"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
we have a greed with which we have agreed. you think you have to want more than you need; until you have it all you won't be free. and when you think more than you want, your thoughts begin to bleed.
Although Wishbone knows her children could shift into animals that would keep them much warmer than their natural skin, she encourages them to stay home for this trip. The trek to Icicle Isle is much longer than other trips they’ve been on, and she is much more urgent in getting there compared to their casual outings to the common lands. Perhaps it is her anxiety, but Wishbone feels like this visit is rather time-sensitive.
She cannot ignore the simple way Gale entered Tephra on two occasions, and Wishbone’s stomach twists to think that her family remains so exposed. Tephra is a kingdom, meant to be powerful and respected, and she thinks she has let her kingdom down. This isn’t the first time she’s failed as a queen — Nerine had once called her a Khaleesi, but that crown had fallen too heavy upon her young head. She’s older now, more experienced in the darker ways of the world, and yet she still fails.
So she vows to change things. She won’t remain quiet and stay at home while her family’s lives and her kingdom’s lives remain in danger. Wishbone leaves the twins with Svedka this time, explaining that their uncle will give them a fun day even though they can’t come with her. She looks into each of their bi-colored eyes, watches the confusion and hurt swim in the depths of their gazes, and kisses them each on the forehead before leaving.
The purple mare welcomes the cooler weather as she travels north, and she pauses to rest for a few moments once she’s in Nerine. Her old kingdom is a comfort, and Wishbone brushes her nose against a granite rock as she thinks about all she’s endured since her time among the cliffs. But she doesn’t stop long, only using enough time to build a bridge made from skeletons so she can cross the ocean without swimming. It saps her new magics, and Wishbone knows she’ll have to swim on her way back.
She pushes that thought back, knowing that there are more pressing things to attend to. The purple queen waits at Icicle Isle’s southern beach, letting a call for their ruler fall from her mouth.
credit to eliza of adoxography.
@Nashua
Anyone from Icicle Isle is welcome to join too!
07-04-2021, 05:23 PM (This post was last modified: 07-04-2021, 05:24 PM by Nashua.)
Nashua has two children that can also shift and he has always encouraged them to keep the best shape - the ones they were born with. His brother and his mate - Gale and Mazikeen - were shifters. Nash assumed that the children that Maze had been expecting were likely to be shifters as well. The only father figure he has ever known had been a shifter as well.
And yet, the thought of his own children doing it had curdled something in Nashua.
Something that only seemed to sour more when he had last seen Yanhua.
The North had remained quiet. With the arrival of winter's throes, Nash had settled himself to remain on the Isle until spring. (If given the chance, he would venture to Taiga to see Noel and their growing brood. But the coldest part of the year was cruel in most corners of Beqanna. In this one, it could be hostile and many experienced flyers had been lost trying to cross channel towards the mainland due to artic squalls or sweeping rogue waves.) Ciri hadn't been seen for a day or two and the realization had troubled the young King of the North. She had seemed eager to play her part on the Isle and yet something in his gut (another foreboding feeling) told the striped stallion that the Thane wasn't shirking her new responsibilities.
Something was wrong.
Just what, he couldn't be sure. Not without leaving the Icicle Isle and until the source of his current worry returned, that was something he couldn't do. It makes the winged horse venture towards one of the Southern beaches, where it was easiest for a horse to arrive during the warmer months. What he finds on those shores is not the starweaver but a purple woman - a rather regal color - that arrives by a strange sort of magic that Nashua has never seen. His blazed face tilts, watching the spectacle that is her arrival. The chestnut stallion settles his speckled wings against his sides and moves from his craggy outlook to greet the visitor.
Her call rings out and Nashua answers her with a trumpeting one. He rounds around a pair of dark boulders and emerges within moments, coming to stop directly in front of her while his gold stripes brazenly catch in the winter sunshine. "My apologies for the wait," he tells the deep-colored woman who smells faintly of Tephra beneath the ocean brine of her coat. "I'm Nashua - current Keeper of the North." He tells her with an easy grin that pulls towards one side, "What brings you to our shores?"
we have a greed with which we have agreed. you think you have to want more than you need; until you have it all you won't be free. and when you think more than you want, your thoughts begin to bleed.
She’s never been to this part of Beqanna before. The North had been structured differently in her time as Khaleesi, and even then Scorch had handled so much of her diplomatic responsibilities that Wishbone had never needed to visit the island. Standing on the beach, the purple mare wishes that she had visited sooner; Icicle Isle has an isolated, special beauty that she notices even from its entrance.
Wishbone had been expecting to have a bit of time to study the island’s beachfront before her call would be answered. There’s a mild surprise in her amber eyes as a winged stallion arrives from between the rocks only moments after her request. She doesn’t mind the urgency of his response. In fact, the quickness of the stallion’s appearance soothes the anxious, time-sensitive need within her. There’s a current tugging in her belly, begging her to move quickly and create alliances right away, and she knows that his presence is a comfort to her impatience.
The purple mare returns Nashua’s smile with a warm one of her own. “Don’t apologize, I’ve only just arrived. I’m Wishbone, Queen of Tephra alongside my brother, Warden.” Based on her conversations with Warden, it’s been quite a while since Tephra has explored the other territories of Beqanna, and she suspects that many of them are in the dark on the volcanic kingdom’s leaders and affiliations.
It’s one reason why she’s visiting, but there’s another reason alongside it. “I’m here to establish good relations with the North. Tephra has been rather quiet lately, and we want to change that.” She isn’t ready to tell Nashua that their numbers are lower than she thought, or that they’ve had two recent border breaches involving her daughter getting kidnapped. Wishbone isn’t sure if things will boil down to a war between Tephra and Hyaline, but she will do what she can to avoid attacking Mazikeen’s kingdom. So she begins with forming alliances. “I know Tephra and Nerine held a strong alliance many years ago, but I’m unfamiliar with their relationship since then. I’m hoping we can move forward into something similar with the North as a whole.”
07-18-2021, 03:40 PM (This post was last modified: 07-18-2021, 03:47 PM by Nashua.)
"You have luck on your side then," Nashua gently teases the newcomer to Icicle Isle. Normally, he would have been on the opposite side of the island. His blazed face tilts her in her direction and some of the worry that the Freyr had been holding on to lessens. Something easy to do when Wishbone had (thankfully) given the pegasus something to focus on the interim instead of his missing Thane.
While he has never met the purple mare before him, Nashua has certainly heard her name.
Recognition alights in his green eyes and the striped stallion nods, happy to finally have a face to put to the woman he has heard so much about. "My mother was fond of the Watcher," Nashua starts, respectfully speaking mentionig the Tephran King. He had come to Taiga a few times to speak of politics with Lilliana and she had ventured to his kingdom to return the favor. A formal alliance was never declared but the Taigans that resided there under her rule knew that Tephra was a friend, should they need one. And Lilliana had always made certain that Warden knew should Tephra need one, they had it in Taiga. "And it's nice to finally meet you, Wishbone. Lilliana always spoke very highly of you." His face softened slightly before the winged horse continued on with their conversation.
Nashua doesn't bear a strikingly strong resemblance to his dam, but his manners (when he remembered them) and easy-going nature had always been accredited to her.
"All of Beqanna has felt quiet of late," the winged horse replies. It had felt that way in Taiga - the most active of the Northern territories. Almost like the calm before the storm. It was much too melancholy for his liking. He smiles slightly at her mention of wanting to establish good relations and glances behind her to the distant shore that Wishbone had traveled from. He had never cared being so remote from the rest of the mainland but Leilan had placed him in charge of the North and that meant doing so from the Isle. Turning his attention back on the Tephran Queen, Nash listens carefully as she explains that Tephra and Nerine once held a strong alliance.
"Nerine is guided by one of my brothers," he explains, hoping to give her some insight into the current politics of the North. "Reave," the striped stallion goes on to say before adding, "And Taiga is led by another, Yanhua." (Much like Wishbone doesn't yet reveal Tephra's low numbers, Nashua doesn't mention that Reave spends far too much scheming with their conniving sister - Aela - or anything of Yanhua's rapidly deteriorating mental state.) The North is whole and unified through blood, is what he wishes to impart.
"The North would like to continue our friendship with Tephra and her territories," Nashua says, another boyish grin tugging her way (this Freyr would never be known as a very stoic monarch) with his earlier worries dissipating at this good news. "Though we could agree to something more formal, if that would better suit."
we have a greed with which we have agreed. you think you have to want more than you need; until you have it all you won't be free. and when you think more than you want, your thoughts begin to bleed.
Perhaps Wishbone would have realized Nashua’s parentage on her own, though it would have happened during her journey home. Lilliana had certainly mentioned her twin sons before, though the purple mare hadn’t caught their names. Yet when Nashua mentions his mother, the pieces click together in her mind.
A brilliant warm smile flashes on Wishbone’s dark face, and she feels her restlessness ease even further. “Of course, I should have known,” she says with a laugh. Yet there is something that dims her delight at meeting one of her friend’s sons. The way he speaks about Lilliana — using past tense as if she were no longer in Beqanna — makes her skin prickle. Wishbone has yet to see her red friend since the eclipse ended; first, she had been consumed by Svedka’s continued disappearance, and then she was focused solely on protecting and caring for the twins.
Worry cuts through the warmth in her amber eyes. “Is Lilliana okay?” The glowing scar jaggedly etched across her chest aches at the thought that her friend might not be okay. That she might be swept into some other world like Svedka, or lost in the Afterlife. For a moment, Wishbone wonders how much more loss she can endure before she truly falls apart. But she must pull herself together each time — for Malik and Sickle, for Tephra, and for herself most of all.
Wishbone wonders what it’s like to guide the North alongside two other brothers. She and Warden have managed well enough with Tephra, though they’ve yet to come across any true obstacles, and she’s curious if Nashua’s experience is something similar. “Has that brought any challenges?” If they are to be allies, Wishbone wants to know if they are truly unified. She hopes for the best, but the purple mare knows that family can sometimes be better at pulling things apart than bringing them together.
She mirrors Nashua’s grin with a sun-bright one of her own. “I’m content knowing that our kingdoms and their territories can count on each other.” Wishbone pauses for a moment, considering if she should present her dilemma to Nashua so soon after establishing their alliance. But there’s little time to spare, and she can’t risk Gale threatening her family again. “Actually, there is something I want you and your brothers to know. Someone in Hyaline has been threatening my family and kidnapped my daughter from within Tephra. She’s been returned to me, but you can see why I’m looking for alliances. I refuse to allow something like that to happen again.”
Nashua's smile warms as her laughter does. It reaches his eyes for a moment until the chestnut pegasus remembers that his mother never saw the other side of the Eclipse. She had been lost to the darkness. "One of the monsters," Nash starts somberly and then doesn't finish. This story isn't unique; there were many families devastated by the shadows.
It seemed like everybody had lost someone during that dark time.
He looks across the tundra where the sunlight glistens across the ice-laden land. His throat tightens and then Nashua reminds himself of the alliance that he and Wishbone had been discussing. Better to focus on that, he thinks. Better to look ahead, his mother had always said. There is no changing the past. His speckled wings settle against his copper sides and the striped stallion glances back to the Tephran leader.
The Freyr is grateful for the change in topic.
"It's like anything that involves family, I suppose." He tells her with a tight smile. "There are hardships just as there joys." But the winged horse sighs and explains, "Reave is young and still finding his place in the world." At least, that was how Nash saw it. He goes on to explain that his youngest sibling had taken the Nerinian territory shortly after his second birthday. "And Yanhua...," he trails off. He isn't sure how to explain his twin's ailment (or that he even wants to) and so says what he knows: "He took our mother's passing hard." It might not be the sole reason for his brother's suffering but it seemed that was when the troubles started.
"We're still working through it," he goes on to say and though his smile dims, it remains. As steadfast as his belief that they will overcome this. "But that is what family does," states the Northern King. "We work together in times of struggle and know that there will be better days to come." He watches Wishbone again, wondering how it might be in quiet Tephra. She and her brother - Warden - ruled alongside each other and Nashua found himself curious as to what that was like. He even ventures to ask her - how Warden fared, how the Western territories were coping after the Endless Night.
(It makes him miss Yanhua all the more; makes him wish that his brother was there to ease his mind with that good-natured grin and his comforting glow.)
His expression darkens at the mention of the theft of her child. It grows even more when she mentions Hyaline. That is where another brother lived and his mate - the Alpha - lived. Where they were raising their own children. "Have you spoken to Mazikeen about this?" he questions Wishbone first. Their last conversation had been terse but the winged stallion didn't think that the pale mare would stand for the theft of children. It didn't sound like something her pack would do, either.
Since the deep-colored mare has shared so much with him, Nash continues to share more with her.
"I have a brother in Hyaline," he mentions. "Gale. He could perhaps assist in finding the culprit who took your daughter."
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