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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura


    that's all there is; Wolfbane/Lepis
    #1

    that's all there is

    There’s a lot going on. Actually, she thinks it has been going on for a while, but when the whole world was sick, that had been all Noah could focus on. It had made everything dark and depressing, like the sun would never truly shine again. But a cure had finally been found, dawn was breaking over Beqanna again, and the little pegasus can feel the simmering violence and unease. But she picks something out of the gossip and the chaos, and the names lead her back to Loess.
     

    There had been several changes in leadership, across Sylva and Loess, and she’d been adrift. Uncertain who, if anyone, she could trust. But the rumors are that Wolfbane and Lepis have returned to Loess, and she trusts them. They talk about love at first sight and even dreamy Noah doesn’t quite believe that could be a real thing, but she’d trusted Wolfbane at first sight, and she doesn’t regret it.
     

    Wildflowers turn to rockier terrain and the nearby saltwater puts that peculiar tang in the air, the one you taste with every breath, and she can’t help but leave a trail of flowers blooming in her wake. She hadn’t had the energy to do that at the crescendo of the plague, and it feels nice to be herself again. So she moves across Loess in her discreet way, making little noise and leaving only blooming flowers behind her, and hoping that the rumors weren’t wrong.
     

    She needs to see her friends.

    noah



    @[Wolfbane] @[Lepis]
    #2

    Waiting for Lepis to come home had been a good day. A great memory spent in the grasslands of Noah’s home, the Pampas. A place where she’d harbored them all in times of distress, a place where Pteron had been born, and a place that seemed sadly haunted when Wolfbane came back to Loess. Since that day in the Spring past, he’s not gone back to those beautiful fields because he simply doesn’t want to be reminded of the fact that the little strawberry mare might not be there.

    So much had changed in his brief absence, and stubbornly the ex-King wants that final piece of his past to stay unchanged regardless of whether or not Noah had been replaced. He doesn’t want to know if she’s gone, because then it would mean one more thing he had to let go of.

    He’s not very good at letting go.

    Instead he coasts low to the ground today, enjoying a rare flight with his wife while they can snag one now that the triplets are growing and their future is changing. It seems an imperative thing to do since they’re gifted the ability to range far and wide, especially now that the news of an eastern threat looms in every mind that calls Loess home. His drab olive eyes swing in time to the shift of his head, but otherwise Wolfbane isn’t in a hurry and he’s not particularly on edge.

    That is, until he careens over the carpet of unusual flowers crossing from the Pampas and into the Kingdom.

    Banking hard, the masked pegasus turns direction and follows the trail left for him by the scarlet pony, dropping lower in disbelief before his wings flare wide and he tugs his forelegs to his belly, rocketing ahead. “Noah!” He calls out to her, coming in hard from behind but cutting up to shoot overtop her. He banks again and circles back to plummet down, aiming for a land that’s more like a leap which leaves him cantering to greet her.

    “Noah, I-” He pants, grinning wide enough to show the whites of his teeth in an otherwise blue face. Fluttering, he jerks to a rough stop and slides sideways a bit, stirring up the cold ground and turning a thin layer of hard-packed snow to brown muck, “Gods, it is really a comfort to see you.” Bane huffs into the air, his breath turning itself to plumes of white smoke.

    For a second or two he just looks at her; there’s a vigorous, healthy glow that surrounds the usually quiet female, not much to give away that she’s matured a bit though she’s obviously as delicate and captivating as he remembers her to be. He could hug her, if he thought that was something she might like, but instead he pulls his eyes away and glaces up for a sign of Lepis. “She’s here with me - Lepis.” He says a bit more calmly, looking back at Noah, “Why have you come? Are you here for Castile? Can I force you to humor me instead?”

    Refugee of Loess : Member of the Southlands

    Wolfbane



    @[Noah]
    [Image: Wolfbane2.png][Image: 3bCHvj.png]
    #3
    Despite the aura of uncertainty that had colored each of her days in the Pampas, the dun mare has only bright memories of the little roan. The smile that crosses her face at the sight of Noah on the earth below is bright and genuine though it is surely impossible for the Pampan to see from this height. Banking as quickly as her husband, she takes advantage of the lack of resistance that his larger figure cuts through the air and follows him to the earth.

    Their flights have become more frequent of late and Lepis is not reluctant to cut this one short. Not for Noah, who she has not seen in some time.

    She lands lightly a few meters away from the pair and cuts a quick trot toward them, smiling at Noah while giving her husband a quick glance. He is as pleased to see the little red mare as she is. Though he has already pressed their visitor with queries, Lepis speaks regardless.

    “I’m glad to see your flowers again; they’re beautiful. I can only assume the Pampas is covered in them now that the Plague has left us.” The waving grasslands had always been striking, and Lepis imagines that with Noah back at full strength that their colors would be spectacular come spring.

    @[Noah]
    @[Wolfbane]
    #4

    that's all there is

     She’s meandering, daydreaming, and so she doesn’t see them overhead. She’s still scanning Loess with half of her attention, watching for any flash of gold or blue, and it takes his shout to draw her attention upward, as he shoots overhead.  Her legs still and she waits, watching them move gracefully through the air and then across the ground towards her. Wolfbane is exuberant, bright like the sun, his words coming fast on the tail of his sudden landing. Not a sloppy landing, but one with more power behind it than anything else. Lepis, landing behind him, handles it with the poise and grace that Noah has come to expect of her. Noah is a flyer too, but she always sees others as more adept at it than her.
     

    It feels a little like coming home, the two of them together, and she returns his smile with one of her own, turning it on both of them. “Hi,” she murmurs, and maybe it’s stupid, but it’s what she can manage at the moment with the surge of warmth that comes over her at seeing them. She’s never been a creature of many words, a hazard of the way she was raised, but the look in her eyes says a lot. She listens to the silence between them for a moment and doesn’t fill it. She doesn’t need to fill it – it’s a comfortable silence, not a lonely one, and for one heartbeat she wonders what it would have been like to share a home with them for more than just a refuge – they are regal, even just standing here, and she doesn’t even question why she had trusted him from the start.
     

    “It’s hard to keep up against the cold in the winter, but I’ve been doing my best,” she answers Lepis first, thinking about how it feels, to be plague-free. To have so much energy to devote to raising gardens, creating a safe haven, rather than curing an incurable disease. “But spring is almost here, and I can’t wait. You should visit,” She is already dreaming of the fields of wildflowers that won’t fade each night against the bite of the cold. “I came to see you,” she glances back at Wolfbane to include him in the statement, her voice dropping even more into a whisper with the hint of shyness creeping back in. “I heard you might be back in Loess.” She doesn’t say ‘I missed you guys’, because at this point she doesn’t think she has to. Yes, she’s worried about a lot of things, but maybe she can have a personal moment first.  

    noah

    #5

    Lepis is so much more incredibly poised than he is, it’s painfully obvious. When she lands alongside him the rush of words he’d built up for Noah pass quietly out of existence, replaced by her thoughtful inquiry and the soft spoken hello turned on them by their mutual friend. Still, the eagerness of their reunion can’t be stifled so it sits pretty on his face, shaped like a somewhat adolescent grin - the look he reserves for the rarest of encounters. The look that his father gave him.

    Noah and Lepis are of equal height, so it’s nothing for Bane to cast his head towards his wife’s position while still being able to glance often towards the roan. This gathering is so familiar to him, such a welcome sort of atmosphere in an unstable world that he drinks it in and holds it close. “We’re home for now.” He smiles down at the flowery mare, unsure if steering conversation towards talk of Taiga is appropriate in the moment. “If we’d known-” The stallion begins.

    No time to finish.
    No time to tell her they would’ve come sooner.
    Leliana arrives and with her, all the force of a universe unleashed. Loess quakes underneath them and instinctively Wolfbane knows to jump, fly, spread his wings and soar, even though the horrid vines sprout up to lick at his heels when he goes.

    “Lepis!” He roars first, trying to drown out the sound of destruction, “Noah?” The drake wheels and turns, frantic for a moment in the confusion.

    “Oh god,” He feels weak, a wave of anguish drowning him in the way only a father can worry, “oh good god Tiercel… ”
    The dragon roars a call to arms.

    Refugee of Loess : Member of the Southlands

    Wolfbane



    @[Noah] @[Lepis]
    [Image: Wolfbane2.png][Image: 3bCHvj.png]
    #6
    A step to the side has her wing touching Wolfbane’s, tucked just slightly beneath his in a way that the difference in their height allows. It is a familiar sensation, and a comforting one, though not quite affectionate enough to be considered impolite in company. Not that that Lepis minds, at least not with Noah. Their five children are rather incriminating evidence of the fondness between the pair of blue and gold pegasi.

    Noah mentions the winter and Lepis nods – that would slow the flowers. The season is less harsh farther south, she remembers, but the grasslands also lack the warm springs of Loess. The dun mare glances down at the trail of flowers behind Noah’s feet and wonders how long they will stay. Her husband skirts mention of the Taiga, somewhat more cautious than a confident Lepis might have been and she is once again reminded of how balanced they are. She is smiling up at him, and about to propose a trip south in the late spring, when the world shifts.

    At first she thinks the Plague has returned – this is not so different than the quiver in the world when it had healed.

    Had their safety only been a lull?
    Where are her children?

    Lepis is in the air only a moment behind Wolfbane, and it is clear even from this limited height that this is no Plague. It – whatever it is, remains solely within the hilly kingdom. An attack, she is certain, and hisses “Tephra,” just as the distant cry of a small and familiar voices reaches her ears.

    “Tiercel,” she says at the same time as her husband, their blue-green eyes meeting as she recognizes the same fear there that she feels in her own heart. The roar of a furious dragon drowns out what she’d meant to say after, and she has time only to seek out Noah with sorrow in her face before she banks south, determined to find her youngest child.

    @[Noah]
    @[Wolfbane]
    #7

    that's all there is

    The peace is shattered in a blink – one moment she’s gazing at the golden duo, wondering how to ask about Castile and the rumors she’s heard and can she trust him? – and the next the world shifts under their feet. She’s unsteady on her feet and almost falls to her knees, so she is an extra moment behind them, barely scraping off the ground before the thorns and vines chase them into the sky – she thinks she might have lost a portion of her tail that tangles in the foliage before she rips it free with wingbeats.


    Words accompany the earthquake and the chaos, angry words that carry over the top of the world. Angry words spoken in a terribly familiar voice. Her heart clenches in a way that almost sends the little red mare toppling from the sky; this can’t be happening. She claims so few friends in this world, how can one be attacking the other two? She couldn’t raise her voice loud enough to reassure Bane even if she wanted to, the wind has stolen her breath in the speed of the ascent. She’ll file away the fact that both of them looked back to check on her in her heart for later, but for now she simply tries to reassure him with a glance that she’s fine, and turns to follow where Lepis is headed.


    She wants to help. The name on their lips had been so desperate, Noah can only assume it’s someone they treasure – a child, perhaps – and no matter what has brought this on, a child should not be the one suffering for it.

    noah



    @[Wolfbane] @[Lepis] just so you can read before I go stick her someone else in the Drama :3




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