She was on her way home. Even that simple fact was enough to put her at ease. No matter how long duty forced her away, be it an hour or a day, Megaera was always thankful to set her sights towards the Dragon’s Throat again. Life wasn’t easy there, days were long, conditions harsh and the pressures of leading were never forgotten, but Meg was happier than she had ever been. She had a place, a home; she had Gwaihir and good friends; she had Einarr and their children. If the worst she must suffer was was a few hours away to maintain touch with Helovia at large, Meg gave her time and energy gladly.

The easiest way home from the labyrinth was to fly over it, so pegasus and eagle soared together over the tall maze of bamboo. “I feel like its been long enough since the last one, I should probably do it soon.” Meg spoke through her mind to the eagle, continuing their discussion. Gwaihir was getting quite practiced at their internal form of speech and was always eager for practice; a very discerning bird, he did not like to think he could not make himself perfectly understood when he needed to. “The last one did not go well.” he reminded her [quite unnecessarily]. “What current news warrants gathering everyone together? There are too many opposed personalities, it’s like throwing scorpions into a bag and shaking them up to brim them all in at once. I wouldn’t.” She sighed at this, he did have a fair point. “On the other wing, it would weed out trouble makers, you could evict those who don’t fall in line.” He said it in all seriousness, having little tolerance for shenanigans of any kind and even gave a solemn little nod that made Meg laugh. “If I kicked out everyone who had a disagreement it’d be rather small herd, no? Besides, even if I have no news it would be good to touch base, see if anyone else is having problems—”

A distinctly avian screech cut the Sunspear off short and had both on high alert. Below them something bright and blue blazed through the darkness, drawing the eyes like a magnet. Wing moved, bodies shifted, and in unison the brown pair turned and aimed themselves at the disturbance and began their pursuit.

Down, through the canopy and to the ground, Meg landed with practiced skill and transitioned to a gallop, trailing he blaze of blue sparks just ahead and winking out of sight at every turn. Above Gwaihir continued on wing, sending warning of the target’s movements back to his bonded. The mare ran, soon breaking a sweat but not relenting and at some point she thought she knew exactly who it was that she was following.

When the blaze stopped, so did she, and watched for a moment as a her Chancellor was illuminated and then left in darkness. She only breathed for a moment but then spoke gently into the night. “Ampere.”

“Meg's Speech”
"Meg to Gwaihir"
"Gwaihir to Meg"

Megaera breathed into the silence, trying to pull in oxygen and let it push the minor fatigue from her limbs. The sheen of sweat, the harsh edges of the air that raked her throat; both were as near to nonexistent compared to the strange silence that seemed to stretch between she and Ampere. She heard the sigh, and waited, waited waited for yew blue mare to turn. She hated silences like this; hated those moments when the unknown and unknowable space of unspoken words stretched out in front of her like a dark uncharted ocean. In the midst of action she could be reactionary, instinctive, but when the Sunspear was forced to wait was when the weight of what could be suddenly felt so crippling.

This didn’t seem like Ampere, or at least in the limited scope of what Megaera knew of her. Why didn’t the blue turn? Why didn’t she speak? What was she doing tearing through the dark jungle in the middle of the night?

Megaera might have expected to hear to thunderous crashing of a monsters in the trees, whether it might have been the chancellor’s prey of having been chasing her in a predatory pursuit, but no. To her knowledge the mare was completely alone. Just running.

Ampere turned at last and though the gloom Megaera watched the mare with weary eyes. A place to train? something in that rang false but Meg could not conjure a satisfactory reason why she felt they way. She didn’t know this mare, not in any way that really mattered and the gap was as frustrating and uncomfortable as the ended silence. For all they had in common, for all the months of their acquaintance, they had yet to find satisfactory common ground. It unsettled Megaera, those heaping piles of unknowns and  so much more because the seat of them was so close to home.

The back and forth ticked in the Sunspear’s mind, hypocritically stretching the silence she hated while she stared at the mare from under a furrowed brow. If this was to end, perhaps she had to end it, but something inter wanted to hold back for fear of pushing this indifferent acquaintance toward animosity. Suck it up, Sunspear, there’s no point in dragging feet. "Well that’s true enough, go on then!" Gwaihir interjected, intruding on his bonded’s thoughts. It was uncomortable to have this nervous frustration rolling off of her, and so he—quite cheerfully— picked up his roll as her somewhat impartial voice of reason. He had circled around and perched himself on a high branch over looking the pair.

"I don't understand you." It was blunt, it was honest, and honestly a bit rushed as she forced the words out with an exasperated sigh. "Or at least, I don't think we understand each other. You don’t seem to like me and I guess that’s fine, but I don’t like feeling I can't trust you. I have a hard time trusting what I don't know and well, I don't know you, Ampere." She had tried being careful, tried being "diplomatic" when the mare had questioned her on there last patrol but that had gotten them nowhere. Time for a do-or-die kind of moment.

“Meg's Speech”
"Meg to Gwaihir"
"Gwaihir to Meg"