OOC: Mind if I cruise in, flame? I'm bored stupid, sick of study and have little muse, but there you have it.

Lucrezia's Fallen Angel

"Can't you see? The only one who can mend me is me."

Age had not tempered out her beauty. Rather, it almost seemed to have leant the mare a wisdom that was almost divine. She was a creature that had seen much and felt much, lost much and died again and again in her heart. Yet she lived on like the phoenix itself, reborn again and again, as if by travelling in the odd manner she did, as if she were on her own wings amongst the stars, she would defy death. Live immortality. It was in every line of her fine boned body, in the regal carriage of her head and the golden dust of her coat, the light painted hooves that had and still did sometimes dance as if they were crafted from fire themselves.

Yet she was tired. There was something about her that was so very tired. Was it the soft sprinkling of grey-silver, much like her flaxen mane and tail. Or the way her steps seemed weary and measured, cautious even as they were touched with a nervousness that seemed to be brought on by the breeze? Perhaps it was the scars on her flanks, marring the once perfect, unbroken gold. Or look in those hazel eyes - the look of terrible wisdom of the cruelty of the world, mingled with the hint of banked embers that suggested a once proud personality, mingled with nostalgia? Yes, nostalgia.

Lucrezia's Fallen Angel, or Lucrezia, or Lu, whatever you deigned to call her if you were blessed with her presence long enough to know her name, stood with her back to the rising sun, a silhouette over one of the hills that may or may not have been real, a perfect illusion and epitome of pleasantly aging beauty and shy wisdom - a desert dancer, a phoenix, a tired goddess with no interest anymore but to travel until her heart was content. She had no real land, when she thought about it. Her first home was taken from her, Silent Mountain's herd had dispersed, those she counted as friends were as old as she, and some had left her already. Like the ones she loved had. The elusive Apollo's Guard was the closest she had to a home now, and even there, she never entirely found peace. Not now, not with what was happening there.

This place had been something like a home to her for a while, too. Lightning Meadows - one of the very few places she had stayed with for an extended period of time in that manner that she did before moving on like a shaft of sunlight and shadows; she hadn't minded it here, because the lead stallion at the time had been surprisingly kind and left her alone. Unlike most, who would try to claim her as a prize (she shuddered as her scars prickled in uneasy memory), and had let me be. Lucrezia wondered if that rare stallion of a few kind ones was still here, but she doubted it. He'd been even older than she was now, and the land was strangely empty of a herd.

He must have died. Lucrezia felt a twinge of regret for that thing called death, lifting her white blazed nose up to the sky slightly, closing her eyes and nickering softly to the heavens in serenade as the breeze caressed her mane. Then her senses registered a new disturbance, and the sagely old mare tensed slightly, eyes open and head lowering as her ears flickered nervously. Her age old desire to flee at the first glimpse of the young creature nearly won over, but she was much more sure of herself than she had once been, and besides, if he saw her and posed any threat, she could melt into the dawnlight as easily as Apollo and Athena themselves. She was the phoenix after all, a dancer, a desert princess; she could flee with the wind and the sun if need be.

So instead, she chose to stay where she was, wind idling her mane as she watched Fire race across the terra. She almost smiled despite herself as she watched him gallop so...so freely. So powerful in his youth, though the young were often cocky and too sure, she reflected. She had been young herself once, after all. And in an odd way, it was so...unusually comforting in a way, to watch the young as they moved. Lucrezia took joy out of foals and younglings; she had taught many to dance in her time, though she had not had someone to teach since the days when Tsunade and Gaara, and even Jiraya, had been foals. She missed it, just a little.

This youngling was no foal either, though, but still, it was nice to watch him, and she wondered with a slight, wistful smile if he'd found himself a pretty, darling mare to fawn over. Was he kind, or brutal and demanding of his mares? Patient and unintrusive, or impatient, brash and foolishly forceful? She could not tell from here, even if she was a judge of character. She wondered who he was...had the old leader of this place had a chosen son? Was this little one a colt foal she might have passed by in her travels, clinging to his mother's legs?

Still, she wondered if he'd found a mare. Someone to love and protect and be protected by, because only in a relationship of equality could you find true happiness. The young so often did not see that joy in their blind brashness, and Lucrezia shook her greying muzzle slightly in sad amusement and a sense of grief about her, though she stayed silent, not calling out loud save for a barely audible nicker that was almost to herself.

I heard there was a secret code
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music do you?
It goes like this - the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
That the baffled king composeth
Hallelujah...Hallelujah...

How singularly rude of the young creature, Lu thought, though with some amusement even if it barely showed as a flicker of skin, a glimmer in hazel eyes, the only movements of her still form that weren't the morning breeze caressing her mane and tail with invisible tendrils. She had been the first to be noticed, and she was, somewhere deep down in the opinions of the phoenix queen, the one with the regality that would decree she be the one first approached, yet he did not approach her first.

Though, it didn't bother her too much, not really - just amused her with the flimsy materialistic approach young ones took these days. Go to the one that spoke first, of course. Why? Because it was much easier to fathom verbatim and vocabulary than the silent serenity that was almost frightening, the air she was wont to exude. That silent approach, that made many of the narrow minded and young falter in their cocky steps, because it was intimidating, in much the same way they would if they surely witnessed the true sadness and extent of the grief Lucrezia's Fallen Angel had borne. You had lost your parent, you say? Well, don't cry your sympathies to me; I have lost enough to break a heart a thousand lives over.

Mother. Father. Sisters. Brother. Cousins. Friends. Lovers. Her own dignity and pride and assurance.

She'd lost it all, and it had taken so many years to even get a semblance of it back. Even now, she still fought to maintain it, but she managed through that sheer force of will that no other could have, or a very rare few. As such, the phoenix-blessed mare had little tolerance for the dramatic and the brooding, but nor did she have much patience for those who saw fit to spill every secret and life story, or those that demanded to hear it. For really, what was life, what were secrets, what was safety of your inner soul if you did that?

The sad thing was, Lucrezia reflected with forlorn amusement, was that it was common. Simply because they wanted to fit in. Simply because they were desperate to gain the sympathy and favour of others. A pert little filly lying and begging and beseeching and spilling tears of diamantine to gain the sympathies and protection of a brute. Avowing love, when she barely knew what he was. Avowing love, when he barely knew what she was. Was that the way of things today - such a disappointment, if so. Perhaps she herself was a dying breed, and with her, went independance and identity, even if it was as fleeting and ephermereal as the golden wings that caressed her whithers at sunset when she had danced and played in her youth.

Idly, Lucrezia turned her senses to the other mare, vaguely amused by her apparent expectation that Lucrezia would talk first. Lu, talk first? Now there would be the day when hell would freeze over and Lights would stop being so irritatingly goodie goodie, and Darks so "RAWR ME EVIL". There was no such thing as pure light and dark, as far as the middle aged palomino was concerned - everybody, well, everybody with a personality that was actually worth knowing, had light and dark and those wonderful shades of grey in them. But the young colt was talking to the other mare - who, Lu couldn't help but inwardly reflect with relish - did not look much older than herself, but certainly, she looked far more her age than Lucrezia did.

So with a deep breath that may or may not have been a sigh, Lucrezia kept an ear on the pair closer by, before turning the rest of her senses outwards as she garnered the sounds of the Meadows in the early morning, and even as she watched the plains with a soft look that almost seemed to be sweet nostalgia, those hazel eyes were sharp...shrewd, behind the soft green-gold glimmer of gentle perusal as she took in the arrival of the silver grey filly. She was hardly any threat - such a dainty, bony little creature, and even Lu herself was greatly more solid in form and experience, which spoke volumes. A pretty little thing, but nor was Lucrezia feeling particularly threatened or concerned by that; she had been beautiful beyond compare in her younger days, and age had only served to mellow her out into a kind of sad, wise aura. Her only concern, really, was the idle thought of what this little filly was like - such young ones were normally so vain and cocky these days, so sure of their own beauty and apparent finesse that they would charge on ahead...and that was why most of them ended up dead in the end.

I certainly hope you have not done the foolish path and sworn your heart in the space of a moment, little filly.

She did not speak the thoughts aloud, but for some reason, they caused the sombre mare some amusement. And in a manner that was a brief, tantalising glimpse of that precious phoenix of her springtime days of youth, the alluring dancer who's steps were perfection, Lucrezia arched her neck into her chest, the lean muscle of her dancing rippling gently across her coat before she threw her head up with a soft blow, her dainty hooves leaving the ground for mere seconds, striking out in a playful yet intricate manner before just as quickly, she was on the ground again, once again the sombre creature who appeared to want nothing more than for the rising sun to warm her hide and heart.

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
But she tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throat
She cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the hallelujah...