Private | Let the moment break you, Luster

Nashua is the one who never seemed to find himself alone.

His twin, Yanhua, was the one who always seemed to find himself lonely. But for now, that was alright. He preferred to linger in quiet solitude most days since their mother had been taken away from them, an effort to ride out the spastic headaches and general body pains ‘maturity’ had brought on. He’d been a tender youth as it was, acutely aware that his sensitivities arose from the gift of feeling memories his mother had passed on to him, but lately the growing pains added in had driven the growing yearling further into himself and simultaneously further away from the normal company he’d seek.

Mother. Nash. Brazen. They, along with a smattering of new names who’d come into the picture recently, (an attempt to fill in the gaping hole his mother left when she’d been stolen) could do very little to offer him relief, so the chestnut colt sighed to himself and walked alone among the roots and through the ferns until he began to feel a little better.

It was kind of hard not to. When his thoughts weren’t so bent on the anguish of losing his mother and dealing with the idea that he and his twin brother might be growing in separate directions - two branches of the same tree - Yanhua could start to feel the faint echoes of Taiga around him. The history of this place… it was so much more than words to him. Taiga had ghosts, and the memories they left behind were faint auras he could more or less sense as he trod along a little deerpath. Fresher memories, the ones left by those who lived here currently, often showed themselves as little glimpses of moments: laughter only he could hear, the hushed affections of lovers. Warm, sensational pricks of sunlight that touched his heart.

The older echoes were much more subtle, and yet they left the same warmth all the same when he focused in on their energy. The past lives drenched every fern, permeated every tree, rolled in and out with the fog. If he was quiet enough, calm enough, Yanhua could focus on that warmth until it dulled the ache in his bones. He paused in a single, slanting ray of light; somehow the brilliant dash of gold had broken through the canopy overhead, and in its pleasant glow Yanhua beamed, literally. Fire danced across his skin, sparkled as a yellow flame in his mane and tail, and gave him an almost touchable glow. He seemed less awkward and with both eyes closed, totally at peace.

But a few seconds later the moment broke.
A cloud cut across the light, and Yanhua’s mysticism faded. He was back to being the leggy, awkward youth, his face clenched with a tired sort of pain. A stronger echo touched him, acrid and bittersweet. Sadness. It swept into him like a tide and under the dark waves, he saw blue tears and the face of a beautiful mare focusing sharply against a background of black. “Ahhh…” He groaned aloud, and then he opened his eyes once more to find that the border of Sylva was looming in the distance.

She stood there, the beautiful face under the dark ocean. He watched her quietly and then Yanhua blinked his long, blonde lashes over a set of warm blue eyes before asking her, “Would you like me to go? I’m sorry… if I intruded on your solitude.”

Sadness sought out solace. He knew that.
He knew that well.