[private] If you wake up in a house that's full of smoke // Oriash

[Rhaegor]

He sees her, then. Tope skin, blue leopard print markings. It's not impossible for this stranger to be a part of his family, not considering the breadth of said family these days, yet setting eyes upon her gives pause to Rhaegor. He closes his eyes and tries to remember the last time he saw his mothers and comes up empty. His children and Dawn he sees often. But his other siblings, his triplets. Their memory tastes like the ash that fell on Hyaline the day of the redistribution, of the great exodus from the sanctuarian home he grew up in and fell in love in. Thoughts of Chryseis, thoughts of wintering parties, thoughts of what-ifs and how-comes.

He shakes his head, excuses the thoughts. It feels comfortable to blame them on this apparition of a woman before him. To take responsibility for his decisions and lack thereof? Unthinkable.

I'll just say hello.

And, with those thoughts intruding into the self-made vacuum of his mind, Rhaegor finds himself moving with deft hooves through the rutted brown grass of the meadow. The leaves in the nearby trees compliment the hue of his buckskin hide, as well as that of this tawny stranger, and from a distance, it might seem to any untrained eye that indeed, two siblings happen across each other and move in for a greeting.

In the actual living of the experience, a roiling uncertainty abounds; but, no fear. In the wake of his healing anxieties, only the slight and feeble trill of excitement remains, something like the eagerness and genuine curiosity of his youth.

When his hooves still, having succeeded in their mission of bringing Rhaegor's body closer to the antlered mare (so much like his mother when she cared for Hyaline), the pegasus opens his mouth and stares. An empty hissing sound warbles from his throat and he snaps his mouth shut, tucking his chin as he chastises himself for assuming that he could speak in this woman's presence simply on the pretense of their possible relatedness. Looking up through apologetic lashes, Rhaegor tries again, this time with his mind.

Please excuse the intrusion. My name is Rhaegor. I think we might be siblings.

.

@Oriash

[Oriash]

↼ORIASH⇁

they promised that dreams come true

For how extensive their family is, Ori knows few of them. She rarely, though occasionally, stumbles across them in the common lands. For a short time, she was gifted with the luxury of living with them in Tephra, but her family comes and goes with some frequency. She would judge them (indeed, she did just that as a child) but she comes and goes with nearly the same frequency. Instead, she has grown used to being alone, to having never settled in any one place. Home was, in some ways, Silver Cove, and yet she has not been back in years and years. Home was never truly Tephra. Home might have been family but they were not consistent enough, and Ori has never found anyone else to call home either. And so she wandered, creating worlds and friends around her.

Today is no different, and nearby trail some deer that are of Ori’s creation. At the approach of the colt (who, she realizes as he draws nearer, shares some of their characteristic family traits), both Ori and the deer look up. It isn’t until he’s nearly upon her that she can see the subtle leopard markings that he spots. They are not bright and obvious like hers, but still, they are unmistakable nonetheless. The deer continue to look on, too still now to be real, though otherwise there is nothing to give them away as illusions. Ori’s simply too distracted to continue their movement, a thing that is almost second nature to her but, after a moment, they disappear entirely as her attention shifts.

The boy opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. A moment of worry crosses her features, but then a voice in her head. It takes her a moment to orient to it, but then she smiles slightly at his “words”, and she chuckles slightly with an easy, welcoming warmth. “I think you might be right,” she agrees, nodding at her own blue leopard spots. ”Kagerus and Solace?” she asks, just to confirm. It’s so strange to think she has so much family she has never even met, and yet, this is the reality of her life. But it is always a pleasant surprise and brings a smile to her face when she finally gets to meet them.

but they forgot that nightmares are dreams too

@Rhaegor

[Rhaegor]

The herd of deer becomes apparent to Rhaegor just as the words leave his mind. His ears prick to catch the sounds of their living but he comes up empty; then, he notices how stillness characterizes each of the animals, how they do not blink or even breathe. When his curiosity peaks, the herd vanishes. Curious, he thinks to himself, a wane smile stretching his graying lips. I did not think us dreaming.

Shifting his attention, Rhaegor stretches his smile into an easy-going grin at the warm laughter of this woman who can be none but his sister. Indeed, her words confirm this just a moment later as she speaks the sacred names of his -- their -- parents. Before he answers, he takes a second to marvel at the age and beauty of this mare; she clearly has her hooves beneath her, has grown into the body of an adult before Rhaegor had the chance to even know she existed. He wonders just how many other mini-Kaglaces now litter the earth unbeknownst to him. Hell, he'd be willing to wager that there were fresh younglings occupying their mothers' orchard at this very moment.

Solace and Kagerus, the stallion echoes back with a good-natured huff. The air from the huff billows around his face in steamy playfulness in the early frigidity of the autumn air. I am one of their three eldest, from back when they lived in Hyaline many moons ago. When were you born? I would like to think that we'd have met by now.

The wind shifts and the mare's scent hits him anew. Wait a moment... Curious and feeling welcome in the mare's presence, Rhaegor shifts his body language towards her and asks, May I?

With his sister's consent, Rhaegor steps in close and ruffles her mane with his scent-seeking nostrils. Her tawny coat feels neither smooth nor rough and bears an aching familiarity to the painted hides of his mothers; but these facts pale in comparison to the information he seeks. After a long moment of his nose pressed along her neck and side, Rhaegor steps back, his grin yet fixed in place.

Well, sister, we may not have met, but I recognize your scent. You lived in Tephra for some time, in fact, at a time that I, too, lived in Tephra. Strange that we never crossed paths.

Rhaegor leans back on his haunches, shuffling his matching-pair wings. I am glad to have made your acquaintance now, anyhow. What is your name? And how are you getting on, these days?

.

@Oriash

[Oriash]

↼ORIASH⇁

they promised that dreams come true

It does not surprise her in the least when he confirms what they both assumed. Her family is large and she has met so few of them, but the sheer size of them makes it rather easy to simply stumble into one another. In the same vein, the sheer size of her family would make one think that she ought to have known more of them. It make her wonder if she’s the only one that feels this way, like she’s always been on the outside looking in, wondering what it might be like to belong. Her time in Tephra gave her a glimpse of that, but maybe it was too little, too late at that point. She’d grown too used to being on her own to be anything else at that point.

He says he’s one of the oldest, and she only nods, because there is no way she’d actually know. To his question on when she was born, she gives her own piece of the story. ”Silver Cove,” she says, which is not exactly a when answer but it was close enough. ”Right before Solace fell ill,” she adds for more context, leaving out the part where Ori was pretty sure she was the reason Solace became sick in the first place. It wasn’t Ori’s fault in any way, just the nature of being born. Then again, she’s never asked for details because she was always a little too afraid of the answer.

He steps forward to smell her, pulling far more information from the lingering scent of Tephra (how long has it been since she’s been back there?) than she might expect a normal horse capable of. It makes her wonder what sort of gifts he might have to discern such a piece of information, though she doesn’t say anything. ”I did,” she agrees, not entirely sure why they didn’t cross paths except that even then, Ori kept mostly to herself, and the time not spent alone was usually spent with Olena. How long has it been since she’d seen her sister? ”I have a tendency to keep to myself,” she says by way of explanation, which is not much of an explanation at all but it was something.

She didn’t quite know how to be with others. Too much of her formative years were spent alone and so, she doesn't know any other way to be.

”I am glad we finally met as well. I’m Ori,” she says, having long since given up even giving her full name. She has not been Oriash since she was a tiny child, preferring simply to be Ori, whoever exactly that was. ”Though I’m not sure anyone has ever asked how I’ve been getting on,” she says with a slight chuckle, entirely uncertain how to answer. Badly, in truth. She was alone more often than not and she didn’t know how to fix it, but how do you tell someone that when you’d only just met, even if he is your brother? ”Well enough though. I’m easiest to find in the sky,” she says with a grin, ruffling her wings slightly. They were the best gift her parents had given her.

but they forgot that nightmares are dreams too

@Rhaegor

[Rhaegor]

Silver Cove. Right before Solace fell ill. She needn't say more for Rhaegor to understand. He stood as one of the welcoming party to his mothers when they returned from that far-away place they went to sleep in the hopes of saving both mother-and-child in one of nature's contrary passages of life. As a man, he cannot fathom why a mare might easily -- or at least, without complication -- birth triplets, and then experience hardship with a singlet; but as a man of some decency, he respects these mysteries and considers them with awe and almost a religious fear, father as he is himself to children now with Dawn.

Those were trying times for our mothers, Rhaegor allows. The political topography of Beqanna changed in front of their eyes and in a blink, the world no longer had need of the  sanctuary they dedicated their lives to. I cannot imagine being pregnant during such a tumultuous time. He flicks an ear and pulls a face. Not that I could imagine being pregnant in the first place, really.

I have a tendency to keep to myself.

Rhae nods. I have adopted such a tendency myself, of late. It turns out that the world no longer needs once-princes, either. It serves me better, now, to occupy the quiet places.

I'm glad we finally met as well. I'm Ori.

Ori, Rhaegor thinks to himself. A beautiful name.

Rhaegor perks his ears to listen to the rest of Ori's words, and laughs with her at her grin and shuffling-wing gesture; beneath the surface, however, he hears her thoughts. Badly, in truth. A pull at his stomach begs him to press her for more, to pry into her heart lest he might fix its brokenness; but years of practice wielding his telepathy stay his advance, the wisdom of respect outweighing the misplaced good-will of mind reading. If things are going badly for his sister, the least he can do is help her to enjoy this moment, now.

Grinning, Rhae takes a step forward and tosses his head in excitement. With his wings already unfolding at his side, he stretches his face towards his sister's and parts his lips. From them, the softest of words escape, a signal to his fast-increasing comfort with the new but already-familiar character before him:

"Let's fly."

And with that, the stallion leaps into the air, beating his wings in powerful downstrokes until he gains the sky around him and the earth beneath him. Here, his voice grows, the constraints he feels on the earth loosened by the freedom of the air, and he lifts his voice in a pitched and whinnying-song of mirth and contentment; with his sister beside him in this cavorting dance of the skies, for the moment, all is well.

.

@Oriash

[Oriash]

↼ORIASH⇁

they promised that dreams come true

She has no way of really knowing all that he tells her now. Some of it she’d heard in bits and pieces, but as a tiny child who was simply abandoned, she’d never quite been able to get past that particular pain in order to see her mother’s point of view. Regardless, she has forgiven them both (Solace faster than Kagerus, admittedly, but both of them in the end). Still, she cannot help but feel like she missed something terribly important in those formative years of hers. It broke something inside of her that has been irreparable ever since.

Her brother’s company is welcoming and comforting. She appreciates the insight he shares, though she doesn’t say much as is her penchant. A chuckle escapes her as he mentions that he cannot imagine being pregnant. ”Neither can I,” she says with an air of humorous camaraderie between them. Maybe someday, but certainly not now. With who, even? She’d have to actually get out in the world and try living. A tall order, certainly, for quiet Ori.

She appreciates that they understand each other. The camaraderie she offers is light and silly, but there’s something far deeper. He lost the same parents as well and must have known, at least to some extent, what she felt like then. He keeps to the quiet places too now, and she wonders if he hides like she does simply because it’s easier or if he has reasons all his own. Unlike him (not that she knows this, of course), she cannot read minds, and so she has no way of knowing anything about him except what he offers.

But he catches her wing ruffle and his excitement is palatable. Ori’s grin grows wider, and there’s something like true joy there. Flying is the thing that is hers, truly and wholly hers, and it has brought her joy since Petron taught her so many years ago. It reminds her of him, too, though that is a knife with two edges. His last statement before he takes off comes out audibly, and she grins all the wider before following her brother. For all her quiet shyness on the ground, she comes alive as she kicks into a canter and launches herself into the sky with ease. This is home. This is where she belongs.

His song is contagious, and she calls back to him, her own song in the sky before she’s speeding past him, head turned just long enough to call back. ”Race you!” To where? She had no idea. It wasn’t really a race at all, just a challenge for them to fly, to see what the other had, to enjoy the moment to the fullest, for in this moment she is made of joy. To fly with one of her brothers is a treat she’d never imagined and she whoops loudly as she climbs into the air higher, racing on to nowhere.

but they forgot that nightmares are dreams too

@Rhaegor