[private] could not hold me back

[Nashua]

Nashua has always been a storm.

And perhaps he was always meant to be, when one side of his family had been able to summon winter gales and summer squalls. Over the years, Nash had tried to emulate his twin and his mother in their ability to conceal their emotions. Both of them had been able to stay unfailingly kind in the face of anger and hatred.

He doesn't doubt that they could have met the devil (and they had, hadn't they?), and still would have searched them for a sliver of salvation.

But he is angry. He has been angry for such a long time - at the way his mother had been taken and then the abandonment of his father (another inflicting kindness that had left a deep wound), the death of his sister, the way that most of his siblings seemed to succumb to one sadness or another. The loss of Yanhua had been a deep blow; it had been his twin that had helped Nashua practice caution, to prevent him from blowing too strongly one way or another. Now that brother is gone, his son has been taken, and the Curse roams again the shape of his sibling, Gale.

This is the kind of thing that Curse would want, he thinks. To inflict so much suffering that they are blinded by anger, looking everywhere other than where they should.

There had been burdens on his own - the death of his mother, Yanhua's madness, rearing three children alongside Noel, and the responsibilities of a kingdom - but Mazikeen is right. He should have tried harder. They should have come to Hyaline sooner. The added weight of that realization nearly staggers him; Nash had always tried so hard to be perfect where it pertained to his family and he has failed them.

Her orange eyes linger on his shoulders - and Nashua not realizing that his emotions have physically shaped him - glares back at her. There is fury blazing in her gaze, shaking her voice and the speckled wings that should have been on his shoulders remain hidden, like so many other secrets in this forest.

"Get the hell out."