Welcome to the Circus

Recluse was tired. She wanted to just fucking rest. No good deed unpunished it seemed. When last she’d been called by that skull faced bitch she’d just been tired, this time she was filled with rage. The bitch didn’t even have the balls to fight her on even ground, no matter Recluse would not have taken a pack if she didn’t think that she could handle herself even with her reduced eyesight. Medusa had forgotten herself, forgotten what had actually gone down the day she’d crossed her border. Yes, her uncle had ultimately been the one to fight her but only after Recluse had bowled her over and then nearly thrown up on her, gods how she wished she’d vomited right on the woman now. She’d told Eraithus to take care of the children, do whatever he felt he had to to protect them, if that meant taking them beyond the packlands just in case she did not care, she would not let the woman use her children against her again. Her older children… She knew she could not protect as well, some would show their faces, others would wait to see if the bitch had it in her to be as spiteful as she was proving to be. But Recluse hadn’t once ever actually run from Medusa and she was going to make sure that Medusa wished she had.

With Lilith around her shoulders and Galho flying overhead the woman would arrive before the small crowd. She could make out some familiar scents belonging to familiar blobs and some unfamiliar ones, but it didn’t matter. She pushed her way beside her sons, stopping to nose each one and softly whispering: “If, Gods forbid, I fall here, be the little rebels I know you are. She cannot control you all, rally your siblings and prove that it takes more than brute force to hold a throne, and she hasn’t earned your respect.”

Then she sauntered past them, cherry gaze fixed on the blob of color she knew to be her opponent. Even bathed she smelled worthless. Sprinkles on a turd and all that. Recluse would move forwards as she spoke, trying to gauge the exact line where Medusa would realize she’d let her get too close, pushing it if she could. Lilith slipped from her shoulders and slithered into the grass, looking for a place to lay in wait.

“I showed you mercy.” She spat, lifting her voice so everyone could hear. She didn’t care if anyone thought lesser of her for it, this was a shit show so she was going to treat it like one. “I thought we had both been through enough to let you have your freedom as a mercy. Even when you taunted me over my dead child, I chose to turn the other cheek.” Oh yeah that ought to rile them up. Her own children would have no reason to hold out any misguided sentiments for the woman, and any supporters she had ought to think twice about their allegiances with someone who could so callously taunt a grieving mother. “You’ve mistaken my kindness for weakness… No more.”

speech think action