Ryatah

When she is alone now, it is a different feeling than before.

Before, her solitude felt like a prison. Like her very bones had turned into a cage, pressing into her skin, her heart, squeezing at every part of her until she felt like she might implode. Her solitude was not a thing of peace, but instead a cavern where all of her insecurities echoed on repeat, driving her to both madness and darkness. It was loneliness manifesting itself into a monster, and it was easier to simply succumb to it.

But now, walking alone in the forest just before dawn, there is only quiet. Her mind is as hushed as the shadows that still cling to the trees, quivering beneath the light that her aura casts. There is no roiling tension, no desperate need to place a hand into the fire to see if it will still burn. To say that she feels at peace for the first time in nearly all her life is a terrifying thought, afraid that if she gives it a voice that it will become something tangible to be ripped from her. Peace and tranquility have only ever been the calm before a storm, and when she learned she could not keep the storms from coming she had learned chasing them was the only form of control she would ever have. Atrox wasn’t a storm, though; he was the lighthouse trying to keep her from breaking against the shore, and it was only in learning that that she finally knew what peace really could be.

Up above the sky has begun to lighten with morning, sunrise-colored veins of light spreading through the tops of the trees, and she thinks she should make her way back to Hyaline. But it is then that she hears the voice, the sound of a young boy coming through the trees. The voice causes her to still, everything about her settling into a hush, save for the faintest stirring of the white angel-feathers in her wings and the stardust that trails from them. She does not answer but instead moves towards the sound, noting the way the boy speaks as though to someone else—two of them, then, at least.

“Hello,” she greets them as they come face to face, taking in the older stallion and the boy at his side. “Sorry if I startled you,” she says with an apologetic smile before continuing, “I was just enjoying the forest before it is fully awake.”

EVEN ANGELS HAVE THEIR WICKED SCHEMES

Nashua had been eager to get his young fledgling back to Taiga.

The world around them was starting to wake, and the striped pegasus could hear the stirring on the branches. There was the careful breaking of detritus as horses began to move, (the snapping of fallen twigs, the crackling of dried leaves) perhaps sensing the coming storm as Nash had. There was no real danger in the Common Lands and yet the Northern blood pumping through his veins insisted that there would be no safer place for Bolder than the stronghold of their home.

But his youngest son - perhaps the quietest of the triplets - has always been curious and observant.  His copper ears flick back and Nash knows that his child has found something, and the quick trip back to the Redwoods will take longer than he hoped for. But the way that the young colt watches through the trees gives chestnut stallion pause, because the boy's expression begins to brighten much like the stardust that radiates from the approaching mare.

She is an unearthly beauty, something that should make Nashua uneasy, because the memories of the Eclipse and its darkness are still fresh in his mind. But as she approaches the pair, the winged stallion finds something familiar in the pitch of her eyes. He knows them somehow, but Nash looks away, not wanting to appear rude or intrusive. His son makes it easy as the young pegasi marvels at the gold halo glowing above her pale head. Bolder smiles; he's never seen another horse with one before. "It's alright," the adolescent tells her as his silver eyes drop to rest appreciatively on her face. She has wings like them as well and Bolder assumes that she will understand what he is talking about.

Bolder spreads his russet-colored wings wide, grinning at their new friend. "We were learning to fly by the stars," he tells her, and then settles them back against his dark sides. His father finally reaches him and the young horse turns his head to glance back at Nashua. "Da says there is nothing like flying when the sky is awake," Bolder adds, thinking that wandering a forest while it sleeps and soaring the stars while they light might not be two entirely different things.

He thought that they were both, perhaps, searching for something.

The older stallion dips his head in greeting, "I apologize if we disturbed your peace." Nashua says, glancing down at beaming Bolder before looking back to the mare with the gold-tipped wings. "This is my son, Bolder, and I am Nashua."

@Ryatah

Ryatah

Just as he thinks there is something familiar in her eyes, she thinks there is something familiar in his face.

He reminds her of an old friend, of quiet conversation in Taiga’s dark forest, during a time in her life so different than now. The long shadows cast by that redwood trees had been fitting for how badly she was trying to hide from all the mistakes she kept making, but she has not returned to it since she left for that very reason—she does not want to find the pieces of herself left there.

Her attention for now is on the young boy, returning his smile with one of her own. “The stars are beautiful up close, aren’t they?” A pang of longing unexpectedly twinges in her chest, reminded of stars on her skin and the way they had burnt, and how she hadn’t minded the pain at all. But she draws herself back, refusing to let herself return to that memory, and instead she shifts a wing, letting the golden stardust shower to the ground. “I keep stardust with me now, so that I don’t have to go back every time I miss them.”

Her dark eyes return to the stallion, shaking her head and getting ready to brush away his apology when his name causes her to still.

“Nashua,” she repeats his name with a tone of surprise, and also recognition. “You are Lilliana’s son,” she says, remembering Lilli telling her about her twin boys once upon a time in Taiga. And then, with a somewhat impish smile, “And I think you know my daughter, Noel.” She shifts her gaze to Bolder, looking at him a little differently now that she understands who he is—looking for the traces of her daughter that might live in his face. “I’m Ryatah,” she offers them, unsure (but hoping) it means anything to them.

EVEN ANGELS HAVE THEIR WICKED SCHEMES

Perhaps it was because Bolder was just recently so close to the heavens, but he feels an ache in his young chest. It had been exhilarating up there, with nothing but shadow and starlight surrounding him. His father had explained the dangers of flying at night - and the importance of learning how to read the constellations - but his excited mind doesn't regard the caution or the risk in it.

The evening air had felt free, and for a boy who had been raised underneath the dense Taigan canopy, it was the closest he had come to dreaming.

Bolder steps back, allowing Ryatah to extend her wing wider and the yearling dips his head as he watches the stardust come glittering from her gilded feathers. "I didn't get that close," the young pegasus laments. The stars had been silent, twinkling things far above even the heights that they had flown. He glances back to his father, who had taken a step closer to the pair, and catches the surprise on his face. "I am," he admits, and then drops his gaze down to Bolder who peers curiously up at them both.

He doesn't know how to explain the disappearance of Lilliana or his brother, and so the chestnut stallion gives a practiced smile until she mentions Noel. His expression changes visibly, and Nash suddenly understands why the dark eyes of the other mare seem so soul-stirring. He knows who she is before she speaks her name, but the Freyr softens regardless. "I do," he replies back to her, with a hint of his old daredevil smile.

The one that had coaxed Noel to follow him that day into the clouds.

"Bolder," he tells the younger pegasus, "this is your grandmother." The North was built on the principle of family, and Nashua felt grateful that those bonds continued to extend beyond their borders. He recalls that Noel had been born in Nerine, but last she had told him, Ryatah had long moved on. "Are you still in Hyaline?" Nashua asks while cocking a hindleg, curious as to what brought her out to the Common Lands.

As Northerners, they rarely left their own country.

"Do you know Aunt Maze?" Bolder interjects, excited to make the connection and beams up at his angelic relation. "Or Uncle Gale?"

@Ryatah