had she ever travelled south to the Throat and stood before Gaucho? Or slipped past his patrols? She had stayed home. A house wife, crying the soldiers were useless. And now no more?

The golden broke, his rage complete and his fire fueled by the time of reasoning. “You! You throw out knives that you must first draw from your own flesh.” He spit at her, with golden hide trembling from the anger. “Listen here woman at what others have done while you huddle in your cave as a housewife.” His voice rages. “Who was it who captured Confutatis, the stealer of your children?! Not you, though you had every resource to do so. And do not give the pathetic excuse of raising children, for there stands the proud one she raised too. Who was it who headed the invasions successes, who employed the stealths to secure its victory?” The air about him hummed with the heat of his blaze. “What have you done in the strongest ranking of thief’s in Helovia to further its name? Passed unnoticed through the herd of others? All three were open to us while you huddled here in the dark. Captured one spy? Others have stolen ten times what you have. The powerful Midas among them." The hoards of the Basin were legend now, and no one was beyond their grasp. "Where were you when murders befell Helovia? Where were you when Illynx vanished? What are you doing when Ophelia deserted? Your name was not on her tongue for a reason.”

A cloven hoof slams on the earth, though it makes no sound the earth trembles. “I should have let Gaucho set his fires against you when he called you out. You who see my protection as so worthless a trinket. There is nothing in you but a child, screeching out for what she does not deserve. You want this land to be powerful again, you feel you can do it better? Then work for it. It is not enough to stand idly by in the world any longer, not with powers rising all about. You must work." The golden may have had selfish purposes, but he had the skill to guise them under the Basin's banner. He did not sit idle. No one would claim it so. Ophelia may have had the same doubts, but she had at least the brain to recognize he earned this title. "For all your insults you will not stand here and say Hotaru and I have not worked. And do not call upon your children as your products either for if you look about you, they are not here." That dark stripped warrior Rhiannon, and the pale one were not in sight. Gone, deserted, or uncaring, the crimes were all the same. Her parenting had not been strong enough further the future of the Basin (though he cared little for it) and so her efforts were nothing. "You have earned nothing. If there is a dimming of the Basin’s glory it is your sickness that causes it. The loyalty you claim nullified." As she turned her back the golden's vehemency rose to a climax, and he hissed. "You are no better than a traitor.” As she turns her back the golden a bitterness grows in his mouth. Left foreleg strikes out, pawing at the earth. He grew silent, his crowned head tucking and recedes back in his thoughts. But the bitter tastes would not leave. They would not wash away, and if the course of events did not challenge him, she would not only hear the sting of those words but feel them.



OOC :: Ten seconds till self destruction, anyone feel free to hold the man back. @[Arah] I do love Arah, but Thran doesn't take the insults (even truthful ones) well....
"Speech"