The jungle was never truly silent. She sometimes waited with baited breath to see if the she-cat or her prey would emerge victorious, but she could not hold her breath for long. The life that surged in her emerald veins could not, would not be suppressed, demanding attention every hour of every day. Residents - at least the true residents - knew how to worship at her feet. How to slink beneath her vines like the ants that marched underfoot and how to drink the sweetest raindrops from the leaves. Those that loved her -
truly loved her - knew the flowers she loved the most, and knew which pools she wished to receive them at.
how is it, he wondered
Wulfric loved her, but he imagined that she did not love him. Not the way that she loved his parents and his siblings; not the way she loved the wild beasts she sheltered and the flowers she grew. She did not hate him as his parents did, he thought, but she hid him away just the same, locking the scarred young colt into the safety of the shadows as surely as manacles might.
"You're going to get yourself killed if you keep going like that." The young boy's voice rumbled from within the jungle's dark embrace, well beyond the reach of the bright midday sun.
"The jungle isn't as familiar as it once was, once-Queen Faolain."
that such a feral beast
could live beneath her skin
They had never met, of course. Faolain's rule over the Ridge had been well known to them all in Paradise, but the relationship between the herds had been tarnished before his birth and he had come to know the black mare only as the shadow that slipped along their border from time to time. Even if Paradise and the Ridge had remained allies, Wulfric would not have known her. He was his mother's greatest disappointment, her most loathed child, even above Auryn. Vanya would have rather chewed off her own tail than tell of his existence, but he didn't really mind anymore.
She was gone, but he was still here.
how cold her eyes could become
"Should I call for someone to help you?" She lingered in the twilight space between the beach and the mother jungle, her slender body still dappled with the glaring brightness of the sun. Far too close to exposure to be safe, but Chary might care. Drogon too, although his help would likely come with clauses and conditions.