Welcome to Gaia! ::

She was indeed there, watching from the shadows, the ones that allowed her black coat and off colored hair to hide that is. She watched her granddam as she collected her army for a training session. Now was the moment she could watch her mate, Anand show his stuff. She knew that he was a great soldier, but she loved watching him as well. Shifting her position in her hiding place at the edge of the clearing. Loxosceles eyed the other stallions that came to the clearing, one was her own half brother, Saltic, she had met him some time ago when she announced to her Granddam of her choice in stallions. While it didn't seem to be the right one at the time, Lox knew she was always going to be with Anand.

"You are always so nervous." Lox muttered to herself as she watched her mate's shifty movements, the way he watched the shadows. Giving her flame colored tail a flick behind her, Lox stood watching, wondering how all this would turn out, most for her beloved.

(Placeholder post. Stormlight = darkviolet, Irishstorm = italic lightgreen, Blodeuwedd = magenta. Oh, yes. The Queen will visit to see the troops.)

Not all watchful eyes were easily noticed. The average observer would find they had a difficult time telling just who Belenus was watching. In truth, the yearling liked it that way and if there was one thing he was good at, it was observing. Thus he noticed the shadows were just a bit crowded.

The shadows, however, were beneath him.

The prince strode boldly over, the sun lighting up his already brilliant coat. He had no reason to hide. Some day this would be his army. If he were to hide from it now it would only hinder him in the long run. No, they would never be able to say that he had fled from his own men.

Still, the prince knew better than to insert himself too far into business that did not concern him and thus he was content simply waiting and watching for now. He would study how this interaction went down.

Stormlight was running late to this first session, but didn't plan to miss anything. Besides, the best of Blodeuwedd and Retinadeath's dark warriors were the Death Knights, and he wouldn't miss the shot at such power for the cosmos. However, in this little gambit, too, was his young daughter, Irishstorm. As much as it was amusing to make more of Lughnasadh's line suffer as the Shadow Queen had made them suffer, he periodically had regrets about being saddled with raising this (admittedly perfectly evil) child. After all, parenthood wasn't all it was cracked up to be. However, since he needed Irishstorm to be as darkly inclined toward her Sunflare kinfolk as was Prince Belenus toward his, Stormlight had had to live with it.

"Keep up, brat!" he called back to his young adult daughter. "I will not have you making us late to this first session."

"I was not the one who overslept," Irishstorm growled irritably as she hurried behind her dark sire. Of all the days for him to fail and get snarky at her, she hadn't been looking forward to him doing it today of all days. However, the idea of becoming a Death Knight while her father remained a Dark Knight appealed greatly as a form of revenge for all the petty disagreements they'd had during her life. Besides, as a distant cousin to Prince Belenus and Queen Blodeuwedd, it would be quite fitting for Irishstorm to get to such a rank. Regardless over who was in power of the royal family, there was no harm in a distant cousin to the royal family to be one of high rank who'd proven herself.

Oh, yes. The idea had occurred to Irishstorm of proving herself worthy of being in the line of succession in the Shadow. She might not have direct blood ties to Blodeuwedd, but she was still a cousin to royalty, a notion she didn't intend to forget at all in the near future.

Blodeuwedd, on the other hand, walked languidly toward the training ground where Retinadeath had intended to train with her Dark Knights and Death Knights today. She didn't have much else going on, but neither Plamen nor Retinadeath, her two loyal (and at times bitterly lifemated) second-in-commands, didn't have to know that. Belenus was getting old enough to handle himself, she was also working on selecting an idiot lifemate whom she could use to produce more royal offspring, if for no other reason than dynastic security, Belenus' constant insecurity, and an all-out war for succession that she could probably largely ignore until she died or had more important things to do. Besides, it wasn't as if her heirs would have any power until they ascended the Shadow Throne.

Why keep her heirs powerless while the two most powerful Stars after her were the Death General Retinadeath and her faithless lifemate Fire Duke of Chaos Plamen? Because it kept incompetency out of the high command, it was considerably less disruptive than a constant war for being Mommy's Crown Prince/Princess, and it kept the heirs straining for her power while remaining powerless themselves. Besides, it was theoretically feasible for there to be a coup of some sort, and as long as Retinadeath and Plamen stayed loyal and more powerful than the heirs, they could fight back; however, if the coup happened after Blod was gone, it would mean all sides would need to court the Death General and the Grand Duke of Chaos. Why use two? Because neither Retinadeath nor Plamen had the ambition, courting both would be difficult at best, and if the successor to either one decided to stage a coup without the other on board, then the coup would almost certainly fail. If one of her heirs was eliminated by a coup from Retinadeath or Plamen and/or their heirs combined, then Blod's heirs clearly didn't deserve their throne.

She came to a halt in a well-concealed thicket by the training grounds. Skimming around, she saw, of course, the Death General and many of her offspring; some loyal, jealous mooks of Retinadeath clearly hellbent on a promotion; her son Belenus, clearly tying to forcibly assert his position as the permanently non-existent heir apparent; and the daughter of one of Retinadeath's mooks, a girl who was supposed to be a great-granddaughter to Lughnasadh, though she bore almost no similarity to the famous herd leader, and very little to his fabled lifemate. A cousin to Belenus. Well, well, well. She'd have to take the young mare aside, encourage her to consider herself a worthy rival to Belenus, though that could take some doing. Ah, well. Something to consider for the future.

In the meantime, time to upstage her son and surprise-inspect the troops. "Good morning, my loyal knights," Blodeuwedd purred as she stepped into view. "Retinadeath, my dear, have you yet started the training session for your vicious little army?" With Retinadeath, flattery and compliments went quite far, and Retinadeath would die before she ever let her queen down. It made for quite a good working relationship between the Shadow Queen and the Death General.

Anand turned his head to look at his mate. Loxosceles was a very beautiful mare, and intelligent, too, but that didn't make him any less nervous. She was still, to his mind, unpredictable. A part of him wanted to be more trusting of her--she seemed to genuinely like him, after all--but another part of him snapped back that other stars just couldn't be trusted. He smiled at her and turned his attention back to his leader before she could shout at him for taking his attention off of the task at hand. "I think that would be alright," he murmured softly.

Retinadeath nodded. "So long as you don't distract anyone." Too late--Anand looked to be distracted already by her. But then again, Anand was always distracted. It was actually one of the things Retinadeath liked about him--he was all wound up all the time like a sapling bent backwards, always ready to snap. The trick was pointing him the correct direction. Besides, ever since mating to Loxosceles, Anand had become faster, stronger, more attentive. There was something about her involvement with the lyra that made him better, and she definitely approved of that.

Besides, Retinadeath herself was distracted. Not only had Belenus wandered into the clearing, the sun shining off of his golden coat like a badge of honor, but the queen herself had appeared. She was glad now that more of her troops had shown up--especially since the ranks included new recruit Irishstorm and her new favorite, Azura. She liked Azura--there was some sort of drive in the hound that kept her surging forward like an avalanche.

"Good morning, my Queen!" she called out. "We will begin our exercises now. Let's see how the army fared in my absence." She couldn't help her eyes flicking towards her yearling sun in the shadows. He and his siblings were the reason Retinadeath had been away for so long, after all. In fact...

"Cranium!" she barked. "Joining us, or lurking on the sidelines? Make up your mind!"

"No need to worry, I will try and remain out of sight. Don't want to attract uninvited attention." She glanced at all the other stallions and young colts that were lining up for training.

With cat like grace, Lox wound herself around Anand once more, brushing her muzzle against his cheek before moving away from the line and over towards the side lines. She didn't want to throw herself into just any position of the herd, No, she wanted to know where she was going. Giving a side glance at the queen and leader of the Shadow herd, Lox gave a nod before passing into the shadows to watch. Her liquid red colored eyes were mostly on Anand, to watch how he worked with the others. That and if any of the others gave him any trouble.

As she passed into the trees, she was passed by one of her little relatives. He stuck out worse then even the high born golden boy. But she had less hatred for him than the royal. She gave him a small wink and a smile of encouragement. Scarping a curled blue horn against a tree to relieve an itch, she stood at watch.

This shall be interesting.