the brightest lights cast the darkest shadows

Home.

It’s strange to be here, on the verge of the familiar territory again. She can feel it humming under her skin – a familiar song, a good feeling, but even better than before. Something has changed, which of course she had heard through the grapevine, but knowing and feeling it for yourself is different. Nairne has struck out ahead, wandering into the home of her childhood, but Nat hesitates on the border. She thought she might never come back, once upon a time, because she wasn’t welcome in her entirety. But that has changed.

Cautiously, she thinks about the waterfall – the sky – a flash of lighting – the green spring grass. Her color changes as quickly as she thinks the things, and with none of the accompanying nausea she had grown used to. Joy leaps in her head and she laughs, leaping forward to run and catch up with Nairne. The twins are safe in the playground, watched over by forces supernatural, because she cannot bring them here yet. First she must take them to meet their father – Mikhael knew that Nat and Nairne were coming back to Beqanna, to return Nairne to the Falls, but she’d not known she was pregnant.

She wants to stay, so badly, but she cannot. Not without going back to Meeka and telling him. She will not leave him without a word, and she will not wait an undue amount of time before introducing him to his two younger children (and won’t he be surprised? A part of her brain supples). Inhaling deeply, she moves past Nairne and into the pool of water, her beautiful waterfall, wading chest deep before she stops, tears of conflicted emotion not quite falling from her eyes. “I though you weren’t coming,” her daughter says quietly, from the shore of the pool, worried. She had not heard the rumors that her mother had, but the fact that Nat is the same color as the water she stands in, not her natural buckskin, tells Nairne that something is different. When she was a child, her mother was unable to change color. It was only after leaving the Falls that she had regained that ability.

“Everything’s different.” Nat whispers.

and that's where I'll be found

NATILYN

barret x nylee

the brightest lights cast the darkest shadows

Both mares turn at the sound of another voice – the younger buckskin her concerned gaze from her mother, and the older mare drags her attention away from the tumbling waterfall. Nairne’s body follows her head, coming full circle to face the stranger, letting a smile ease onto her face. “I am here to stay,” she tells the man with a tilt of her head, watching the flame flicker across his legs before it disappears. “Coming home, as it happens.” He is right to observe that they are at home here – they are natives, after all, and their hiatus does not change that innate familiarity. “I’m Nairne.” She brightens that smile marginally after giving her name, waiting for reciprocation.

The older mare turns in the water, and then wades from the depths with obvious reluctance. The embrace of the water is comforting and it is home, but she knows that she can return to it now as often as she likes. When she reaches dry land, the mare sheds most of the blue, letting her body fade back to its natural dappled gold, all except the water-fall blue streaks that still permeate her mane and tail. “I’m Natilyn,” she offers, though she has not heard that name in years. To her lover, she is Nat or Natty; to her children, she is mom. She’s also not staying.

Because she can’t. Not yet. “I’m just here to drop Nairne off, for now. I have other business to complete before I can return home myself.” It’s killing her – she can feel the love of home, the water, the song of the Falls beneath her hooves. But she can’t stay until she finds Meeka and introduces him to the twins. “But I was pleasantly surprised to find that the rumors are true. That magic is no longer forbidden in any of the Kingdoms.” This gets them a startled glance from the younger mare – a large part of her childhood was affected by the fact that her parents couldn’t truly live whole lives in the Falls. A change in that basic rule could change everything for her family.

and that's where I'll be found

NATILYN

barret x nylee

the brightest lights cast the darkest shadows

It’s quiet in the Falls – it’s ever quiet in the Falls – but the quiet allows them all to easily hear the approach of more company. Both golden heads turn towards the exhuberant youth in the water – smiles on both of their faces. A part of Natilyn aches for the child that Nairne was the last time they were home, though she is proud of the young mare standing beside her for the woman she is growing into. An even bigger part reminds her of the twins in the Playground and the father they haven’t met – she will not deny Mikhael knowing his youngest children, even though she longs to stay here.

The gray mare who ambles along behind the colt is familiar as well, and Nat is happy to see that the other mare remains behind. It would be strange, to return to a Kingdom entirely composed of strangers. Not that she has ever minded the flow of people into and out of the Falls, but to her the Kingdom is Family. Much of it literally (for even now she cannot stand here at the base of the waterfall without thinking about her mother and father, her aunts, her uncles) but there are those who simply become family as time wears on.

Those whose hearts bind them to the Falls, for better or for worse.

They join Tiberios, the gray mare pressed to his side, and it’s easy to see that they belong to Shatter. Nat is happy that her friend has found someone, her own Meeka, and even more glad to see that he has joined her here in the Falls. She knew the strange break of loving a Kingdom and a man who did not lie there for some time before she gave the Falls up for Mikhael, and she would spare others that duality. He introduces them in a way, summarizing the conversation, but it is the mare that Natilyn chooses to address when she finally speaks. “Shatter,” she breathes the name on a quiet smile, “Yes, it’s me. You have a beautiful family.” Hazel eyes flick back to the colt, to Tiberios, but ultimately settle again on the Queen. “We heard many things while we were away. It is good to see that the Falls remains no matter what.”

There had been tales of droughts and fires, of Kingdoms melting and reforming. And of greater magics. Some of it would be exaggeration, of course, as talk does, but rumors must start somewhere.

and that's where I'll be found

NATILYN

barret x nylee