Things had been quiet in the redwoods. Too quiet. In the time she had spent entangled with Tunnel, much had seemed to happen in her new home. A child was stolen and Yan was missing. It was as if he had wandered into a spot of the forest that nobody else could access, as if the trees had swallowed him whole. Taiga felt more and more empty and with a sigh she finally makes a decision to explore further and see what else Beqanna has to offer. It’s not that she’s given up on Taiga, no not quite. Although she hadn’t called the place home long enough to instill a sense of deep loyalty to the woods, she cares for the forest and some of its residents. However she does wonder what else is out there for her. Her mind drifts often to the dark blue and black stallion with his intense gray eyes and sometimes of Molech in the river. She thinks of her mother still hidden deep within Tephra and the disturbing news coming from the East. She thinks of the lost brother Tantalize had mentioned.
With nothing else to do, she sets off to find him.
Perhaps she might find Yanhua too along the way, in case he had wandered off further than the redwoods.
She doesn’t have much to go on. He was born in Tephra, Tantalize was his mother. She doesn’t even known what he looks like but when she questions a few strangers along the way, she mentions he may have gold or red eyes. They seemed to run in the family and maybe she will get lucky. There’s a few red and gold eyed stallions it seems and nobody seems to know if they were born in Tephra or remember a mare named Tantalize. But she takes every lead and follows it. She starts in the Meadow and comes up empty handed, not seeing a single red or gold eye amongst the small crowds huddled together. She thinks for a moment of swinging by the Forest but decides now is not the best time for a distraction.
Loess is close though and perhaps that was a good place to start. The kingdom was known to be relatively busy even during these quiet times in Beqanna. So she sets off for the red cliffs of Loess with purpose in her belly and determination in the dark gold of her eyes. When she finally comes to a standstill at the invisible border of the kingdom, her buttery coat is covered in a fine layer of red dust that seems to cover her everywhere except where it avoids the vibrant and scented flowers in her dark tangled mane. It is her hope that if she can find him, she might be able to lure Liz from her hermit jungle life. That perhaps it’s not too late to get some sense of family after all this time. That might be nice, she thinks. So she sends a call into the canyons and waits patiently to be received, hoping she might find some answers here or at least a new lead to follow.
They may call me a sinner, but I am at peace with myself;
Cheri’s homecoming had been brief because it was expected. Queen Oceane had let her go under the condition that she return within an allotted time, and Cheri had gone away with so much worry and concern that she’d wondered if she could ever come back feeling lighter. But in her time away she had learned that her hardships were not burdens to be drug around, they were simply unpolished stones waiting for a creative mind to shape them into precious jewels. In stepping away from her seemingly fixed future, Cheri had learned the importance of it and her place in this world - and she came home with a fresh perspective, a clearer conscience, and a smattering of designs on how she would navigate her yet-to-be written reality.
As paltry as it seemed, those designs began with a little home renovation.
Cheri heard the call from higher up on the canyon ledges where she was currently sizing up some potential new locations for a private dwelling. The old one shown to her by Tarian wasn’t forgotten; she remembered its cozy charm with a sigh. It was simply outgrown now, having served its purpose. She knew without having to return there that only the ghosts of memories would linger, and places like that were places for horses like her father to dwell.
“Yes, father…” Cheri remembered another design on her list of things unresolved or planned, twisting her head around to peer over the little edge of the cliffside and down into the gully below where Bardot was walking through. She’d have to visit Taiga soon, speak with her mother on that matter.
In the meantime there was this: her obligation to be a Loessian queen-in-training and the (seemingly) mundane activities that went along with the title.
“Up here!” Cheri replied with a friendly shout, listening to the echo of her voice as it tumbled down the cavernous rock walls. “Wait there a moment, I’ll fly down to you.” She instructed the other mare, hopping off the goat’s ledge with a bright unfurling motion of her wings and flapping, hard, as her hind legs swung down underneath her like dead weight. She drifted down that way, a bit inelegant but necessary given the narrowness of the canyons, and landed with her back two hooves touching down first into the fine silt of red soil. After her forelegs had settled Cheri flicked her wings carefully and then tucked them in beside her, stirring up the clay into a fine dust cloud as she blinked and tossed a head riddled with crystals growing naturally from her skull.
Like everyone else in Beqanna from her generation, she looked mythic. Still, there was something about Bardot that immediately caught her attention.“Can I just say that I love your horn?” Cheri gushed.
She isn’t kept waiting for long and for that she is grateful. The buckskin unicorn angles her skull upwards as the call comes down from the canyon. She can see a figure, dark and green, and hears a female voice echo around her. She says nothing in response and waits quietly as the figure jumps down from the cliff with widespread wings and easily comes to land in front of her. Clearly this was a creature comfortable in her own skin.
Now she can see the stunning mare fully before her, the crystals that sparkle and glint along her crownline, the brightness of her green eyes, the easy smile on her lips that coaxes one from her own. The other is quick to flatter her and she grins back, knowing that flatter will get you everywhere. Besides, she wasn’t wrong. “Thanks! Though I wouldn’t say no to your crystal crown.” She replies softly, her golden eyes admiring the line of quartz and wondering how one would go about acquiring such an adornment.
For a moment she is distracted and forgets why she had come in the first place. Then she remembers and laughs gently, a bright tinkling sound. She shakes her head and sends up a dizzying scent of sweetness from the dark tangles of her mane, one that she had long grown nose-blind to. “I’m sorry, forgive my manners. I’m Bardot. I’m looking for someone. Well, two someones I suppose.” She pauses although she is eager to jump to the point at hand, not liking to waste time. She would ask about her missing sibling first and then follow it with Yan but for now she waits patiently (despite the snapping of her tail against her hindquarters) to allow proper introductions.
They may call me a sinner, but I am at peace with myself;
Cheri’s eyes struggled to glimpse the crystals just out of sight on her head when Bardot mentioned them. She smiled, understandably. The crystals had been an appearance early on in her foal hood, a trait passed down to her by her dam, whereas her other siblings had grown incredible crowns of horns. They’d been irritating in the beginning. She wouldn’t burden this kindly stranger with a brief description of how crystals felt when they pierced the skin from underneath in order to burst outward, so she opted for a light-hearted pun instead.
“They’ve grown on me.” Cheri shrugged, looking back at Bardot again with an easy grin.
Now that the pleasantries were over, the two mares standing in the basin of the Loess ravines could get down to business. And, honestly, Cheri was curious about what business Bardot might have here in Loess. Not just the flowers (which smelled incredible, and had Cheri thinking similarly about how she might also achieve a permanent perfume) but the scent of her skin was drenched in that all-familiar smell of fog and redwood pines. Bardot was a northerner, more specifically a Tiagian.
A mare after Cheri’s own heart.
“Bardot, you’re well met.” Cheri snorted the red dust clear from her nostrils and turned, indicating with a shake of her head that Bardot should follow along as Cheri continued on down the canyon pathway. “I’m Cheri, heir of Loess and a child of Taiga myself.” The black and green appy chirped away, keeping her steps light and her stride at a short, comfortable walk. “If anyone could help to place a missing horse or two, I hope it would be myself.”
The little unicorn responds to the pun with another bright laugh, appreciating the other’s good humor. In fact, it reminds her a bit of Yan and she is brought back to the task at hand as she falls into step besides Cheri, coming to the quick realization that she would have to shuffle her priorities as the young mare introduces herself as a child of Taiga. She doesn’t falter as she glances at the crystals again from a tarnished eye, as she thinks of Amarine and starts to put two and two together. “Then I’m hopeful I’ve come to the right place.” She finally says with a soft smile and hesitates, wondering how to best approach this.
“Taiga has grown rather quiet. A child was unfortunately taken, stolen, recently. And Yanhua…. Seems to have wandered off.” She turns her pretty dished head towards the other, sunlight playing across the spiral of her horn, looking for signs of distress that her news might bring. Her expression is apologetic as she continues, her flowered tail swishing lightly against her hocks as she lets her gaze turn towards the carvings along the cliffs and the unusual desert flora she had never seen before. “I’ve kept an eye out for him but he seems to have vanished. And I’ll admit he’s not the main focus of who I’m searching for.”
As Cheri was a child of Taiga, she assumes she may have dropped a bomb regarding news of the North but perhaps Yan was here and maybe her news wasn’t that surprising after all. She falls quiet and keeps her movement fluid as she walks beside her, prowling, like the creature from the jungle whose spots faintly dapple her arched neck. The redwoods weren’t as thick and tangled as the jungle she had come from and so she was certain that if Yan had still been in Taiga she would have found him already. Someone would have, certainly. She hopes the matter will be resolved here, that Cheri might have one of the answers regarding his disappearance, and then she can fully focus on her true objective of coming here.
They may call me a sinner, but I am at peace with myself;
Cheri hopes Bardot’s unspoken troubles can find happy conclusions here in Loess. Her buttermilk-colored companion did seem disturbed, pausing before speaking as if she were choosing her words carefully. When she finally speaks, everything she says makes Cheri understand why she’d been so hesitant.
For her part, Cheri is highly surprised at the news. Taiga had always been her fathers favorite child. The thought of him disappearing from those haunted woods was impossible. And without a reason? Something shifted unpleasantly in Cheri’s gut at the thought; Yanhua was not a stallion who just abandoned his post.
Bardot looked away, allowing Cheri the opportunity to scrutinize the ground rolling underneath their hooves. Her expression darkened with worry, a million queries springing to mind about what (or who?) could’ve displaced her father from the only purpose he credited his life to. With an exasperated exhale, Cheri picked up the conversation where Bardot left off.
“This is troubling news, Bardot. Yanhua is my father.” Cheri confirmed the unicorn’s suspicions. “He can be many things, but a disappearing act isn’t one of them.” The pegasus swallowed down the despair in her voice, masking it with calculated seriousness instead. Her features hardened and she fixed her eyes on the path opening up ahead of them, refusing to let their edges show any visible cracks. First Targaryen, now her father… and mother? What about Amarine? If the Forest was devouring her inhabitants like a fairytale then there was real cause for concern and very little time for a childish breakdown.
Cheri didn’t have the luxury of a good cry right now.
“Rest assured I will look into the matter.” The Loessian pegasus told Bardot, grinding her hooves into the dry earth. In fact, she knew exactly who to approach about the subject and hoped that Reave wouldn’t mind a roundabout visit. “But if my missing father isn’t the object of your journey,” Cheri jumped subjects, “Who is?”
Her suspicions are confirmed as her new Loessian acquaintance confirms that Yan is in fact her father. A frown flits across her delicate features as she turns her head and attention back to the jewel-touched mare. “Your father is an odd duck but unfortunately I would have to agree with you.” She says quietly, looking over Yan’s daughter carefully. The goaticorn had seemed incredibly passionate about Taiga and all those in it, she can’t imagine him simply walking off without telling them. Despite the way she pushes down her despair, Bardot can still see traces of it before she hardens her expression. The buckskin unicorn sighs softly with a slight shake of her head. “I’m sorry Cheri. Truly.”
She hesitates only for a moment, wondering if she should speak up about the odd behavior he had been displaying before his disappearance. She doesn’t want to upset the pegasus further but having had to track down her own family members…. She knows how difficult it can be without all of the information present. “He had been acting rather odd lately. Spending a lot of time alone, talking to himself or that annoyed bird of his that he picked up.” She’s not even sure when he had acquired that chicken but one day it had just appeared, nestled between forelock and horns.
Cheri speaks of looking into it and Bardot nods, happy to give her any assistance she can. But before she can offer it they come to the real nature of her reason. “You’re not the only one looking for lost family members.” She says with a faint smile, trying to lighten the darkness she had brought through the canyons. “I’m looking for my brother, half-brother actually.” Quietly she informs her of finally finding her hermit mother deep in the jungles of Tephra and the little information that had been revealed to her. He was born in Tephra, they shared a mother, and he may have gold or red eyes. “It’s not much but it’s all I have to go on.”
Her own hooves grind into the dirt as she glances down and then up to Cheri, as her sparkling golden iris’s search out the green of hers. “I don’t even know what I’m going to do if I find him.” She finally voices something that she had been thinking about for awhile. Worried about. What if he was like their mother, elusive and wanting to be alone? “I guess it would just be nice to try and bring my family together once and for all instead of being apart as we have always been.”
They may call me a sinner, but I am at peace with myself;
Bardot seemed one of the good types past her exterior of wild beauty. Cheri knew she shouldn’t judge a character so quickly after meeting them, considering that all kinds of evil came in the most attractive shapes and sizes, but since her arrival Bardot had been the one doling out information. If the visiting mare had nefarious intentions then she had an odd way of showing it, either that or she was the best deceiver in Beqanna.
Cheri had come to find that most of the ick who considered themselves in an ‘elite’ class were rather proud of being pretentious assholes, choosing to flaunt it in some clever fashion during conversation. They pretended not to care, but in doing so also cared about not caring. Bardot didn’t seem to fit that type.
No; in fact she fit the bill for a friend, which was very much what Cheri hoped to gain through the course of their tete-a-tete across Loess. After all, her intimate knowledge of Yanhua’s final whereabouts and his odd change in personality did not seem to flow easily from the buckskin’s mouth. If what she claimed was true, (and soon enough confirmation would come) then the potential for unbalanced chaos or personal gain was quickly approaching.
Cheri saw the window of opportunity slowly opening, and her feelings toward it were certainly mixed.
Luckily, she had the current distraction of focusing her energy into doing something a little more positive. She could at least try her best to help Bardot on her journey, if nothing else. “Whatever happens,” Cheri trudged eagerly downhill, “at least by the end you can say, ‘I tried.”
Near the bottom she leveled out again, staring grimly at the paths forking away from their own, both south and west. “Most never even get that chance.” Cheri murmured quietly. For a moment she was silent, and the sound of insects buzzing in the heat accompanied the sweet sensation of a dry, sweltering day. Afterwards she spoke up. “As far as your clues regarding the missing half-brother, I regret to say that I only know one stallion who might match the description you gave me.”
Damned if a smile didn’t curl up the corners of her pretty mouth.
“His official title is Prince of the Pampas, but those who know him call him Obscene.” Cheri told Bardot, making no attempt to hide her apprehension over his name. “He’s dark black in coloration and has those piercing red eyes you mentioned.” She detailed. “And you should know that he may not be as welcoming as I’ve been today, so tread carefully.”
That was the only concrete warning she would give Bardot. Cheri knew how Obscene handled himself around her, but when given an audience among his own court he might be inclined to act more like the frightening terror she’d witnessed on rare occasions. It would be highly upsetting to find out later on that Bardot met her end unprepared. “In his Seelie Kingdom, fairy magic rules. So keep in mind that his specialty is trickery.” The heir smiled, confident in Bardot's ability to see her personal quest through.
“I wish you the best of luck and I honestly cannot thank you enough for being so open with me about my father’s complications. I won’t forget it.” Cheri promised her new acquaintance. “If there’s anything else I can do to help your plight, just say the word.”
The little unicorn had never really had friends before. Even amongst the Amazons and despite the connection she felt to all her sisters (that bond that was forged with oath and loyalty) she had never considered them really as ‘friends'. Not exactly. There had never been any close childhood companions, there had only been her unwanted sister and even then they had quickly grown apart when Lion and Tantalize had finally declared war on each other.
It’s a nice feeling, despite the circumstances, to click with another female so easily. Something she can’t even remember doing in the Amazons. Cheri is quick to reassure her in the face of her own worries and she smiles gratefully to the winged mare, wondering if the green and black beauty realized that she could benefit from her own words as well. The other falls silent as they reach a fork in the road and she reaches out with her dark muzzle to briefly brush against the other’s shoulder as the insects hum merrily around them. “We will find your father Cheri. I’m sure of it. And I’ll help however I can.” She says with more confidence then she feels but she can easily imagine how distressed Cheri must be. Distressed and still willing to help her despite the grave tidings she had brought.
The Loessian speaks up not long after the silence stretches again and this time it is Bardot’s turn to feel anxious as Cheri confirms that there might be just one stallion who matches the brother she seeks. One who doesn’t seem quite so friendly from what she shortly gathers from her new companion. Obscene, she calls him and Bardot snorts with amusement, feeling a spark of excitement as it seems like just the thing Tantalize would call her only son. “My mother always had a thing with names. We also have a sister named Vindictive, she does tend to live up to it.”
She is quiet for a moment, considering. This is the strongest lead she’s found so far and she has a gut feeling that she is closing in on her quarry, coming to the end of her own personal quest. Cheri draws her attention again as she speaks of this Prince and his fairy kingdom. Fairies? Her nostrils wrinkle as she snorts again, now confused. “Fairies? Forgive me for my ignorance but are you saying he’s a fairy?” She recalls the few fairies she had seen in her lifetime, recalling the little caretakers in the playground years ago. A flicker of doubt crosses her mind again, maybe she wasn’t on the right track. There were no fairies in her family. Dark troubled souls yes… That she can handle and understand. But little winged magical creatures like the ones she’s heard about on the Mountain? Her golden eyes glance at Cheri with open curiosity. “You seem to know him pretty well.”
The path towards the Pampas lays before them and she takes a step towards it, trying to ease the nerves that suddenly bundle in her stomach. “You’ve done so much already Cheri, thank you. Truly.” She pauses to glance back at the Loessian with a small smile. “Well, I wish you luck. I probably need it as well.” She gives a soft laugh before turning her determined gaze to the road ahead. ”Perhaps I’ll see you in Taiga after this?”
They may call me a sinner, but I am at peace with myself;
“I do.” Cheri responded to Bardot, surprised to admit how correct the other mare was in assuming she knew Obscene well. “Not as well as some,” she considered, “but better than most.”
“That’s exactly why I’m cautioning you.” She warned again for the last time, and smiled a knowing sort of smile at the traveling horse from Taiga. If Bardot was on the path of tying up loose ends, Cheri doubted a million warnings would’ve kept her from investigating any and all possible leads. Personally she doubted the connection would prove to be anything concrete; Obscene was as different from Bardot as they could be, and though he hadn’t always been one of the fae (a fact she kept to herself) the odds seemed unfavorable.
She still wished luck on the other mare’s journey. If it was anything Cheri was coming to understand, it was that losing one’s family members could be a miserable sort of burden. And if the opposite were true? If Bardot discovered a lost kinship with the southern Prince of the Flowers, then Cheri could only hope it brought them both a sense of peace rather than discord.
In passing, she nodded quietly to the unicorn with a gray-purple horn. Bardot needn’t thank her for a little passing conversation, but Cheri wouldn’t say so. She was equally as grateful to have spent the time in pleasant company. Her hunt for a new ‘home base’ in Loess, the disappearance of her father and subsequent knowledge of his final days, the impending plans she was about to set into motion, they all would have their due. In this moment with Bardot she was hopeful.
“If not there, somewhere.” She promised. Now the road extended beyond the places Cheri wanted to go. This was where the two parted. “Come back any time. Let me know how things go with Obscene, okay?”
Bardot
