War-Forged Open Thread

To say Hira moved through the market as a spectre, her grief rendering the pony unseeing and unaffected by the bustle of daily life, would be a gross misstatement, though perhaps understandable. Hira’s eyes were indeed flat, and seemed to pass over each booth, each new face with no reaction, and the War Lord seemed to drift on legs that she did not direct, in a direction that she did not choose.

To a degree this was perhaps true; Hira was not putting forth much consideration into which way she walked, wending her way through the market as the paths opened up before her. But each step took the measure of the living earth beneath it, felt the heartbeat of the earth resonate up into cloven hoofs that were ready to act. Ready to weaponize, defend, attack. And oh, did Hira want something to attack.

Her flat eyes did not betray her true attention, but to any who knew the pony well, they might have known the truth, might have read it in the twitching of Hira’s ears, the tension in her spine, the curve of her flared nostrils. Every sound, every face, every single sign of of lives carrying on- Hira noticed them all, registered each as a new blow, a new stone to the pile already crushing her heart.

She was grieving, and that meant that she was furious.

She wanted to be gone, far away from this inane daily bustle that meant nothing, nothing. That she must be here, surrounded by chattering fools and not out there, searching, ripping up every plant and stone in her way until she found him-

Hira really wanted something to attack.

That didn’t mean she had meant to walk into Faelan, however.

One moment she had been drifting through the crowded paths as openings appeared before her, and the next-

A solid wall of flesh before her, and legs that did not care to stop in time.

Hira grunted at the impact, only just managing to avoid spearing the young Raider with her horn.

Hira did not immediately fill the heavy silence. Had the circumstances been different (had he still been there, getting into anything and everything, a menace to peace and order, him, her precious son) then Hira would have been amused at Faelan’s discomfiture. She would probably have let him sweat for a heartbeat or two, perhaps raised a sardonic brow at his hasty change in tone (young Raiders could be such fun to mess with).

But circumstances were what they were; Hira did not fix Faelan with a knowing eye, did not curate her silence in order to tweak his pride. The War Lord was silent merely because she was, temporarily, transfixed. Pale green eyes tracked the slow trickle of blood down the Raider’s coat, noted the way it shone, just slightly, with its own luminosity.

Only when the Craftmaster walked up did Hira’s gaze shift, slowly, away from the small (so small, it was nothing, inconsequential, she didn’t want a trickle, she wanted to incite a flood that would rip through the land and leave violence in its wake-) and onto Varsaig instead. Hira might have blinked at him; then again, she might not have. Her gaze was steady, flat, as immovable as a mountainside. At once very, very still, and yet ready to erupt into swift and utterly devastating motion at even the most subtle of triggers.

“Master Weaver,” Hira said, her voice low and as flat as her gaze. It could perhaps have been interpreted as a greeting. ‘Is everything alright’, he had asked. Hira was not in the habit of answering foolish questions, and so she only continued to stare for a while longer, spine still rigid, nostrils still flared red. It was only when Oona approached that something… shifted, in the pony’s stony gaze. Hira’s ears flicked, and she turned her entire head to look at the child.

‘Can I help?’

Something shivered under Hira’s skin.

“No,” she replied, honestly. It did not occur to her that Oona asked after Faelan’s obvious injury, not her own, invisible one. “But thank you, child,” Hira added. Her voice was still quiet, flat, but some (some) emotion bled into it regardless. Hira’s eyes shifted, looking around Oona. “Are you alone?” she asked, and raw concern lent a sudden edge to her words.

“The wounded hero here is Faelan,” Hira answered, a touch wickedly as they walked. Yes, the presence of the two children had softened an edge in her heart. Temporarily, and far from enough to hold back the raging tide, but it was something. It was something. Her ears flicked at Oona’s chatter, and some of the rigidity melted further from her spine.

“Great War Lord, hmm?” she repeated, though her tone had none of the trappings of Oona’s but was instead sardonic, almost mocking. “I do not know about great; that does not seem to be the direction the stones are rolling, these days.” Worse though was that Hira agreed with them, with those that disparaged her rule. Her self. What good was she indeed, if she could not keep them together? Could not keep them safe? What would her father have thought?

Pausing by a vendor to allow Oona to browse, (and Faelan if he wished, though Hira noted with a twinge of amusement that the young Raider had taken refuge in the role of stoic escort) Hira lifted her head, casting a jaundiced gaze over the Fair. Smaller than the most recent previous summers perhaps, chipped away by the war and rumors and plain bad weather, it was nonetheless flourishing.

Despite everything, it filled Hira with some emotion that brightened her gaze, lifted her chin.

It gave her hope.

Just a glimmer in the darkness, the smallest tendril of new growth poking through a barren field, but nonetheless. It was there.

Hira remained quiet as the trio continued through the Fair, but her silence had taken on a slightly different cast, one not so shrouded in rage and violence. Eventually they reached the end of a row, and Hira caught the familiar sight of a busybody palomino. Alistair was searching for her. It was time to go.

“I must return to Skeldr,” she told Faelan and Oona. “I thank you for the company.” She turned her eyes to Oona alone, and with a touch of her teke removed one of the gryphon feathers buried in her mane. She offered it to Oona, outlined in her pale green teke.

“If you ever have need of an audience with me, present this at the Fortress and they will admit you, no questions asked.” Her eyes moved to Faelan, and flickered again with faint, repressed amusement. She offered him a second feather. “A Raider hardly needs a token from my Arro to see me, but nonetheless, take one. If nothing else, it can be used to staunch the blood flow of further wounds.”

Hira stepped back, and tapped a forehoof in farewell.

“May the stone rest strong beneath both your hooves,” she said gravely, then ruined any solemnity of the moment by adding over her shoulder, “Alistair if you do not cease your clucking I shall place you in with the chickens- I am coming, you unbearable mother hen-”