The Dragon’s Throat has no queen. It has no Sultana, no guiding, burning light that the Sun God might have imagined when it came to her ascension during her darkest time, as if it to do so that the herd could laugh upon her irony.
She was stupid. She was naive, and in return, had driven herself(and her herd) in the darkness with her.
The world is crashing down and Hobgoblin is the cold water that strikes her face and breathes life back into her when she is sleeping, letting it occur through dull eyes because she cannot do this, she doesn’t know how, and even the oddity of Volterra’s previous advice has done her no good.
But what actually has? What has recently broken some marble bone in her body, deemed by all something she could never destroy?
Fighting.
It brought life into her soul, urged a light into her darkness when she could no longer stand the ridicule of her herd, and at the worst of it, by a young mare who lacked any presence in the herd, thinking that she had entitlement, that her absence gave her a right to assault her when she had always been there.
Hobgoblin burns with a passion and she burns with him, twin fires in the night, rumbling the aging bones in their rib cages with thick breathes that make an attempt at suctioning in rage that she has no experience in controlling. She tries to teach herself how to move out from underneath the constant submission of her previous rank to what must become dominance in her new one with his assistance.
One can only know that this is not how things work.
Yes, she has hidden from them, ashamed by what she has done. She’s been assaulting herself with the encouragement to gather them up and apologize, to admit that she was wrong, but might flees her. Shame lingers because she has wounded a herd member out of rage, sentenced to bare battle wounds with them in unison.
Wouldn’t they be surprised to see her, walking in on a false mare that makes the heart in her chest ache with pain and anger, tarnished by the sea and aged by what she is becoming.
Every muscle pulls taunt. Hobgoblin’s gait is so set into silent aggression, burrowing into her like she is a cave steadily becoming a blue hole by an ocean’s rising strength that one could only compare to something akin to a snake, lithe black form slithering beside her.
Words roll in her throat like boulders tumbling off the side of a mountain. Things begging, pleading, screaming in her soul to be said at the rage she seethes at the sight of this mare, but her herd, her damn family, has things that they wish to stay, and she will not take their right away.
Had she not previously asked for their knowledge, wisdom, anything that they could offer her in her inexperience?
They offer it with all of their hearts, and as she had promised, it comes to use.
“Nephele,”
Stone cold, hateful eyes, mother’s soft voice. A purr rolling in the depths of Hobgoblin’s chest like thunder in the clouds. Frostfall’s cold air takes a bit of a nip on her skin because her time away has been spent in the sea, hiding, not spent on land where her body can acknowledge the coming of winter. Her winter coat is thin.
“You try to claim yourself as Sultana rightfully, stating that I have done nothing as Sultana, but what have you done as a warrior for this herd, Nephele? What is it that you have to prove to me, to the herd that you are supposed to consider family but show no aid to other than to achieve your own selfish wants? I gave out patrols last season, which I should also mention that you failed to perform. There are always seasonal tasks that are common knowledge with your ranks that you are aware are to be done, but have you ever done them? Do you have any proof that as a member of this herd that you have made yourself hold any worth other than producing children and lying about in the Sun, applauding yourself with the title of Guardian when you have done nothing to keep it?”
It comes to the point that Hobgoblin is howling, wailing out laughter through their bond, listening in with so much pleasure that it is near orgasmic to hear Sikeax strike down false lords. The passion and anger in her ears drowns him away.
Duty, of any sort, makes her turn to them, any of those who have gathered around to listen to Nephele bellow out whatever words she could use to gain what she didn’t deserve.
They’ve spoken, or at least some have.
“But if we are going to pick a second leader, combat won’t be useful if diplomacy is what we’re looking for.” The actual plunge is ice cold, running through her veins and not making it to her head quickly enough for her to fully accept what she is doing. “I'd much rather take up arms than work through the struggles of diplomacy. Healers were not made to be politicians and I never joined with the intention of it, ever.”
Her gaze searches out Sohalia, looking for something, a connection, a passing glance that’ll give her sister in blood red sand an idea of what she’s searching for.
“So, it is with that I think Sohalia should take that task, and at the aid of my warriors that I would like to learn the ends and outs of combat.”
Hobgoblin burns, but she? She flickers and fades, flame steadily dying as her words sink in, more cold water as she drowns in the sea that she continues to deepen.


OOC: run down is that sikeax is an overall terrible looking mess and pretty run down and grouchy. the position of diplomatic sultana is offered to @Sohalia, BUT the herd has the option to vote her into it to secure her rank change.
sikeax will be taking up the militaristic sultana position

and last but not least, hobgoblin is in his serval form