New Season, New Leaf (EBONY)
09-03-2014, 08:40 AM
The venom in Svetlana's voice shocked her. Her sister had once been so sweet, so docile, but this was a fae she hardly knew. Valeriya recoiled, ears pressing flat against her skull for a moment only, as if to shelter herself from the unabridged ire. A trill of panic flared up in her gut, and she furiously thought of the weight of her transgression. She had left, this was true. She had been seeking their mother! Was this such a crime? Svetlana knew that as well as any. If any of her siblings had the right to be angry with her it was Sigmarr, but she did not see her hulking brother anywhere nearby. Where on earth was he? After all, he had been the one she'd treated most abysmally. It had been Sigmarr who'd borne the weight of her rebellion. But in the same breath, he had been who told her of Virgil's scheme, and kept her away. "What would you have me do?" she called after her sibling, her words an impression of those she had spoke just a moment before, only laced with a frustrated anger. "Svet, you can't just walk away from this! How can you condemn me for looking for our mother?" The words were heavy in her mouth, a cold leaden thing that turned her stomach. "Yes, I was gone, and so were you! You were stolen, or so Sigmarr would have me believe. Would you really wish the same fate for me, to be held against my will? If that is love than I want no part of it." If the words stung, they were meant to. After all, there was little dignity awarded to the youth, and Valeriya had taken no great lengths to learn it. She was so young, and so hurt. "What do you know of the world, Svet? What leader would you be? I've learned how to fight and hunt and fend off trouble and danger alone, and my skin is thicker for it. Leave then, and when you've experienced what I have maybe you'll understand." Svetlana was no more than an untested pup, throwing around her imagined weight. Valeriya knew that when put in a place of power, her sister would have little to bring to the table. She would need to rely on her counselors more heavily than was wise, she would need to question everything, to be taught what Valeriya had had to learn on her own. The valkyrie princess did not care if Svet didn't like it, the older of the two was heir. She was supposed to step aside from her birthright because Svetlana was upset she didn't want to become enslaved by their false mother? No. No, Valeriya would not be moved in this. She drew in a deep breath and steeled herself against this hard reality. It may be that I have lost her, she thought in anger, but mostly sadness. Valeriya would turn and give Katja a searching look. To dump this upon them so suddenly... But no. The woman had served her time, and it would be cruel of the younger fae to expect more from her. The dark warrior had given more than her due, and Val was thankful. She opened her mouth to address the ex-leader, but was approached instead. She remembered this man, though she could not claim to have known him well. When she was struck with the plague, he aided her. Whenever her pack mates fell ill or needed counsil, he had been there. And now he was looking down on her with cool criticism, and she could not help the skin under her fur from growing heated. Was this too much to bear? Her sister, and now this man, all coming down upon her in one fell blow. She struggled to contain her emotions within her voice, so that her words might come out more calm and collected than she felt. She took one deep breath, and began. "I know better than to question the wisdom of my elders," she said in a woman's voice. She was a pup no longer. "But if you think I came to this meeting with the intention of receiving a throne, you are are wrong. Still, it is a mantle I willingly accept." With a surge of powerful muscles she took her place where Katja had sat moments before. How long had it been since they last laid eyes upon her? She had grown into her height, into her gangly limbs, into her fae's frame. "Some of your faces I do not recognize," she began. "I wish that was not the case. You do not know me, and I don't know you. But I would like very much to change that." She made a point to brush the eyes of every wolf she did not know. "I do not expect undying devotion to a fae you've never seen or spoken to, I'm not that sort of foolish. But I would like to make every step to make Ebony the pack it was when my mother ruled. Strong and loyal and connected to one another. I would re-instate her laws, her rankings. I want to make Raisa proud, wherever she is. And I want to make you proud as well," she said to the wolves before her, to Kassanader and Katja and Maximous. It would take time, she knew that. It would not be easy, or fun, and this was not a game. All the same Valeriya would dedicate herself to this cause as she had never done before. She would do what Raisa had never been capable of, no matter the cost. She would do well by the wolves before her and all those to come. She had a legacy to uphold, and she could no wait to begin. |
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