So it was decided: Sol would continue to the north, taking half the army with her. Titan and Morgan would head towards the west coast, with the other half of their army. And Veliuona would head east with her undead minions. One small addendum to this plan was made by Veliuona, one which she would not be dissuaded from by Sol's most fervent arguments: that one of her undying Viziers travel with each of these groups, so they could freely trade messages between them.
Sol didn't like it for a number of reasons, but Morgan and Titan both seemed much more receptive to the Goddess of Cursed Shades... and worse, her siblings seemed to be questioning her plan, perhaps even her ability to lead. So finally, she was forced to grudgingly agree to these terms.
They did not separate immediately, even as Sol began to marshal the soldiers into different camps: they still had several days of travel together before they would have to go their separate routes. Titan and Morgan decided to make the most of this by spending their time with Veliuona... although Morgan noticed a strangeness, a tenseness, in her paladin. She did not like how fearful he was of coming to the undead's camp, or sharing a table with her... and there was something more than simple fright of the living dead in his eyes, she thought. There was something else, like he had some secret he was desperate to keep.
But Veliuona was welcoming, kind, even compassionate. And even if something about her was... perhaps cunning, perhaps manipulative, there seemed to be an honest desire for them to work together as well. Morgan was not as good at knowing others as her brother, Titan, was, but she felt that she had come to know Veliuona. And she knew that the Goddess of Cursed Shades, for all her failings, would not betray them, nor use her Viziers like assassins in the night. It was not that Veliuona knew honor in the same way they did, oh no... but Veliuona did understand the seriousness of the predicament they were all in, and more importantly, she was not stupid.
Titan seemed to trust Veliuona, and that too was more than enough to fortify Morgan's belief in the deathless goddess. That, and the fact that Sol seemed to be acting out of her passions, and her anger, and perhaps what was even jealousy, rather than by logic and thought. But Sol had always been passionate and rough, driven less perhaps by instinct, and more by whatever feeling spurred her on at the time. And as Morgan had learned, wild passion could turn the tide of a battlefield... but it could also fracture alliances and break apart bonds that would be better left unmangled.
So for the night, Morgan and Titan found themselves playing peacekeeper, while Sol sulked and concentrated on other duties: a strange turn of events. But Sol was troubled by Veliuona, and by the voices still whispering in her mind of things from the past she did not entirely understand. Besides, ultimately, she knew her folly was not in the risk of making Veliuona an enemy: it was in the risk that they would be too weak apart to drive out the Wyrms.
But after seeing what the Wyrms were capable of, and hearing what secrets they had to speak... she knew that they had to make haste and take a risk, rather than move slowly... and most assuredly leave the rest of Equestria to burn black beneath the Tyrant Wyrms' touch.
No comments:
Post a Comment