Sleeping Dragon forcing

toula.

it was a name she was more relieved to hear. she could have lived with it. she could have warmed her sister in the palm of her hands with love. she would have told her countless stories, pretty words for horrible things done. she would have gathered every treasure or fur in her path just to make her father's princess (she would always be a princess, lovingly, in the eyes of makono) feel joy.

but a man? she would not dignify his place by weeping at the thought. instead she would become stone again. a soldier more than a politician.

dear sister, do you know a man would sooner kill you than give up what you have given him? do you know that to sit upon that throne is to be alone? to love is to die?

did her sister work with a mind as her exiled mother or her kin-killed father? perhaps this was makono's true penance. she considered, for a moment, giving qiao her good eye to work some kind of magic upon this. alas.

she would make good with the crone and return to see her sister's radiance not be demolished.

and what is your plan upon arrival?

she knew it was very possible for the woman to not tell her, but she hoped there was a shred of something real here.