Andarin: The Mountains: lycoris ;

Abruptly, Accendare’s face creased into a smile – she’d had the most absurd thought, watching Lycoris sway in time to her hoof, that she were a snake-charmer, playing her flute to a dancing cobra’s head, and it were even more absurd for the smile on the other mare’s face, and a seer’s pacifist empathy. Not all seers were like that, she reflected – having only had real experience with Astarte, her mother, and Wyvern, she had to admit her exposure was somewhat biased: the thought cheers her somewhat, that her scar had not stripped her of all of her born naivety, that he had not taken it all away.

But no, it does not last, and darkly, Accendare tears herself apart – as always, and sensually, like a dance or song or wildfire.

“I just… life, life happened. Choices made and broken.” She looks down, awkwardly craning her head to stare at the livid pink symbol of her betrayal – no wonder he left, she thinks. No wonder – it consumes her, and the look on her face at that moment seems older than the sun that warmed her skin.

She smiles then, in futility, as her neck cracked in unfurling it, and she stretches her head to the sky. “Do you ever think there’s more than this?” Something churns ominously in the distance, a winter storm coming, and it sweeps her words away to the sky as if they never happened.