Magnus;

[Atrani]

Atrani

He didn’t know that she followed him from afar. The echo of his footsteps sing to her, his scent a trail of bread crumbs that she pursues. Father was distracted, his mind a turbulent storm.

But she, little Atrani, revels in the clarity of her mind and the acuteness of her other senses. There is no need for vision, she assures herself, when her world is laid out in a myriad of other different ways.

In, out, in, come her calculative breaths. To the left, to the right, swivel her ears. Grass, branch, water, her sense of touch screams.

It’s difficult to navigate through this unexplored land, but she doesn’t stop. She has fallen far behind him, but his scent is engraved in her mind and has coated her nostrils. The air is no longer pungent with saltiness and she no longer hears the crashing of the waves around her. They’ve left Ischia, she confirms to herself mutedly as she hangs another hesitant turn around a tree. Only hours prior her hooves were being cradled by warm sand, but it has since been replaced by soil and grass. The texture is different; she doesn’t know where she is, only that father is here (or, at least passing through).

Another lungful of air guides her around a boulder, but the air also stabs her with something new, something different. The stench of smoke quivers her nostrils and she instinctively shies her head away, but then she raises herself again with her muzzle lifted. She doesn’t see the volcano – she doesn’t see anything – but she smells it, feels it towering above her like a titan. An inquisitive shiver cartwheels down her back, but she doesn’t move. Her spindly legs are suddenly rooted to the ground – it’s soft, inviting, and reminds her of the meadow – and she doesn’t even utter a sound. Father is in the distance; she can smell him and she can smell the girl that he’s with (the scent rings an alarm in her mind, reminding her of when she was first born when father reeked of her).

Atrani bristles with realization, but otherwise remains quiet and motionless.

dove into her eyes and starved all the fears

picture by haenuli shin- HTML by Call - words: ________

[magnus]

Something was happening in Tephra. He felt it in his blood, the electricity charging through the air. He had seen the blade-thin black stallion enter, and while the markings reminded him of the young boy he had seen in the meadow—the one so possessively wrapped around Cerva, the one who had made his very stomach lurch uncomfortably—he had no real way of knowing they were one in the same. The boy had grown up rather differently, growing thin but strong, the bone armor erupting out of his body dangerously.

Still, Magnus had followed him. Followed him enough to see that he had sought out Leliana and then he had carefully backed away. While seeing the wounds on Leliana had made his heart clench and fury rise in his belly, the golden stallion had known he could do nothing for her that she could not do herself, and he didn’t want to interrupt whatever was brewing between the two. So he turned from them, but he remained close—close enough to hear if she cried, to hear if things got dangerous.

Close enough that he could intervene.

The knowledge tied him up in in knots though, and he paced around the border, sweat building on his thick neck, his powerful muscles rolling beneath his flesh. Leliana was not his direct blood, but she was of Malis—and that mattered. He was charged with watching over all Tephra residents, but he knew he had to pay extra care to those healing twins who had deposited here. That or suffer Malis’ horns.

Still, to know Leliana was hurt and to feel unable to do anything was infuriating. To know that a stranger was in their midst and not be able to confront them yet was nothing less. So he did the only thing that he knew how to do, and he stalked the border, frustration building up with every graceful step, the power of the motion taking him quickly. He didn’t pause until he saw the filly enter after, small and thin.

A frown grew between his brows and he paused mid-step, his foot hanging in the air and his heavy-jawed head tilting to the side to consider her. She moved slowly, methodically, and stumbled. Was she blind? He took after her, moving fast but making his footsteps obvious—circling around to come up to her front so that she wouldn’t feel like he was charging after her. When he was close enough, he slowed his pace, walked surely up to her, locking away his internal frustrations. “Hello,” he said gently, his husky voice filling the air. His stomach twisted when he saw her eyes, the gentle pits where they should be.

As he got closer, he smelled the original stallion thicker on her, and he frowned. Was she one of his? Had he abandoned her to come to Leliana? Where was her mother? Questions grew thick in his mind, but he ignored them for now—let them hang there. “My name is Magnus. Are you looking for something?”

out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know
I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll

[Atrani]

Atrani

He is angry, frustrated. He is a caged animal rattling its cage bars.

Atrani doesn’t need to see him or even hear him to take note. It radiates from his body and permeates the air. It would be obvious to anyone who is so attuned to their surroundings, but it seems that she is one of the few. Those with vision don’t take heavy regard to the chirping of the crickets or the first frost kissing their breath or the emotions that come off in waves from their peers. They rely more heavily on what they can see, not what they cannot.

But Atrani is critical in her surroundings, taking in as much information she can even without eyes.

That’s the reason she initially ducks her head down lower in the grass when he approaches. The tension carried on his shoulders thickens the air she breaths, but then he tries to subdue it and address her. No, he is not dangerous – not yet – and her nostrils quiver with curiosity. A gentle tilt of her head would have let their eyes meet had she any. ”Hello,” she says back in a voice eerily level and smooth for one so young. Remaining on the ground, tucked away from father’s sight, she answers Magnus in a tone full of secrets and knowledge. ”Sort of, but not really.” It’s unknown, even to her, why she followed father here. The curiosity of his whereabouts guided her to the smoky land and yet she does well to hide from him. She even shrugs her small shoulders at her confusing predicament.

”I followed father here,” she adds, but she doesn’t know where exactly he is, so she can’t point him out. ”I hoped he was finding mother, but that’s silly. Instead, he came here to meet with the girl who tore apart our family.” She is naïve and not entirely informed of what had transpired before her birth. All she knows is that mother had been alone because father found another interest, of whom he smelled like upon his arrival to mother’s shoulder. The agony of it all tore apart their family. Mother’s strife and pain was relentless and nearly drowned the child. ”Dovev is his name,” the taste of father sours her lips but simultaneously sends a bout of adoration in her small heart, ”and the girl he is with is the reason Cerva is dead.” Perhaps, if she doesn’t use the term mother anymore then the pain will recede.

”And I’m Atrani,” a second thought, because she considers herself nothing of importance.

dove into her eyes and starved all the fears

picture by haenuli shin- HTML by Call - words: ________