i know i've dreamed you

[crowns]

CrownS

He nods eagerly when she squeals, his excitement only amplified by hers. Crowns watches the way her neck extends longer and longer before it suddenly snapped back to a normal length. But his attention is on her face now when she speaks. He studies her closely when she claims that Charlie is her brother. There is a piece of him that remains suspicious, as though he may bring him a wolf when he means to herd the lost lamb back to the herd. But Tephra has grown immensely powerful despite its quiet reputation. If she is a wolf then she will make a fine pelt when they’re done.

“Walking will take too long. I’ve been practicing my trick, so just close your eyes!” he grins and tucks his little dripping wing over her back. Then, in a roaring column of blue fire, they vanish.

Seconds later, they emerge on the border of the jungle, with Crowns breathing a little harder than before. The corners of his lips betray his pride - he has actually never teleported anyone other than Eight. There was a chance he would accidentally fling her across the stars for all eternity. He doesn’t tell her this, however.

Instead, he hurries forward into the western kingdom, leaping over fallen trees or ducking thick vines that hang overhead. He scurries over a thin stream until they arrive at a den that is familiar to them both.

“Mom! I found a surprise for you! Hurry up!” he calls as he peeks his head into the den, little blue ears perked forward. And she comes when she is called, her sage green eyes searching his face for a moment as she decides between scolding him for yelling or encouraging his delighted mood.

“What is it, Crowns? The twins just fell asleep,” she says, but her voice trails off to a mumble when she lifts her gaze from his. The boy spins, bursting with excitement, and then tucks himself against Reign’s side as he beams up at her. “Reign. Princess of my life.”

She moves forward and pulls the girl to her chest, holding her too tight as she breathes in the dry scent of stardust in her mane. Crowns watches the tears spill down her face and knows that he has done well. Without pulling away, their mother speaks in shaking sobs, “Who took you from me? Did they hurt you?”

The thought had not dawned on the younger child until now. He turns his attention to his sister now, watching her face and wondering where she had been all this time. Would they come back for her? Would he be strong enough to crush their enemies and keep his family whole?

@[Reign]

[Reign]

“—I’ve been practicing my trick, so just close your eyes!”

Reign was afraid, she would be lying if she said she wasn’t—fear flooded through her veins, it shot through her heart like a bolt of lightning and thundered around in her ribcage. The roan girl wanted so badly to trust him, so badly to believe she was going home at last; when she closed her yellow eyes, though, she saw her father’s face distorted by rage and then came The Shadow. Quiet, quick. A glint of fangs, the cracking of bones, the twinkle of stars—

In her mind, those few seconds they spent teleporting from one place to the next lasted an eternity. She couldn’t breathe, she was dying—she was scared. “Don’t let them hurt me,” she murmured, her eyes still closed. Reign pressed her side against his, hiding her face in the crook of his neck, she started to tremble.

But then it was over.

He moved quickly, his steps nimble and sure; Reign blinked, once, then darted off after him. She knew the jungle well, though it looked slightly... different. Almost as if had grown a little more wild since she saw it last. It was fuller, thicker (older). She pressed on, stumbling over the stream, giggling as she went; she was home, home, home, and nothing else mattered.

Reign could see the den at long last, she knew her mother would be there—knew Charlie would be there as well, though he’d likely be less happy to see her.

“Mom! I found a surprise for you! Hurry up!”

Reign skidded to a halt behind him, her yellow eyes wide, her mouth falling open in shock; she stared at the back of his head, then dared to try peeking around him to see who was coming out of her family home. It was her mother’s voice that greeted the colt, her mother who came slinking out of the den, speaking of twins—of other children. Reign felt fear creeping in again and she swallowed hard, tears welling up in her eyes.

Was this some sort of awful trick?

“Mom,” Reign managed to get out, but not before Sabbath was pulling her in close. She let the tears fall then, she couldn’t help herself. Reign had never really cried, not even as a newborn, so the sobs that wracked her body and the thick fat drops rolling down her cheeks felt foreign. She had the strangest feeling of being trapped in a stranger’s body, but the feeling went away almost as quickly as it had come on.

And then Sabbath asked the question Reign dreaded to answer.

“A dark god came down from The Mountain,” she sniffled, just breathing seemed to cause her to quake. “He... spoke with father, but I don’t know what he said, and he... he just turned on me. Dad went mad. He tried to kill me,” Reign close her eyes again, seeing his face—his fangs.

“I think he did. I went somewhere dark, and... there were stars. So many stars. There was a black mare there, too, though. And she saved me. She saved me because a Goddess sent her.”

@[crowns]

[crowns]

CrownS

Crowns fears what his magic can do, if he’s entirely honest, and there is always a chance that he will not find himself where he intended to go. Something in the core of him knows he could accidentally become one with the perfect dark that fills the gaps between the stars. When they arrive in Tephra, he exhales and it tastes like the perfect cold of that place. He does not confess that he and Reign almost learned a very important lesson.

Instead, he focuses on the next steps to his plan.

He watches as sheer delight chases the dark from the marrow in his bones, as Sabbath takes her daughter up in an embrace. She had always held him too tight before he slept and he knew it was because she missed Reign, because she had lost so much in her life already. Her regrets flowed from her heart so easily that he knows the sound of its footsteps across the den floor without ever looking. His dark ears turn forward as he listens and their mother carefully grooms the locks of her mane. There is so much time to make up for, so many memories to create.

His ocean eyes drift to his mother. She traces her tongue over her fangs as she fights to keep her rage from boiling over. It was so easy to be angry, to hate whatever tore their family apart, but the inferno of her wrath has no place in this moment.

“If anyone comes for you, I will destroy even the memory of their existence,” she promises as she presses a kiss to Reign’s brow. Crowns shifts uneasily as his secrets weigh heavy on his mind. Would their mother be angry if he knew he was a magician, the very thing she hates most of all? Would she find relief in his ability to keep them all safe?

Could he keep them all safe?

He chooses to be silent instead of making promises he might not keep. Instead, he steps closer and settles in beside his long lost sister.

“If Tarnished steps foot in Tephra again, I will kill him on sight,” she whispers gently, but the ravenous hellfire in her heart comes spilling out in her tone. She will not spare his life as she did Gospel. Her love has festered to hatred, just as it did for Eight. Just as it did for Vulgaris. There is nothing left of her that would nurse this pestilence back to anything whole.

@[Reign]