[private] Rapt

[Rhaegor]

There's so much world to explore, and even if he has only this one while some of his family has many, he feels fully rewarded for this fact. The essence of his being echoes with curiosity and brightness, a stone dropped down a deep chasm in search of a light in the darkest crevice. His wings, though scrawny and largely uncoordinated, take him where he bids them; and though him and Mothers had agreed that he would only stay in Hyaline and perhaps the playground, today those very wings brought him... somewhere else.

It's not that far from Hyaline, he reasons with himself. Mothers would approve.

He'd followed the thread of water that flows from Hyaline's lake to find himself in this land. Pumping his wings rather hard, it took him a bit of maneuvering to find an acceptable landing spot, and even then, he lands with a bit of a jolt. The usual calm of his deep brown eyes is momentarily lost in the frazzle, but as a gentle breeze soothes his mane away from his sweaty buckskin neck, it returns. Ever calm; ever collected.

Warlight has her dream teleportation, and Rhaegor has his wings; it's almost fair. And anyway, Sviko likes to be with Mothers... Or at least, Rhae likes to tell himself that, to help keep the guilt at bay. And in any chase, this tumbling stone has more ahead to focus on than the squabbling of a loud-mouthed, wingless younger brother -- whom he loves very much.

A small smile plays on his sooty lips at the thought of his palomino partner; but in the next moment, he is stooping to drink from the river, legs awkwardly splayed and the leopard print markings on his haunches showing easily as his stubby tail swished back and forth across his lil baby butt.

@[rapt]

[rapt]

there is a dream in the space between the hammer and the nail ------ the dream of about-to-be-hit, which is a bad dream ------------ but the nail will take the hit if it gets to sleep inside the wood forever He returns here, again and again. He shouldn’t – the river holds the ache of memory in its waters, and though he’s cauterized that part of himself (mostly – there are dreams, sometimes), it never does to pick at the wound. Yet he has never been a smart man, has always held a certain attraction – a predilection – to pain. Pain, and monsters. He likes to think that part of himself gone, excised in the responsibility of fatherhood, but then, why is he here? It doesn’t matter. He should have turned away sooner, should have recognized the boy at the river for what – who – he was. But he was daydreaming, lulled by the chatter of the river, by the sweet patter of sun across his back, and he grew complacent. So before he realizes it, before he can act, he’s staring at the boy, puzzled, and then the features fall into place. He looks a little like Abysm, and there’s a flutter in Rapt’s heart, an involuntary jerk of the muscle. Because he has no other children, so there’s no mystery here. “Hello,” he says, voice low, as he moves back the boy. He intends to keep walking, to keep the greeting polite, ships in the night. Yet he’s slowed down. Like he’s awaiting a response. A fool, still. rapt caius x else

[Rhaegor]

There's not a lot that he knows, despite how eagerly he wants to know it. Among this unknown items? The fact of his mother's ability to breed as the opposite sex, the fact of both of his mother's pre-marriage partners and the subsequent children from them, and that those people even exist at all. He knows about Abysm, him having been there at his birth, but that moody teenager kept himself rather elusive from the dreamlets. Even with Rhaegor's silence calming the chaos of the three of them, it's still a lot: and he doesn't blame Abysm for needing his personal space.

Hello.

He jolts at the word, nearly losing his footing at the edge of the river but pulling himself upright just in time. Water dribbles from the tiny whiskers at the bottom of his chin. Ears perked, his brown eyes alight upon the similarly coloured stranger as he moves as if to pass, though slowly, in a confused hesitation. Desperately his lips part to offer an answer, but the instinct is instinct alone, and only silence answers his mother's ex lover. The father of his half-brother.

Attempting to regain his usual composure, the little colt backed up and approached the larger stallion, forcing him to stop (funny, that such a small boy could force a man to do his bidding in brooding silence). The wings along his spine flutter, but Rhae stills the movement with a thought; and with that thought comes something different, a hazy vision of his red mother and this man together, speaking words he can't quite hear.

A frown overtakes his expression.

His lips part again; his exhale is audible, but nothing else.

Hello, he thinks back; but his thoughts never stray far.

@[rapt]

[rapt]

there is a dream in the space between the hammer and the nail ------ the dream of about-to-be-hit, which is a bad dream ------------ but the nail will take the hit if it gets to sleep inside the wood forever The boy jolts, moves, sighs – but says nothing. Rapt wonders if the boy’s been warned of him, if Kagerus perhaps thinks him worthy of being warned-about. But surely such an idea is ridiculous, it’s she who offered the olive branch, inviting him into her kingdom (where he stood stiff, a sullen anger in his throat, poor company to say the least). So – quiet for other reasons, then. Ones he doesn’t know. He watches the flutter of wings along the boy’s back. He’s half-grown, but he’ll be handsome soon enough, dappled and shaped so much like the queens that bore him. “My name is Rapt,” he says. He pauses for a moment – more silence – then continues on. “Do you know who I am?” he asks, and the question would sound presumptive from any other’s lips, and perhaps it sounds so from his, but it’s more a curiosity, more to sate that vague and unfounded suspicion that the silence stems from something he, Rapt, has done, or is. Funny, that he should presume that – he was never much for vanity. rapt caius x else

[Rhaegor]

He's young, still, the golden boy. And young too are his siblings, all legs and eyes and... trust. Perhaps they ought to have been warned, but Mothers thought that it could wait. They weren't even leaving the kingdom yet; and if Rapt did decide to come into Hyaline, they were sure he'd stick to Abysm's side. Of course, the triplets know that their brother Abysm is only a half brother, just like their half siblings Velk and Valdis. But the sires of each of those bastard children remain mysteries to them; for the world is too wide and they too small for such trivial facts.

So no; he doesn't know.

What he does know is that this stranger has eyes only for the boy before him, going over the shapes of his skin and the shade of his dapples with a type of uncomfortable precision that leaves Rhaegor swallowing the nothing that dries his throat. Despite usually being at peace with his own silence, in this moment, he wished desperately to be able to explain himself; for what, he didn't quite understand yet.

My name is Rapt.

A pause.

Do you know who I am?

At such a question - asked curiously, as if to further a private understanding of his - Rhaegor pauses. His eyes zone out, and then focus back in, neck craning such that he could study Rapt's figure more closely. He looks familiar; but Rhae chalks that up to the abrupt vision he'd had just before meeting the stallion, somewhat like when one wakes from a dream and feels as if they'd absolutely been with the cast of said night-play.

At long last, the colt shakes his head no. He doesn't know who he is. But he wants to; or at least, he wants to know more of him. Stepping forward, Rhae gently places his nose against Rapt's, snuffling there softly. Soon, a warmth begins to spread from a pinpoint on the other's nose; a soft beam of light emitted in greeting, from nose to nose.

Stepping back, Rhae smiles uneasily; he wants to say more, but in fact, he's not said anything to begin with. Tentatively, he lifts his wings; and below them, gently shafts of light are emitted in triangular positions. As he perfects the image, Rhae looks to Rapt. Mountains, he thinks. I'm from the mountains.

[rapt]

there is a dream in the space between the hammer and the nail ------ the dream of about-to-be-hit, which is a bad dream ------------ but the nail will take the hit if it gets to sleep inside the wood forever The boy shakes his head at Rapt’s presumptive question, and he feels all the more the fool. Maybe he’s mistaken all around, maybe this is just some random child, or maybe his name doesn’t matter enough to be spoken in Hyaline. None of it matters. The boy still doesn’t speak, a puzzle of silence, but he moves – steps closer and Rapt’s fights his instinct to step back, and he feels a brief softness as the boy’s muzzle brushes his, and then, surprising, a warm glow of light. Gifted in more than just the wings, and he wonders what else lurks inside the power, what powers. His own self is powerless, as is his line – Caius had wings, once, but they were kingdom-gifted, and gone when Rapt was born, leaving behind wounds that never quite healed. He’s grateful when the boy steps back, and watches as more light emits, forming shapes. Triangles. Rapt doesn’t really know what it means, but he smiles politely as if he does. “I was born in the deserts,” he says, as if he’d been asked, “but they’re gone now. I mostly live in the meadow, now.” Nowhere else has suited him overmuch, though he bows easy to authority, the idea of kingdom life brings him no pleasure. It’s easier to live like this, nomadic and simple, to move and swallow the dreams that sometimes come, the dreams of monsters and an abyss, white and swirling around him. rapt caius x else

[Rhaegor]

I kept my hope just like i'd hoped tp
then sang to the sea for feelings deep blue

I was born in the Deserts. Rhaegor tilts his head at the statement, blinking his brown eyes as if that could communicate his lack of knowledge of such a place. Though his mother had lived during Pre-Reckoning Beqanna, being busy as Queen left little room for such mundane and, frankly, pointless history lessons. She would get to it one day of course; but it's not just her eldest son that she's letting down these days, though her younger children don't know it yet.

But Abysm is Rapt's son, and Rhaegor is not - it's tangled and it's confusing and, luckily for the little pegasus, he needn't worry for any of it.

Yet.

I mostly like in the meadow now.

He jolts his head up as if to nod, but that's when it happens; as his eyes momentarily find the pale blue of the sky above, the clouds part and a vision comes to him. His body freezes where it stands as the images blur together, just out of Rapt's reach and barely even in his own, as unpracticed as he is with his precognition. He doesn't understand - not entirely - but he hears his Mother - his sire - crying, and Rapt is there, and Abysm, and --

He snaps back to reality.

"Hhh-hh-hh--" the sharp inhale accompanies his stagger backwards, his eyes rolling as he considers the stallion before him anew. There's the taste of bile in his mouth and his stomach threatens far worse; he doesn't understand completely, he can't, but he knows now that they are tied together somehow - and that in some hypothetical future, he is making his mother cry, and - well, now Rhaegor can place why he looks so damn familiar.

He is Abysm's father.

Trembling slightly, Rhaegor steels his nerves and raises his gaze to meet Rapt's squarely; his chest expands; and though it takes him far longer than it would any other, he speaks.

"You...

Hurt...

Her..."

Rhaegor

@[rapt]

[rapt]

there is a dream in the space between the hammer and the nail ------ the dream of about-to-be-hit, which is a bad dream ------------ but the nail will take the hit if it gets to sleep inside the wood forever He's ready to leave the boy, to untangle himself from the uncomfortable weight of his stare, the strange formations of light telling a story in a language he doesn’t understand. He’s gazing past the boy, looking for an escape route, so he does not notice how his eyes go glassy, worlds taking place behind them. A noise breaks the silence, stuttering, and Rapt wonders what it is, if an animal’s been hurt, somewhere, when he realizes the boy is finally talking, or trying to. But a steeliness befalls him, and suddenly he looks older, less coltish, as he stares at Rapt, the gaze so penetrating he feels it in his stomach. You. Hurt. Her. Rapt feels a wave of something – anger, almost, at least a cousin of it – wash over him. He has cauterized that particular wound long enough ago, but this telling of it is a different kind of hurt, a disbelief at how mistaken someone can be. (Or perhaps it’s her narrative – who knows what story she’s woven to her wife, to her new children?) “I did not,” he says at first, a childish denial. Then, “she left our son. Abandoned him. Nothing I did hurt more than that.” As if the magnitude of a sin was all that mattered. rapt caius x else