(PRP) Desert Dust

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

 

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Charon stood guard in the shifting sands. Guarding and fighting were things he loved to do, he did not often like to be idle. He was not trained to be idle. Ther was a certain idleness to guarding some would think, but there was not.

Guarding was a watching of the shadows, keeping your muscles ready to fight at a moment's notice. It was preparation and poise.

Out in the shadows, he could see someone moving with hair that glowed as white as moonlight. His eyes roved the darkness and sought any other moving forms, but nothing else out there moved.

"Margaery," his voice was soft. "Someone comes."  

[xo maho]

Margaery's ears flicked toward the timbre of the guard at the border of camp. Charon had been the one to watch her leave the last time she had had to make an escape, and for some reason, she felt an understanding with him now. Perhaps it was one-sided, but she trusted him with her absence. What he might trust her with, she did not know. Nonetheless, she felt some semblance of a bond with him, and when he spoke, though she was nearly half asleep and dreaming dreams of her golden garden, she listened.

"Someone comes?" she repeated, shifting to her feet. Sand swished against the ground around her as she moved. Crossing the yards between them, she gazed out at the moonlit dunes by his side. Margaery waited in silence for the stranger to be within earshot, her ears twitching with every hoofbeat and shift in the breeze around them. The desert at night was unforgiving, and a storm could kick up when one least expected it.

It was the hair - the first thing she thought she recognized. Pure as snow in the moonbeams, with stripes dark as ink and bells limned silver. The tall stature of the stranger was not unnoticed, either. "The moonlight robs me of certainty, but I think I know this someone." Lifting her head and taking a step forward - a step past the guard - Margaery called softly into the night. "Who comes and to what purpose?"  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

"Do you?," he asked to Margaery. There was an easiness between them that had come when he had watched her leave before. It was something that he guarded closely, her good will. One day he might have need of it, he might need to have her indulge him on some trip he would take or stand up for him. One never knew.

He could see that it was a mare by the light build, her hair glowed like the moonlight. "You think you know this one? A new acquaintance or an old?" Small talk was not his forte, but it was easy to ask questions of this nature than others.

The rigid spikes on the mares back gleamed in moonlight as sand stung his face. From what he'd seen of deserts, he felt as though a storm might be coming up. But you never did know in this hot, awful place. "How well do you know this stranger, Margaery Tyrell?" He looked down at her, studying her face.  

[xo maho]

Looking back to Charon, Margaery nodded - and then ducked her head, hiding a blush and a delicate smile. "A new acquaintance, and I know her well enough to be certain I hardly know her at all. She is one of those... wily sorts." Her words grew softer as Falsetto approached, so that she could keep the exchange just between herself and Charon. She never knew how the mare across the sand from her would react to anything. "You may resume a post elsewhere, Charon," she murmured, her words half a plea for privacy. With all that had happened during their last meeting, Margaery did not feel the need for a repeat in the public eye, especially not when the eye she stood before valued strength as much as he seemed to. "No harm will come to me or anyone else in her presence."  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

"If you wish," Charon felt his lips curl back over his teeth in his version of a smile at her blush. Ambling off, he found another place to stand and watch his Khalessi.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

False had walked the miles after sunset to come see Margaery at the Khalasar. The wind was cool across the sand. She saw two shadowy figures, her eyes focused on them till they loomed closer.

A scarred, gleaming kalona stallion moved away with a laugh that carried on the wind. Then there was Margaery, her brown locks shining in the moonlight. Idly, she thought about what Margaery's hair would look like in pure sunlight.

Now that the time was come to speak though, she found that words were hard to come by. She wanted to say a million things, and none. She had fought with Knochen hard. He'd said terrible things to her. She had wanted to hurl them back at him, to cut him to pieces with the jagged edges. But she had not.

She kept her calm as best she could and had tried to set him free. But she felt as though she'd done more harm than good.

"I....want advice." She felt stupid saying it.  

[xo maho]

Margaery watched Falsetto's approach, her face still burning with the residual heat of the blush Charon's words had brought upon her. Though she knew it would rarely show through her coat, she was still thankful for the dark of the night and the moonlight that leached color from the world. Her eyes went wide when the mare stopped in front of her and seemed to hesitate. Speechlessness - especially hesitant speechlessness - was not something she associated with the mare before her.

She felt her eyebrows raise, half curiosity and half genuine surprise, at False's words. Advice? Though she want to put that incredulous tone that rang in her head into her voice, Margaery bit it back. "What kind of advice would you have?" she asked, her voice quiet so as not to wake the sleepers. She did not guide Falsetto away from camp just yet, though - if it was to be a long conversation, she might, but for now, they could speak quietly and openly here. No one would pry.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

"We talked of learning to know one's self, of learning to be alone when last we met." She knew Margaery would recall it, she could herself quite vividly. "There was a stallion at my tent, Knochen. We bantered when I first met you. He came back."

False breathed out slowly. His words stinging her. "I have seen myself through your eyes and now his. He returned. The words he said to me though..." She paused, caught up in the emotion. She did not like to let her emotions show. She did not like to be thought weak. But who else did she have to talk to?

"I...." He has wounded me with his words, she wanted to say. Both reveling and hating this softness that had come to her.  

[xo maho]

The words Falsetto spoke - and the ones she did not speak - tore at Margaery's heart. "Falsetto," she murmured, just speaking the mare's name for a moment. She let it rest there in the air, but then realized that she might take it as pity, and while it almost was that, it was more than that; Margaery felt for her. Confronting those you cared about, or having to deal with them confronting you, could be incredibly painful. "You are trying to know yourself, not please others. You already know that you cannot live your life to please those around you and still be happy, do you not? Keeping paramours has taught you that, I'm sure." Margaery cracked a little smile at the mare. "What was it you wanted advice for?" she asked again, as the mare hadn't answered the question the first time. Maybe she just wanted reassurance, Margaery thought, pondering what False had brought up. She's seen herself through your eyes...

A jolt went through the Tyrell mare. "Do you think me not fond of you, Falsetto?" she breathed, slightly hurt. She might have been entirely frustrated from their first meeting, but they had only barely known each other. In hindsight, the mare had probably been doing what she had learned to do over the years, and Margaery had determined that, rather than being offended by what she had said to her now, to wait until she could know who Falsetto was underneath all the relationships she seemed to define herself by. And, it seemed, that waiting was perhaps coming to the beginning of its end.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Falsetto could see the look in Margaery's eyes that seemed awful close to pity, but she said nothing about it. She closed her eyes a moment searching for the right words. "I have let go of everything I have ever known to become someone who can be happy on my own. Then he came back, Knochen. He showed me what I have always been. He told me it was who I always would be, my identity tied up in a long list of paramours. That I would come to my senses soon. And that if I disliked him so that I should have the courage to tell him."

Anger welled up in her dark and bitter, "I do not know Margaery. If he who has known me so long considers me so vile, why shouldn't you feel the same? Why should you feel different about me?" She paused to take in a haggard breath, "Maybe he's right that I can't change. Maybe you're right that I can. All I know is that I do not know anymore and for once, I'd like to hear someone say what I feel--that I am doing the right thing."  

[xo maho]

Why was Falsetto letting this stallion change her perception of herself? Margaery almost let out a growl in frustration, though whether it was at herself or at the stallion for contradicting each other, she didn't know. Her form shivered. "He has known you only for stolen moments, hasn't he? He cannot claim to know you. It sounds as though he comes to you only when it is advantageous for himself, and if that is the case, he should be no one you should listen to."

Breathing out a sigh, Margaery smiled. "You are on the right path, of that much I am certain. As for me, how can I know you when you are still trying to get to know yourself better?" The desert air was still cooling from sundown, and it would continue until the sun rose again on the other side of the world. "What have you learned so far?"  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

"He has known me for days and nights, sometimes better than I've known myself. That's why I wonder if he is right. Because he's been there for so long, years of stolen moments. Like an endless cycle, ever rotating. A wheel that we are both trapped in and doomed to repeat." The cool air on her skin made her shiver.

"I think I am," she said softly looking at the other mare. "But you're right," her smile was said. "You don't know me. How can you have faith that I can change?"

False paused a moment, "I have learned that I like sunsets and silks. That the desert is more beautiful than any place in all the world. But I would like to see snow softly falling, let it brush against my cheek and melt. I love starlight better than candles. When it is dark and warm, I feel happy and content. Right before dawn though, that's when I question everything."  

[xo maho]

Margaery nearly rolled her eyes at Falsetto's assertion that Knochen knew her so well. She did not, however; the whites of her eyes would have shown in the moonlight, and that was not the kind of treatment that the mare before her needed or deserved right now. "All you need do, Falsetto," she murmured, "is to break that wheel. Then, you will no longer be trapped in it. You have a will, and I have the will to believe that you can use it to deny yourself that particular temptation. He has rather shown himself to be the antithesis of what you're trying to achieve, hasn't he?" Gods, she sounded so cold and stern. How else was she going to get her point across, though? She was the teacher in this situation. This was the only way she knew how to make the lesson stick.

"I have faith that you can change firstly because I have faith," she said, glancing up at the stars. With her eyes back on Falsetto and the desert, Margaery took a step farther away from camp. She took a few more and waited for False to follow. "And secondly because you have tried to change, and in doing so, already changed something about yourself."

Margaery listened to Falsetto's description of the things she had discovered. "And I see you have found me near dawn," Margaery muttered. "What is it that you question now? Something beyond the certainty that you are on the right path?" She tilted her head at the mare, trying to perceive all she could about her. Falsetto had learned some of the most basic, material things that she liked, and that was a start, she supposed. But there were deeper things she needed, things like support, friends, dreams. Tied to so many people who took so many different parts of her attention, it was no wonder that Falsetto wasn't entirely herself yet. It made Margaery wonder how long she had been like this. Did she know who she was when she was a filly?  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Falsetto hadn't realized that she had indeed sought Margaery just before dawn. The stars were going out soon. They would fade into the greater light of the sun. And for a moment, that feeling came over Falsetto again--the one that she got when she was around Margaery, as though Margaery were the sun. Or a bright shining star meant to guide her. And she could not even fathom what that meant.

"Am I good?" Her voice was soft. "Is there good in me? Am I strong enough for this? Can I do this alone?" But then maybe she wasn't exactly alone. Margaery was there and she was not running.