Meadowlark Prairie perfect, you're my poison

In the shadow of Akashingo, a war raged.

Not visible to the naked eye, not entirely at all. This was Nephele’s internal war against Sabah, against duty she chafed under while the other her was vaulted by it. Nervous blue eyes took in the distant mountains, where, she had heard, the Saints resided. She did not know of what, or where, or who the Saints were, other than there was war.

Nephele was not made for another war. She was not made for the first. She was runner, she was not fighter. Sabah was her front, her respite in this odd time of tension where soldiers marched and she, for some gods forsaken reason, got to lead them. Back and forth she paced the meadows and prairies, around and around the base of the mesa, twining her scent with flowers, grasses, rocks, everything. But she was one woman, and Akashingo was at war, and at her heart, she was a coward. 

She dragged in an awkward, clipped breath, sinking her toes into the dirt. She didn’t have to be a coward, if she became Sabah. But Nephele was the first name she had chosen herself, the first time she was allowed to name herself something and mean it in her heart. Nephele, the woman created from a cloud. Nephele, who was shaped in the image of a goddess as a trick for a mortal man. Nephele, a cloud who could vanish on the wind.

Who could be gone in the sunlight, leaving a clear dawn behind. She let out a short noise, teeth digging into her lips, before she was back to slinking across the prairie she was wandering under the pretense of recruiting. As if she was any good at that. Sabah would be, something internal hissed at her. She pushed it aside.