[private] these memories hit me like a freight train

[Nashua]

What good are our gifts if not used for others?

That had been one of the last things Lilliana had said to him. They had been at odds during their last conversation. She had reappeared, unharmed and very much alive despite the fact that she had been gone for months, that there had been rumors of her death. It had been a long, hard conversation for Nashua. He learned that she had spent the time in the Common Lands searching for her oldest friend, Neverwhere. They had come back from the Afterlife together and become separated during the crossing into this life. 

She had been looking for her friend and learned through Neverwhere’s son why she was nowhere to be found. Wherewolf had told her that the dappled mare was in Tephra, in the place that wild rumors were spreading out like wildfire from of a Cursed creature. It wasn’t a coincidence, Lilliana had said. There was no way that the rumors surrounding Tephra and Neverwhere’s disappearance could be coincidental. They could, Nash had argued back. Or it could be a trap, he had gone on to say. It could be any number of horrible things and none of it had deterred his mother. 

There had been no changing her mind, and even worse, she had been determined to go alone. 

Why? It was foolish and reckless. Nash had tried to suggest that they wait, or that they should go to Leilan for help. When both of those suggestions had failed to convince her, Lilliana’s eldest son then claimed that he would go with her. If she was so insistent to go face down the Curse, then he would go with her. And that was when the former Guardian of Taiga had turned her refined face to him, only to give it a soft shake in refusal. Her blue eyes had lingered on the lines that creased his furrowed brow; they were the lines of age beginning to show and his Immortal mother had shaken her head again gently. 

What good are our gifts, if not used for others? she had said. 

So then his mother had gone to Tephra, and Nashua had respected her wishes by letting her go alone. 

And then she hadn’t returned. 

It was just one more thing that haunted him as Nashua wandered through Taiga. His auburn wings glinted in the limited sunlight that streamed down through the thick canopy, and the pegasus continued to move deeper through the towering forest. There would be no flying, not where he was going. This part of the wood barely allowed enough room for a single horse to travel, let alone one with wings. Shifting them so that he could make his way through a pair of young Silvergreens, his green eyes landed on the spot that he was intent on finding: a copse of spiraling trees that had once been a favorite hiding spot for he and Yanhua. 

A secret that he had once shared to Elio - back when Nashua had called the red-and-gold stallion Firewing - and to Celina, the sister that had taught him how to fly.

His children had played here as foals. It was easy to recall the twins and their thrill as they discovered this place. The triplets had their own adventures here as well, and even the youngest, Wylder, learned to spread his fledgling wings on the nearby granite boulder that jutted from the rough Taigan ground. So many memories here, and remembering each one brought on an equal measure of pride and pain, of what had once been and never would be again, of wondering what now, that he was no longer King of the North, that his children were grown, now that so much had changed?

@Cheri here is a very ramble-y starter

[Cheri]

It was only natural that she should be immediately drawn to the places of her childhood. Upon returning home, Cheri had sought out the hollow trunk of an elder redwood first; the very place her father etched his marks into with budding horns. She’d thought the mossy cove would be the same as she remembered, too, but arriving at the exact location had been almost impossible due to years of unchecked overgrowth. Without the skillful maintenance of a magic-endowed gardener, the Eden of Cheri’s childhood was more thicket than the lush environment she recalled.

Why she sought these places was a mystery, at first.

What good would come of resurrecting those painful hours lost? What hope was there in finding some remnant, some proof that this place once housed laughter and warmth? It seemed a foolish endeavor for her to undertake, though the grounded pegasus was more determined than ever to walk the trails of her past.

She thought they would lead to her future.
Instead, they act as a prickly sort of shock.

Seeing them: the hollowed-out tree, the crystal flower meadow, the abandoned cavern hidden behind a veil of tightly-woven vines - it hurt at first. And then it didn’t hurt at all. In fact, it was more like opening a wound so that it could drain, and after lingering in each quiet, desolate spot Cheri would feel infinitely better.

It was outside of any power she could conceive to bring her family back, and so she resolved to keep their ghosts alive in a fashion most-befitting their due. The memories of her happiness would live on, so long as she was breathing or until she joined the lost spirits of her ancestors.

As luck would have it, during these wistful reveries she came across her uncle lingering in one of the more secluded areas of the great woods. Steadfast Nashua, her father’s twin brother and (no longer) King of the North; the most welcome sight Cheri could’ve ever hoped to imagine seeing.

“Uncle!” She couldn’t help but cry out at spying him, some distance away from where he stood. There was no question that she should run to greet him, then, and her pace quickened until Cheri was trotting with a familiar ease. “By the stars!”

Her voice was an octave too deep, close to breaking. There was a pitiful sort of sound to it, a hint of the fear Cheri refused to show anyone but him. With him she could express herself fully, and they were perfectly alone at the moment - else she would consider waiting to confide in Obscene later. Now there wasn’t an excuse to wait, or bottle her emotions away.

She rushed him unceremoniously with a toss of her head over his neck, her pale wings fluttering open to welcome a return embrace if he gave one, and closed her eyes as one does when they feel an urge to linger in a perfect dream. This was too good. He was here, really here, and Cheri couldn’t seem to shake the unsteady quiver in her voice as she told him,

“You have no idea how happy I am to see you.”

@Nashua more, please D: