"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
When Reave had warned her of a storm coming to Tephra she hadn’t quite known what to do with the information. The flooding of the south had already left her on edge, the waters having crept too close for her liking. Another natural disaster could prove to be the tipping point for the volcanic kingdom—the one that pushed them over the edge and into oblivion. She knew how to prepare for an attack from another kingdom, but how was she supposed to ward off nature itself?
Other than sharing the information with Savior, Leliana and Isilya are the only other residents privy to what Nerine’s king had told her. Her fear was that warning everyone would incite widespread panic, and it seemed unnecessary when it was something so beyond their control. She could not change the weather, nor did she know exactly when it would hit. It would do nothing but cause everyone to live in fear of something that could be years away.
Every dark cloud on the horizon is met with suspicion, but she keeps quiet.
Every roll of thunder sets her nerves on fire, but she says nothing.
When the wind picks up so does her pulse, but she gives no indicator that something is wrong.
It’s almost a relief when it finally arrives.
The storm comes, unassuming as all the others, until lightning cracks through the sky and strikes the side of the volcano. The last time the volcano had erupted Casimira had already been dead, shattered to dust by Starsin, and so for a moment she stands, transfixed by the destruction. But more strikes follow, drawing her back to the unforgiving present, and immediately she turns to locate her children and as many Tephra residents as she can.
She does not know how she dodges the lightning strikes as they pepper the earth, and she tries to not look too closely at the rivers of magma that course by her as she runs. She focuses instead on the faces as she passes them, mentally checking them off the list when she instructs them to get as far from the volcano as they can before moving on.
Just as quickly as it had begun, the shower of lightning strikes ceases, leaving Tephra to boil in the aftermath.
Breathless, Casimira comes to a stop not far from one of the roaring currents of lava. Her ice-blue eyes are bright and shining with adrenaline and fear, her body is coated in an armor of dragon scales, and she tries to will her heartbeat to return to normal. She stands in the wake of the destruction the lightning had brought upon her kingdom, and wonders if she will have to see Tephra partially destroyed in each of her lifetimes; wonders, too, if she had failed her home yet again.
It is then that she realizes that there are two faces she has not yet seen, and she tries to swallow down the panic rising in her chest.
I tried to sell my soul last night Funny, he wouldn't even take a bite
He is so fucking done with disasters striking the places he chooses to live. Not that there’s a damned thing he can do about it, but rage feels more productive that stewing impotently as he watches nature batter the volcanic island. When it finally subsides, by some miracle, he has been left untouched. He certainly hadn’t bothered trying to hide from or dodge nature’s fury, yet it hadn’t seen fit to strike him down for his hubris.
If he were a superstitious creature, he might believe himself cursed. He has lived far too long to believe that kind of shit however. Instead he curses his rotten luck before spreading his wings and leaping into the sky.
When he sees a pale form below, he almost keeps flying. Almost. If he’d had any damned clue what was coming, he absolutely would have. Yet he drops from the sky, hating that he feels beholden to do so. Or perhaps more accurately, hating that he doesn’t hate the thought of having some sort of purpose again, even if it is with his own unacknowledged offspring. Hating the guilt he refuses to accept.
“You survived,” he grunts in greeting, his already gruff temperament made even more so by the turmoil of the storm. “And we’re not even swimming in the fucking sea.”
As far as bright sides go, he supposes there could be worse. Then, before anything more can be said, someone else appears, hollering Casimira’s name. The small figure races clumsily towards them as it dodges the newly abundant lava flows, causing Ashhal to grimace in distaste. Fucking great, more company.
He hadn’t expected the storm dammit. Though he hadn’t planned to stay long, he’d hung around after coming back from seeing that their mother had returned in the flesh. Mostly because it was comforting to be close to Casi, even if she was too busy most of the time to humor him. Not that that would have stopped him from bothering her if he wanted, but he was trying to be good.
And look where that had gotten him - struck by a stray bolt of lightning. To be fair, there had been a lot of them. Though, from what he could tell, a lot is a really massive understatement. But lucky stallion that he is, he’d been struck. And apparently missed a hell of a lot in the meantime.
He had woken in a starburst of scorched earth and clambered to wobbly legs, equal parts relieved and annoyed. Relieved because, despite two previous revivals, he hadn’t been certain how many lives he might have been granted. Annoyed because, once again, he is a child. With a huffed breath he investigates his surroundings, alarmed to find Tephra’s landscape drastically changed. How long had he been out?
Stumbling forward, he nearly tumbles into a river of lava before right himself. With ginger steps, he backs away before climbing to higher ground to see if he can get a look. When he finally does however, his alarm quickly turns to horror. Much to his immense relief however, after a short time scanning the landscape, Cassian spots a familiar figure in the distance.
Without thought or preamble, he launches himself forward. He’s still clumsy as he grows accustomed to new legs, though that doesn’t stop him from racing heedlessly forward, dancing around slow-moving streams of lava as he does.
“Casi!” he yells, breath huffing from his lungs as he closes the distance between them. His brown eyes are wide with relief as he crashes into her, giving her a quick hug before pulling back. It’s only then that he realizes, quite belatedly, she isn’t alone. He had been so focused on his sister, caught by the immense joy of seeing her whole, that he hadn’t noticed her companion. “Oh,” he says a bit dumbly, peering at the vaguely familiar pegasus standing beside her. “You have company.” With a cheeky grin, he takes a step back, wobbling briefly before steadying himself. “Don’t mind me.”
The relief that she feels when Ashhal touches down nearby is unmistakable, and one of the tense threads of worry inside of her chest loosens its hold. He looks irritated, but she has come to learn that is normal for him, and she doesn’t let that deter her. She is not aware that the strange immortality she and Cassian shared had been inherited from their father—that every time they died they were simply reborn later. Although, it likely would not have altered the worry that she felt even if she had known. Even with history proving that nothing could keep Cassian dead forever, there was still that fear of the unknown, that perhaps they had only been given a limited amount of lives, so to speak, and one day it would be their last.
“And so did you,” she tries to return his gruff greeting with a nonchalant observation of her own, but she is sure the relief is evident on her face. “Not the sea, no,” she says, letting her gaze turn to where the rivers of lava churned in the not far distance and she adds drily, “but we might be burned alive by lava.”
She is distracted from her father by the sound of small hoofbeats, and when she turns to find a very familiar looking young face stumbling towards her there is a strange mix of relief and despair that takes hold of her chest. “Cassian,” she can’t hide the exasperation in her tone at the sight of him, because she knows what this means—that he had somehow been killed, which means he had either been doing something stupid (likely), or he simply had bad luck (also likely). She reaches down to touch her nose to the top of his neck anyway, suddenly remembering the presence of their father and deciding she could save the lecture on watching out for lightning strikes for a different day.
“This is my twin brother, Cassian,” she steals a glance to Ashhal as she says this, forcing her voice to remain level, casual; refusing to let onto the fact that she is already afraid that he will be even more irritated by this new information. “He’s usually taller,” the statement is punctuated with a nip to Cassian’s shoulder, but she clears her throat, the brief show of playfulness waning when she introduces her brother to their father. “Cassian, this is Ashhal.”
She holds her breath as she holds Cassian’s stare for a lingering moment—she knows she does not have to specify who Ashhal is, since their mother had never hidden it—and then turns her ice-blue eyes to the pale pegasus.
