Meadow

Electricity streaks across the sky, light slivering through the dark, and Titania uses the brief moment of clarity to size him up. Her nerves raise like static across her back at his presence - a stallion's, especially - but they would at anyone's presence, really, after living in isolation for so long, hiding herself away. The Islands thought it was Solomon who had killed Rougaru, and for whatever reason - glory, shame, whatever, she neither knew nor cared - he hadn't bothered to correct the rumor. She was fine with that. The Wolf-King had sired many pups, passing down to a fair portion of them both his taste for blood and his drive for vengeance at all costs. He had been a horrible man, but he was an attentive father, and Titania was sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that more than a few of his children would love to clamp their jaws around their beloved forebear's killer until they settled the debts they felt were owed. Solomon was a King; he had two strong Queens, a dedicated herd, and a gaggle of progeny at his hooves, ready and willing to protect him against those who would seek to harm him.

Titania had nobody but herself.

Her gaze pierces the male before her, glittering with stars. She takes a step towards him, catlike and fluid.

"I am everywhere and nowhere," she answers tightly, "and I do not so easily forget, stallion."

How could she? All those years ago, after Rille had saved her from her jewel-green prison by the sea and brought her back to safety, all she'd wanted was to forget. She wanted to go back to her happy little life in the Thicket, back to the love and the fate that had been promised to her. Rougaru had made that absolutely impossible. There were scars - on her body, yes, but also on her soul - that would stay with her forever, reminding her of all she had endured. All she had lost.

She would not forfeit another innocent soul to this wretched place. Not if she could help it.

Titania flares her nostrils, her features aglow with a sudden flash of lightning. "You smell different." Not drenched in the musk of other men and old algae, as he'd been for their first encounters, nor the last time's coconuts and tropical blooms, the sweet notes reminding her so horribly of Atlantis. The trees creep closer, throwing shadows like prison bars across her shoulders; she rolls them, as if confirming to herself that they were not there.

Her discomfort turns her stomach. Unwilling to face it, she directs it quickly outward, the toxins leaving her by way of pointed words, expelling it far enough out that it can no longer reach her. "What happened, swamp thing? Did you finally age out of your little boys' club?"

So much for sweet talk and persuasion.