09-09-2017, 05:21 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-09-2017, 05:22 PM by Ander.)
Grandpa calls for them, of that Ander is sure. How else would it explain the sudden frost? Well, partially the winter was to blame, but it’s more than just winter. And Ander doesn’t like winter. It was just so wet and dark all the time. The cold never bothered him, never had Ruan’s ice affected him in a bad way too. It had been too long since he had seen is grandfather, which only made him more eager to answer the call.
”Enough.” The voice reaches them – him, Polaris and his mother Jinju – even when they are still far from reaching their gathering spot. It rings across the land and is impossible to miss. It freezes the black colt, eyes wide and ears flick back a tad bit uncertain as his ruby eyes instantly search for his mother’s. He wants to ask her for the explanation that isn’t given to them, but doesn’t get the chance too.
Shocked he takes in the withering trees, the dying grass – and not the type caused by snow or fire like his own – and he can hear the ocean’s anger. ”Run.” Ander doesn’t need to wait for any more explanation, not from anybody. He bolts, his mother and possibly Polaris in his hoofsteps.
Faintly he can hear his mother call, can hear her direct him, but he moves on instinct. Out. He had to get out. His ears are pressed back, nostrils flaring and eyes wide. Panic, terror, genuine fear. Ander can hear the raging sea, the water pouring down land and the cries of beings that shouldn’t exist before they hunt.
For the first time there are wolves in Taiga that are out for the hunt. Of water and lava, wolves of the Taiga, but at the same time not. Very real though, just as real as the damage they dealt. They howl and growl, snap their teeth and lung for whoever is within their reach. Ander, is ahead of them, but that doesn’t count for his mother. He can feel the heat of the fire behind him, busts and flames, sometimes followed by a pained yelp. Sometimes it’s a hissed pain though.
But Ander doesn’t have time to look behind him.
Closer and closer they get to the border, just a little further and they would be able to cross the river. He ran like he had been told to. As fast as he could, but not fast enough. Oh, the golden pointed colt gets out mostly unharmed. Exhausted, afraid, and with tired and burning muscles, but unharmed. That cannot be said about everyone.
”M-mom” he pants, his legs, belly and chest wet from the water. ”We- We made it!” Tears are in his eyes, wondering who else had made it, wondering how Polaris and granddad were during. And Circy and all the others. ”Mom.. Wh-what hap-“ Ander speaks while he turns to face his mother, only to stop mid-sentence and face his own failure.
Just in time to see his mother go up in flames. Big, bright, and hot flames. Flames that would even scorch his skin.
”Momma!” His cry, loud and echoing through the forest as he sinks through his knees, legs unable to hold him up any longer.
@[Calcifer]
I'll try to write Jinju tomorrow!
Private please!
”Run.”
And they do. She follows behind her son. First to just keep an eye on him, to make sure he is safe and sound. But then the wolves come. For the first time ever she has to be aware of the ‘big bad wolves’, Jinju now regrets that she used those very same words to tease others before. Not that it can be undone.
Her heart cries with Taiga’s agony. Her beloved home, her beloved Taiga, it was falling apart. Tears are clouding her vision slightly, but Jinju cannot allow them to pour. Ander and Polaris’ wellbeing was more important right now. Even if that meant that she would have to face the unnatural wolves by herself.
Allowing herself to fall a little behind, she makes herself their prey. But not unarmed, the velvety black mare fights lava and water with fire. It’s fuelled by anger and hurt, even the feeling of betrayal. And it has her fired up pretty good. Jinju doesn’t try to hold back, lashing out at whatever gets within her reach – with fire, hooves and teeth. She ignores the pain that jolts through her own body, hissing softly on impact. Dear lord it hurts, slows her down too as she finds herself limping. Blood gushes down her side and chest, flesh burned and marred.
She doesn’t know how she makes it out of Taiga. She’s hurt, wounded and still full of rage – and fear. Not for herself, but for Ander and Polaris and Taiga and all her residents. It’s what kept her going, until she doesn’t have to anymore. Jinju falls to her knees, panting hard as life seems to slip from her grasp. Ruby eyes search the frame of her son. ”Ander” she murmurs softly, lovingly, nodding her head ever so slightly as she looks at him proudly.
It had taken a while for Jinju to discover her fire, but ever since she had, it had been a part of her. Burning bright and strong, sometimes it had spun out of control, had taken her over. Just as it did now. Her fire burned brighter, brighter than it ever had. And it kept getting brighter, even expanding beyond herself. The air around the flame – or fire actually – shimmers due to the heat, growing so unbearable that all around it are forced to step back.
And then, it’s gone. Leaving a newborn black filly behind, one with two remarkable ruby eyes.
”Mama?” her voice soft and high pitched, shrill too as she’s obviously distressed. She glances around, turning too, eyes scanning her environment. Water nearby, a forest around them and across the river- Something she can’t even look at, not without her heart aching. So instead her eyes find the black and gold colt. Older than she was, but not by much and instinctively she knows she’s safe, okay. But.. Where was her mother?
She had no mother. Or, in the sense of the word, not one that I knew of anyways. Jinju had been more or less adopted, from what I could recall, and Ruan had really been the only parental influence in her life since the time I had met her. Brought up in the Taiga and letting our son grow old there too, even after I had felt the urgency to leave. It had always been my itching ideal to have Ander grow up as a cultured sort of stallion - away from the turmoil of Kingdom duty and what that sort of life pertained. For Jinju, though, family had been her everything. It drove a knife between us, made it hard for me to focus on what I felt was my obligation rather than my intuition, and my final act of leaving to visit Loess had been a proverbial closing-of-the-door on any sort of future we might have had.
But it hadn’t changed how I’d felt about her, or the love I still harbored for my only son who had remained underneath his mother’s intensely watchful eye. Perhaps that instinct buried deep into my bones what was had drawn me from the roost of a mountaintop cavern and down into the valley where Taiga lay.
Had lain, I should say. The smoke had been the first to assault my vision and in anguished flight I’d barreled into the heart of it, mouth agape with screams for Jinju and Ander until I was half choked by fear and soot. What horrible things my eyes had seen below I won’t relate - creatures twisted by malady and driven on by wrath. Destruction on a scale we Beqannan’s had become so sadly familiar with. It was all a freakish nightmare and somewhere, in the middle of it, was my only fragment of happiness.
Most of the others had scurried like rats to the river and so I followed from above, wings pumping a mad rhythm against my back while my legs pounded a tandem tempo over the clouds. Chaos ensued - all manner of natural life had fled cover of the redwoods to streamline for the channel and there they’d tangled with Taigan’s large and small until the screams intermingled to form a crashing, screeching crescendo.
There was nothing to be done, nothing I could do aside from looking ahead to pursue the heart of my intentions. Frantically my amber eyes had scanned the earth - a glimpse of antlers flashing white before disappearing into the Forest, the glint of ruby as a strange mare fled with rolling eyes, a glimmer of gold sliding through brackish underbrush …
Gold!
Twisting, I rounded on my back and dove head-first to the earth, wings closing near my dark body with the force of the wind whipping past my face. I leveled with a breath-taking swoosh, just above the dark treeline where I once again scanned for signs of Ander until at last, his pitiful cry alerted me to where they’d come to rest. I’m only in time to glance the bright flash of heat, to turn my head aside as I banked with the powerful, forward thrust of my wings and descend where she - Jinju - is waiting.
Breathless, terrified with what I’m witnessing, and mostly confused, I amble towards the two carefully until I come to stand beside baby Jinju. “Oh … dear.” I murmur, glancing once between the inky foal and her (now elder) son. “How could this have happened?”
OOC: in the process of making him some new html! lol I wanted to get this up though
Just before he had turned around, he had heard it. Faintly she had murmured his name, like a last whisper of her lips, before she goes up in flames. Tears are running down his cheeks and Ander sobs loudly, gasping for breath as his legs shake underneath him. This couldn’t be happening, this wasn’t real. Mother wasn’t.. gone.
And she isn’t, but she isn’t quite herself either. When the flames disappear, all that is left is black filly. A pair of ruby eyes watching him, quite curiously but also pleading. Ander has to blink a few times, still shaking and unable to believe what he had just witnessed. It was as if his mother’s fire burned so bright, consumed her all, only to have her rise from the ashes. It’s too much for his already traumatized self to deal with.
The arrival of his father is a welcome distraction and support, especially the last. After all, the golden pointed colt had just lost his mother. ”D-dad..” he stutters, red eyes now on his golden winged sire. A few steps on his shaky legs is all he needs to cross the little distance between them and instantly Ander presses his tears stained cheek in the cress of Terran’s neck. While he cries his body shakes and trembles, in sync with his sobs.
Then, realising that there is a child – no his mother as a child – nearby. Taking a deep breath he pulls back, his lips parted to say something, only to end up shaking his head. Settling next to Terran, still a bit shaken up, Ander’s eyes float back to the ruby eyed filly. ”I… I don’t know. I t-h..thi-nk she.. mom got hurt..” he manages to answer. Wetting his lips he pauses to formulate the right words, unaware of how much this filly was actually his mother.
”Then.. she colla- lied down and.. and her fire.. the fire burned so bright..” That was the most accurate he would be able to describe what happened. What had caused the events or why it had happened, was as much unknown to him. All he knew was that his mother had just been standing right there where the filly now stood. ”Dad.. What will we do now?”
The flapping of wings – she just knows it are wings, not who has told her – makes her turn her attention away from the strangely familiar black and red and golden colt. Curious, but fearful, eyes turn towards the newcomer. Black and gold. She blinks her ruby eyes at him, meeting his gaze, before following it towards the colt. What was going on?
Just when she’s about to take a step forwards towards the biggest male, who’s presence screamed ‘father figure’ to her, when the golden tipped boy does. Silently she watches them, her ears twitching when she hears him call the golden winged one ‘dad’. But it was the distress in the colt’s voice that added to her own distress and like him, she wanted – needed – support.
This time she doesn’t murmur ‘mama’, but instead whinnies loud and shrill. Mama should answer and she would come, right? Her instincts tell her that a mother should do just that. She keeps completely silent, as if that would make it easier to hear her mother, but it stays silent around her.
By the time she takes a breath again – which she held to be entirely silent – tears are clouding her vision. Mama didn’t answer. The realisation makes her tremble and sharply inhale, tears are rolling down her cheeks. Slowly her ruby eyes move towards the two black males, silently pleading for someone, something, to come or happen. Her whinny is much softer this time, and the inky black filly takes a few wobbly steps in their direction.
And another, and another. She’s carefully watching them, looking if they will back away or not. Something tells her they won’t, just like she knows instinctively she feels comfortable around them. But what if they would turn away? Chewing like only a foal would do, she reaches out towards the biggest one.
It feels more than natural to extended one of my golden wings for Ander as he comes in close. My son was shaken, as was I, by what had happened when I hadn’t been around. Did they expect for this to happen? Taiga falling? Or was it as coincidental as anything that ever occurred around here? “Doesn’t matter anymore, does it?” I ponder, looking between the gold-tinged yearling at my side and the wobbly, red-eyed filly at my front. Poor, delicate Jinju is confused as ever - I’m starting to see the reality that she might not ever understand what happened.
With a wayward sigh I pull my son close, two of my four wings settling lightly but firmly over his strong, rounded back. He’d be a large stallion, well made with areas of refinement where it mattered. A looker already, but still unsure about life. To Jinju I only stretch out my neck, extend my nose so that we can exchange old-fashioned hello’s before saying, “We’ll go to the Field. All three of us. Jinju, would you like to come with Ander and I? My name is Terran - I’ll take good care of you.”
It’s the least I can do for the woman who still holds my heart. Like her father before me, (though what I know is from what Jinju’s told me, long ago) I stretch out the other two, empty wings in invitation for her to settle against my other side. Perhaps it’s not the family I was used to, but we’re a family all the same and right now, they both need me. “Let’s get away from here, before it gets too dark.”
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