Before the Dawn (Draft 1)

Part 2

Ignia

Ignia had been pretending to sleep for quite some time, unsure of when the sobbing child in her home would finally actually sleep. What she did know, however, was that she wouldn't be drifting off anytime soon. It sure was good to be home... with fresh war memories, of the exact moment when the silver furred fawn named Passionis had become an orphan. Or at least, his father was never around, despite being alive, so he might as well be. But she couldn't get the image out of her mind- the moment she'd seen Pluma in the heat of the battle, bleeding from the mouth. The leaves on the tips of her ears and the outer corners of her eyes had been gathering black spots. That was the shocking part. That was the way to tell when an Arietes fox was dying.

It had happened to Ignia's mother when she was young, but that time it had been slow, over the course of moons, not so impossibly and unforgivingly quick. Ignia didn't know which she hated more. She hated thinking about it. She hated that she hadn't spoken to Pluma for fifteen years before her death. She hated being still. Sion had stopped crying anyway... maybe he was asleep. She lifted her head silently to look over at him. Oh. She hadn't heard Luscin change nests. How cute. In any case, they both seemed to be asleep, so she pulled herself to her hooves and silently stalked out of the house.

Her eyes traveled up to the sky once outside, and she felt comforted by the stars. She wandered to her Earth Pool and sighed. The last time she'd seen it, she'd been escaping from royal guards after holding them off to evacuate citizens.

Almost all her family was dead, now.

Without thinking about it much, she chose a place and hopped through the Earth pool. She dealt with the by-now familiar shift in gravity as she jumped through the surface and was hurled out of its counterpart, on Earth.

After landing, Ignia was surprised to sense the presence of another Arietes fox nearby almost right away. There was no way... She found a familiar tree and looked up to see a white furred figure. Speak of Timora. She remembered when she'd been sitting here many years ago, puzzling over Pluma's feelings for the prince when the universe slapped her in the face with his sister. Ignia had acted like a prickly child. The princess had looked her in the eyes with those irises that looked like flower petals just like Pluma had said about Cano's and she'd hated herself for agreeing, and for being caught so off-guard. She'd run away after that without many manners. It had been a long time ago, back when Pluma's romance with Cano had been unsafe.

She was debating whether to say anything and risk an interaction with Cano, or even just risk an interaction with the Princess, because she couldn't tell which of the siblings it was in the dark. She hated Cano's guts, and she felt embarrassed of the way she'd behaved the only time she'd ever spoken to Fonssola.

She never got to decide what to do, because a soft female voice traveled down, causing Ignia to flinch slightly and for her thick fur to bristle. Fonssola was looking down, but probably couldn't see Ignia on account of her fur being dark.

"Hello?" Said the Princess warily. She sounded as if she hadn't gotten used to not hiding yet.

"Princess," Ignia said nervously. There was a pause.

"Who is that...?"

Ignia hopped onto a branch and made it carry her up next to Fonssola.

"It's you," Fonssola said calmly after taking a moment to recognize her. Ignia couldn't gauge her reaction to seeing her at all. "Also, don't call me Princess."

"What should I call you, then?"

"Just call me Fonssola."

"As you wish."

Ignia gazed down at the ground. She'd come here to think on her own. Maybe Fonssola had done the same. "I can leave if you would like," she offered in a mutter. Fonssola shook her head.

"That's alright. It's nice to have company," she replied. Ignia just shrugged.

"I didn't expect to find you here again," Ignia commented a moment later.

"Me either. I'm... sorry to hear about..."
"That's... fine. You probably know I wasn't in contact with her." That made it worse, but she wasn't quite in the mood for sympathy.

"That sounds even worse. I can't imagine losing Cano after having a fight with him."

"Well you two are really close, aren't you?" Ignia hated herself for speaking this way. She was lying. Why was it that her lying always had something to do with Pluma? She corrected herself with a sigh. "Actually... yeah, it's worse."

"You know, you don't have to be closed off."

"Okay, I barely know you."

"Well who do you know, then?"

"Myself."

Fonssola went quiet, and Ignia decided to change the subject. Sure, she was alone all the time, but she could handle it. It was what is was, Hell, she was a recluse.

"So you're the Princess of Stellae."

"I already was."

"You know what I mean, Fonssola."

Fonssola nodded.

"Are you happy to stop hiding?"
"Of course."

Ignia looked over at her, attempting to read whether she was lying or not, which she wasn't good at. Fonssola looked back at her and time skipped back sixteen years. Oh. She was still really pretty. Ignia felt that same urge to get out, to run from eye contact with someone that made her feel so exposed, but this time she wouldn't. She just gazed back. Honesty was her policy, after all.

"You're very pretty."

The Princess seemed a bit taken aback by that, her being the one to break eye contact this time. "Thanks," she replied, her voice slightly more high pitched.

"Did I bother you?"

"No, it's okay."

"Uh-huh."

Fonssola glanced at Ignia and spoke again a moment later.

"You've changed. You didn't care so much about offending me last time we met."

"I was a selfish knotbrain last time we met. It's been awhile."

"You were scared for her."

"Well now I'm not."

"What are you afraid of, then?"

"Nothing." It was a knee-jerk response and Ignia quickly realized it was untrue. She could think of a couple different answers, in fact. Maybe the freshly orphaned child who'd sobbed himself to sleep under her rooft that same night? Telling Fonssola about that wouldn't be a good idea. Ignia didn't want to get into a confrontation about Sion moving in with his dad. He'd grown up in this village, and Cano could have spoken to him at any point during the war if he was interested, they were in the same section of the catacombs. The fawn had made it very obvious he'd never really met his father. Ignia settled on giving a different, equally true response.

"I don't want to talk about it. Why don't we talk about you instead?"