04-18-2020, 09:54 PM
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@[Nashua]
Beqanna
Assailant -- Year 226
"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
i'm two quarters and a heart down
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04-18-2020, 09:54 PM
@[Nashua] NASHUA The Moon (or lack of it) had been the inspiration for the story tonight. Nashua can’t quite recall all of it but he knows it went something along the lines of this: in a time long before he was born, the moon vanished. Where it had gone, no horse had known though they trekked across the lands looking for it. There were more words, more descriptions but his mother had elaborated with images of a bay stallion with a white feather in his mane. An image of a large, pale owl hovering in the branches above him. There had been other images, too. A place where the night sky was infinitely more open than the barricading branches of Taigan redwoods. What exactly the rest of the story entailed, Nashua couldn’t remember. He had looked above them, searching through the shadowy outlines for whatever part of the sky was offered instead. At some point, his mother had finished the story and had murmured sweet words into their ears as she always did. And then she was gone. When it is only the autumn sigh of the wind through the woods and the soft breathing of his sleeping twin, Nashua unfolds his long legs and he goes looking for it. He goes looking for the lost piece of the Moon. (The moon, the stars are all hidden behind wisps of black clouds from the storms that thundered through earlier. Still, his mind is determined to find it.) He finds a newly fallen tree, something that has been dead for what he assumes is eons. Leaves have scattered everywhere and dance with melancholy revelry on the crisp breeze. Nash follows a cluster, enthused with the way that they pivot against the darkness and faint light. Ambling and distracted, he barely notices that the mighty trees give way to a lonely beach. It’s the lights around the figure that distract him even more. ”Woah,” he murmurs as he slowly approaches. So captivated by the glow, he doesn’t think to stop. ”You have stars around you.” His eyes are up, not down and the winged boy misses her meal altogether. He’d gone looking for the Moon, but as he gazes up, he doesn’t mind finding a few stars instead. and for every king that died they would crown another html © castlegraphics @[Celina]
04-22-2020, 05:06 PM
@[Nashua]
04-23-2020, 06:25 PM
NASHUA There is a sharpness in her stance that he doesn’t recognize. Yan never takes such a step with him. And his Mother certainly never does. Lilliana is soft smiles and gentle words. He finds neither of those, turning his youthful gaze up to Celina. Still, there is something about her that is alluring, that is thrilling to a wanderer’s eye. She is something he has never seen before and it sparks his curiosity, making him glow all the brighter. Distracted, he’s busy studying the fireglow around her striking features. Nashua shakes his head, feeling an unfamiliar feeling of shame burn the back of his throat. ”No,” he says. ”I just.. do.” His Mother hasn’t taught him how to stop yet (and now he’ll be sure to ask her.) It’s the mention of hide and seek that makes him prick his ears, look eagerly up at her. He likes games. The one she mentions is his Father’s favorite. Whatever reluctance had crept along the lines of his face vanishes with eagerness. ”I’m actually pretty good,” he boasts. ”Yan usually sends me a picture before he hides.” It’s their own version of a scavenger hunt - of all the places in this Forest that Yanhua has found and that he shares with Nashua. Confused at her declaration, his brow furrows. ”Better?” he asks. ”Mama just says we’re different.” Yanhua who is more like her, who has her color and her eyes, who has a mark of his own and her gifts. He’s the one who's different. Nashua pulls his wings in closer, suddenly insecure with his revelation. Oh, but she says that word. The one that fills his green eyes up and makes him brighten, makes him cast the shadows around them a little longer. ”It’ll make him happy?” the boy asks, remembering the shapeshifter and the way that he had brightened this wood. Whatever doubt had been preying upon Nashua vanishes as he realizes, ”Your my sister?” It’s something he hasn’t thought about. It has been him and his mother and Yanhua for the first few short months of his life. There has been nobody else and suddenly, when he is told to stay put, Taiga is opening up to him an assortment of ways. ”I didn’t know bugs could eat the stars,” he blurts out but he believes her. Obviously, it’s true because she has the physical proof of it flickering about her. It’s only her next demand that makes him hesitate, loosening his auburn wings so the edges of them glint off her aura. ”These,” he offers. ”I can’t fly yet. But Dad said he would teach me.” His green eyes look through the shadows and peer down at her pale ones before he glances abruptly up again, ”Like you!” Intrigued he asks, ”Can you do that? With the lasers and rakeroos?” and for every king that died they would crown another html © castlegraphics @[Celina]
04-23-2020, 07:27 PM
@[Nashua] NASHUA The soft light smooths the pale edges of his older sister (a word he is still getting acquainted with in his mind, like he is with her). An earnest nod is what he gives @[Celina], an agreement between the siblings that yes, he will learn. He will find a way to control it. At the very least, he’d like to dim enough to admire the green-and-yellow bugs that dance around his pale companion. Nash steals a moment to admire them yet again, his mind still trying to imagine how far her stars- her bugs. For a moment, he’s wondering if perhaps they followed her to the sky and that is how they swallowed them. Perhaps once his own hooves leave the ground, he might try to swallow the stars too. (But wouldn’t that make him glow more?) It might be a silly question to ask because there is something in the back of his mind that is holding him back. There is something that almost prevents him from asking, ”So it's better then, to be different?” He’s drawing out the words, recalling all those times that he’s watched his mother and Yanhua share something that he doesn’t understand. He’s been on the receiving end of their gift before but he does have an early memory of trying to do the same thing, trying to paint a picture for Yanhua. He remembers the excitement dwindling in his blue eyes and the frustration mounting behind his own that whatever he was trying to send was never seen, never felt. Perhaps then what he doesn’t share with Yan is something he might share with her. Sister. It’s a word, much like the flickering aura around her, that holds some Magic with Nash. She doesn’t need to shoot lasers from her eyes. And whatever a rakeroo (he imagines large squirrels swimming through the ocean, foxes painted purple that live in trees) is, Celina is infinitely better than any of those things. The flaxen colt doesn’t quite comprehend what she’s doing, when she stretches out a pale foreleg. It’s the startling appearance of vivid red streaking running from her knee, the ghostly shadow of bone and muscle peeking through the wound. He can smell the blood, the brightness of it taints the cool evening breeze. The low hiss confirms what she’s done. Nashua holds a breath, watching the laceration weave itself closed. He gives an exuberant shake of his head, the white of his blaze catching the radiance from Celina’s fireflies. (Can she see how wide his eyes have gone?) The pegasus colt has fallen plenty of times from attempts at practicing flight and while he does get a little stronger as the seasons march on, he hasn’t yet put together that his scabs and scars are gone the following morning. It’s been that way for as long as he’s known, anyways. It never occurred to him that others might not heal that way - that faster or slower might make much of a difference. His thoughts never even go that far because Celina has given him something else to think about. She is saying names, he realizes. Suddenly, it’s not just a sister. There’s an us, and Nashua comes closer. ”Elio?” he pipes up, ”You know Fire Wing?” She thought they all could and much like that day with Yanhua, he feels it now - a fear that he might not belong. He could find out, though. He could belong with them. Sucking in a breath, he raises a white leg in offering. ”My turn.” and for every king that died they would crown another html © castlegraphics
04-24-2020, 12:37 PM
@[Nashua]
04-25-2020, 07:34 PM
NASHUA Can she feel his eagerness burning through the darkness? He listens and he stores this away - that there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ types of different. His face falls a little because he doesn’t have her teeth - he doesn’t have those fearsome things haloed from her fireflies. He certainly doesn’t fire either. He just… glows. A voice in the back of mind reminds him that he has his wings. That one day he’ll fly. Celina has wings too and so Nashua tacks that on to her list of ‘good’ different. The bad different? It only makes him narrow his eyes. He gazes up at before shaking his head, "Nope.” The flaxen boy says, "I don’t think I can read your mind.” There had been nothing in his head except himself (and he thinks that’s probably enough). He’s the good different though and Nashua throws her an earnest, lopsided grin. She reaches out to touch him with her chin and he likes the feeling her touch gives - a closeness he doesn’t often experience outside his own family. Of course he feels this way - she is family. Celina is his older sister and he pulls his wings tighter against himself as he folds his smaller chestnut body into her. She’s warm and smells like running water. When she pulls back, Nashua frowns slightly. Has he done something wrong? "Fire Wing was here,” he tells her. "He likes Taiga,” remembering what the dunalino had told him. He had lived here too, once. Just like Nash. The young pegasus is still a little uncertain but the boy adds, "He gave me a feather.” When she bites down on his leg, he isn’t ready for it. Nashua had been looking up at her, studying her green eyes. The pain sears. "Aughhhh,” and then he bites it back. He forces down all the other things he wants to say and closes his eyes. He refuses to cry. Celina had not cried and neither will he. He can smell the blood and it makes his nostrils flare and when he finally does look down, the damage inflicted is not as bad as he feared. His wounds don’t weave together with the ease of his elder sister’s but something happens - the glow around his gold stripes and white socks brighten and while it is not a matter of breaths (it feels like hours to Nashua), the wound starts to tentatively heal. Beaming (and glowing a little brighter himself), the boy grins up to her. "I did okay, @[Celina]?” He asks, "I’m still a good different, like you?” and for every king that died they would crown another html © castlegraphics
04-26-2020, 05:16 PM
@[Nashua] NASHUA Nashua frowns slightly, tilting his head upwards towards his older sister. ”That would make me sad too,” he adds. He had gone looking for the Moon tonight and had found @[Celina] instead. He’s enjoyed this time with her. If she killed him (or maybe her bugs would swallow him whole if they ever flew together?), he thinks that it would make him sad. It seems a much harder way to spend time together. "Elio,” he says slowly, ”can’t be trusted.” Nash frowns at that. The words don’t feel quite right. There had been nothing about his exploring companion that had felt wrong. Like his older sister, the flaxen pegasus had spent an afternoon with him and had enjoyed that the traveler was willing to spare him. Visitors to the Taiga were rare and his adventures outside the Taiga were becoming far more regulated. "What if he came back?” The colt asks innocently. Fire Wing had said he liked Taiga. He had promised to come back and visit. If he came back, could that rectify the wrong of leaving? While the mentioned leg heals and glows, while Celina flickers in her firefly aura, his green eyes widen and then he smiles. It’s full of excitement and he can hardly keep himself still while she places the feathers in his creamy mane. (He can see something glinting her own pale mane and edges closer before becoming enraptured with the two feathers she put there.) He moves his shoulder closer to her while he angles his head, hoping to the striking things better in her light. It’s still hard to see against the shadows but Nash can make them out distinctly - a white feather, a proud navy one. When he's satisfied with what he’s seen, Nash leans into her again. Like you, he thinks. and for every king that died they would crown another html © castlegraphics augh <3 | ||||||||||
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