Make Them Bow
There was a strange sense of peace that settled within the woman as she strolled through the grey twilight, the large stones around her cast in deep shadows that made it nearly impossible to make out the intricate markings carved into them. The humidity made the air feel heavy, though she appreciated the cooler temperatures of the early morning, knowing the once the sun finally rose above the horizon, the wet heat would dampen her dark pelt and make her usual day to day tasks much more exhausting to preform. The one good thing that had come from the weather was that the scent of herbs seemed to hang thick in the air, meaning the resource was plentiful, though once picked, they would rot before they dried and would quickly become useless. If she were going to pick them, she would be better off taking any valuable findings north, back to boreas, and moving farther inland. The farther she got from the coast, the better. Surely the air would be drier inland.
As she moved through the clearing, she breathed deeply, faintly aware of the ache in the side of her face from where she’d caught the forceful hit from the young tiger she’d fought with the Abraxas Emoper. She sorted through the different scents she detected. Wormwood, moss, lamb’s ear, and… could it be? No. The faint scent of another creature from a past life. One she had left behind. It was so similar, but it was… different. More wild than the scent of her homelands former neighbor. But maybe… Maybe they had enlisted a young warrior to hunt her down and drag her back to face punishment for her alleged crimes.
Bristling, she stalked towards the scent until a vaguely familiar form came into view. The allied king's bastard son. She had heard rumors about him before she left, heard that he had possessed a similar ambition to her own. A need for more. Was he here to try and win a reputation for himself by dragging her back, or had his ambition been his downfall just as hers had been? It was like seeing a ghost, him being there, so far from the place they had both been born and raised. If he hadn’t been sent after her, if he wasn’t looking for her, the chances of him happening to end up in the same place as her… “What a coincidence, seeing you here. What brings you so far from home, old friend?” There was a subtle edge to her voice, as if she were challenging him to try and bring her down. Her father would never have involved other kingdoms in their own affairs, but her brothers were weak and cowardly, and she wouldn’t put it past them to send some other king's bastard to do their dirty work. She watched him carefully, waiting to see what his first move would be.
The air hung heavy with humidity and weighed down his already heavy coat and muscle. His travels had led him here, to this very spot, for whatever reason. The circle of stones that he could see in the near distance were his target, a question of his since they'd made it into his vision. Before, he hadn't known what he'd traveled this far south for. But now, certainly it was to check out whatever they were. From where he was, they looked like nothing more than pointed rocks sticking up from the ground, however as he approached, he could see that they were much larger than he anticipated and appeared to be intentionally placed there. When he finally made it to the towering stones, he sat in the center of them and simply looked up, taking in their magnificence.
After what only seemed like moments but was really minutes later, a voice sounded from behind him. A voice he hadn't heard in years.
He turned to face a familiar old friend, someone he hadn't seen since before he'd killed his brother and abandoned his home. He smiled at his old friend and rose, turning to face her with a short, slight tilt of his maw.
"The life of a Bastard wasn't for me," he began, his smile turning into a slight smirk. "so then I killed my brother and that wasn't enough either, so I left. I'm here to start my own Kingdom, without the reins of my father." If he was correct in his memories, she had similar plans and thoughts as he. Desiring for more than what was handed to them at birth, they were like minded enough to understand each other in that sense. However, what was she doing so far away? Had she pulled the same thing he did?
"What about you? What made you leave your Kingdom?" He asked, curiosity picking at him the longer he had to wait for her answer.
He turned to face her and she could feel the tingle of anticipation work its way down her spine. It seemed that everything was happening in slow motion, and while the two had never been close, they had spoken on many occasions. If she remembered correctly, they had once shared their ambitions with one another, and she'd offered to spar with him. If he had accepted or not, she couldn't remember. It had been so long ago, in another lifetime. But there he was, standing in front of her and, for a moment, she felt like she was home again, just catching him at the border by chance. The only difference now, though, was that he may not be here to just exchange words. And they were a world away from their home.
He spoke and she couldn't help the look of surprise that flashed across her face for a brief moment, but she quickly cleared it away, returning her expression to something more neutral. He had killed his brother to rise above his given title, nearly the exact crime she had been accused of. How strange it felt for her, that she now stood on an equal level as a bastard. A person she had at one point pitied, knowing how the world could be to those like him. He then asked her what had made her leave, and the suspicion began to set in. It was too perfect, too similar. Maybe he was trying to draw a confession from her by creating a sympathetic persona.
"My ambition seemed to scare my family, and my heathenous sister slaughtered our father in his sleep and found a way to place the blame on me. My cowardice brothers gave me a nights head start to flee before they set warriors and hunters after me, so I left. I kept walking until my legs couldn't carry me any further, and then I rested for a while, and then I got back up and kept walking." She hated to admit that she had fled, but at the time, she hadn't known what else to do. She knew that she'd make a better leader than all her siblings combined, but she had been loyal to her family to a fault. "At the time, in the heat of the moment, it seemed like the best option. If I could go back in time, though, I'd have rather died trying to separate their heads from their traitorous bodies."
She had considered going back a time or two, but she knew there was no way she'd ever make it close enough to them to be able to achieve her goal. The best thing she could do now was settle elsewhere. If the man before her was telling her the truth, if he had truly done what he had, and was here to start fresh, there was a good chance that she would be willing to join her forces to his. Not that they had many forces to begin with. She had gathered some useful knowledge from the girl by the lake, had gained a follower named Spider during her trip to the gorge, and her time in Auster had given her chance to speak with an Emperor of a pack that lived in the lands, and the opportunity to get a taste of some of the other predators that lived in the land. If the bastard intended to take a kingdom for himself, he would need to learn the land, and if he was smart, he would know that he would need her in order to do so.