[private] if you love me don't let go

[Neverwas]

So much had changed. Could he really call it coming back when the land itself was so different? When the only old haunt that was left was the adoption den, the home for lost boys and girls like he and Lee had been so very long ago?  The Tundra was gone, not a sign of it in the far north, not so much as a snowflake. Just a jagged hook of coastline and the endless sea stretching on past the horizon, where the soft greys of sea and sky blended together into mist until he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

Well, so much for an easy visit.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, brushing his lips along Lee’s lovely shoulder, his lips curving into a smile against her soft skin. “We’ll find them.”  Someone had to know something, right? Royal families didn’t just disappear into oblivion. Except, perhaps, when the entire world rewrote itself and changed so fundamentally that it was barely even recognizable as their birthplace anymore.

Still, if anyone was capable of making a name for himself in this new place the old world had become, in gathering his people together and making sure they were safe, it would have been Dad. Dad, who did everything for the good of his kingdom, for the good of his people. And no doubt he would have looked out for Mom; she would’ve been by his side through whatever hell had visited their home, right? And Mari and Lis and little Eione, who...would be so very not little now. And Argo, if Argo had let him. Which was maybe a big if.

At any rate, probably they’d be able to track down at least Mom or Dad.

Which was how the two of them wound up in a long stretch of forest, heading east toward a place called Tephra. Traversing the whole of this new Beqanna to follow a vague lead from some strange mare took time though, and it was starting to get dark. “Maybe we should find a place to curl up for the night, love. What do you think?”

image copyright Martin Stranka

[Lieschel]

Change, the only constant thing in her life…well, besides Nevi. Her eyes turned to him, a small smile on her lips as their shoulders brushed as they walked. They had made a brief detour towards where the Tundra had been before the world had imploded. Lands falling into the ocean, very important parts of their lives disappearing into the mist and fog that rose up from the edge of the water and all they had left was each other. Well, that’s a bit dramatic. She released a small quiet breath, they had their adopted family.

She shakes away the thoughts before they even start, even if her stomach was a nervous knot of energy. She would have happily stayed away, lost amongst her and Nevi in the wilds of their travels. But Nevi had been thinking, more and more so lately of all that they had left behind and so here they were.

”It’s okay, we’ll find them.” She smiles, pressing her lips against his neck, taking a small half a step so that her shoulder falls just behind his so she could hide her face just slightly from his. He would know, knew, likely that this wasn’t exactly what she wanted. She wasn’t ready for the possibility of what…shit, of what mom might think.

She wasn’t sure she would be able to take a look of disgust or dislike from their mom if they could ever find her…find them. He slows and she presses her face against his neck, doing her best to be supportive for him, and schooling her features a bit better so he couldn’t just look at her and know. “Okay, Nevi.” She says softly, pressing her lips to his cheek as they both paused, ever so briefly.

Her eyes turning up, looking up through the thick bough of bare branches, her sigh a small white cloud on the cold air, “It feels different here.”