the courage of stars; straia, any

[Oksana]

you taught me the courage of stars before you left

It wasn’t that she thought she would never be back, for an immortal mare who felt an almost constant pull towards the dark of her childhood home it would’ve been a foolish assumption. It was that she never expected to return without her other half. Without Makai. She hadn’t thought, not in a long while, that she would ever have to do anything without him. Yet, he had gone, quickly, with little more than an apology on his lips. With that stench of sickness on his skin, the Chambers familiar curse bleeding black in his veins, he had disappeared into the night. She had thought to follow him, reflexive in the way her heart beat for him, but her eyes had drifted to meet the solemn expressions of their children and found the desire to follow him had bled away. Malis would be able to keep up easily – and oh, she was so like her father, kindred in the darkness that seemed to follow them. But Ilka and Pyxis were young still, delicate, fragile, and trying to find Makai would take an unnecessary toll on them.

Her heart had broken that night, and it wasn’t a clean break, two halves that would knit themselves back together with time. It was like a dropped porcelain ball, shattering beyond recognition, the edges between pieces turning to dust and blowing away.

It was world-altering.

Her heart thudded dully in her chest and her blood felt cold and thick as it moved sluggishly through her veins. Inwardly, she felt devastated, confused, like her bones were these brittle, crumbling things and each step she took was agony. Each step that brought her closer to the Chamber, and further from him. But she couldn’t stay in the outer reaches of the Jungle, not now, not with the memories flickering like fireflies behind her eyes. A constant reminder of what should have been but would never be. And she would never return to the Falls, a place she had grown to hate despite her best efforts. It was impossible to know how much of that was her own feelings, and how much was an instinctive reaction as the kingdom had sucked the magic from her veins – consuming, for a time, her immortality and plucking her glorious wings from her withers like she were little more than an inconvenient insect.

She sighed, a shuddering sound despite her best efforts to trap all the feelings churning in her stomach and keep them from bleeding into the shadows of her delicate chestnut face lest she concern her children. Hers, not theirs, she thought in a moment of selfish pain. Those sharp green eyes, bright as mined emeralds, fell lightly over each of her daughter’s faces. Malis was the eldest, and so much like Makai that Oksana felt her stomach clench. The bay sabino had her mother’s bright green eyes, but all of her father’s darkness. She was strong and wild and vulnerable in a way that seemed to scare her, though she hid it well. Now, Malis gave nothing away as she travelled a ways behind the group with a flat, tight-lipped expression. Oksana suspected the girl was just as devastated as her mother, and certainly old enough to understand that he had left with no promise to return. Ilka had been born next, jet black just like her father, except with her mother’s white sabino markings. A perfect combination of the two. She was soft and kind and eager to laugh, much like Oksana might have been had she not first found life beside her dams dying body. Even now, on Ilka’s sweet, confused face, a small brave smile curled at her lips. Beside her was Pyxis, a miniature version of Malis, except much more of an enigma. She was the youngest, and Oksana didn’t think she really understand why Makai had gone or where they were headed.

Oksana turned her attention back just as the familiar outreaches of the Chamber came into view. She had no control over the way her muscles suddenly stopped working, the way her hooves landed and stayed in the dirt of the well-worn path. It was unbearably familiar, the sense of nostalgia nearly overwhelming. For a quick second she had a flash of concern, what if Rodrik wasn’t still king, what if Straia had gone. She should have kept better track back in the Jungle, but it had never seemed relevant. She smiled a tightlipped smile, just a rigid slash across her mouth. The idea of Rodrik giving up his reign seemed laughable. She needn’t worry.

Her wings stretched proudly above her withers. They were feathered today, the color of charcoal and fire, and some of the feathers even seemed singed near the ends. With her teeth gritted and her chin lifted, she made her way into the Chamber, following a path until the small group stood at the heart of the kingdom. She didn’t hear it at first, someone had told her once that only the loyal could, but after a few moments wrapped in that cold, foggy silence, she could feel in her bones that haunting thump-thump of the heart.

It was his father’s heart. The thought hit her like a punch to the gut and sent her reeling inwardly. It was ironic, was it not, that she felt an almost tangible pull to the place Makai hated most, to the place that had resurrected him from death and now claimed his existence. His blood was black because of the Chamber, his skin bare and his lungs rattled because this Kingdom wanted it to be so. She clenched her teeth so hard she could taste the metallic stink of blood on her tongue.

But Straia was here, and Straia was the closest thing to family that Oksana had. She was the brightest part of every childhood memory. Sister and best friend, and Oksana needed her now. So she waited, apprehension buried beside the heartbreak just beneath the surface. Malis stood cautiously at her hip, her frigid green eyes giving nothing away. Ilka and Pyxis stood together on the other side, nestled quietly beneath one of Oksana’s wing and against her already suspiciously swollen barrel.

how light carries on endlessly, even after death

Oksana

[Straia]

The Chamber takes everything. For Makai, it had pulled him from death but left him rotting in the world of the living. For Atrox, it had taken his heart. For Rodrik, it had stripped him of his powers and eventually sold him to the Valley (but of course in part, that had been Straia as well). For Straia, it had taken her family. Every last one of them, but Kavi.

First, it had taken Oksana. Sent to the Falls where she ruled and hated it, and eventually she disappeared from the land of the living. Her heart sister had been alive, of course, but gone, and Straia had never thought she’d see the girl again. Next, it look Lucrezia. Sent to the Deserts as a pawn, and Straia had failed in her promise to visit because always, always the Chamber had needed her more. So Straia served the Chamber, while her sister served the Deserts and grew to resent Straia instead. Then, her father. Though she admits, that was no great loss. Still, having Rodrik as an enemy is not particularly something anyone wants.

This piece had been her own doing, though she believed he deserved it. The members of the Chamber didn’t seem to think otherwise. They would have said something, because she lives with the type of horses that hardly keep their mouths shut. But Rodrik had grown to be an absent King, and the Chamber suffered. So when Straia found Eight with the Valley crown on his head, she took the opportunity to unite the two dark kingdoms and depose her father in the process. Also, of course, she was given the crown. But then again, hadn’t it been hers all along? She gave everything for the Chamber, she put her kingdom first, and when it burned to the ground she was the first to find it, to stay and work to rebuild.

The crown was hers indeed. One day, there would be someone better, and she would pass it on when the time was right. But now, there was no one better, and she felt no pity for her father or remorse for her decision. She did what was best for the Chamber. He had sworn he too only wanted what was best.

She had almost lost Kavi then. Her Uncle disappeared to the Valley, following her brother, which she had expected. The question had always been whether he would return. And he did, thankfully. She’s not sure what the Chamber would do without its Ambassador. They needed someone skilled with words, and more eager to be polite than Straia ever was.

And then, the Chamber gave her back.

Straia knows the smell that finds her on the breeze. For a moment, she thinks she must be sleeping, dreaming. There’s no way that Oksana has returned to this place, this place she’d run from so thoroughly for so many years.

But the sun is shining today, the mist low to the ground in the almost regrown pine forests. There are still burns and missing limbs on their pine sentries, but the trees look better than they have in years. She is not dreaming.

Straia picks up a canter across the Chamber, weaving through the pine forests with the ease only someone who has grown up in these forests can have. She finds them in the heart of the kingdom. Oksana, and younger version of Oksana and Makai. Not that Straia knew Makai well, but they had met, and she remembers the stallion well enough to assume the black children are his.

She slows to a walk as she approaches the group. She’s grown, but she’s still the same mare she’s always been. Wild, bold, beautiful. Just older, with a metaphorical crown on her head and a child roaming around somewhere. “Oksana,” she says with a smile on her lips. Real, not the sultry upward twinge of her lips she usually has. “It’s so good to see you.” Because it is. It really, really is.

straia

queen of the chamber

[Erebor]

We are at war. There will be scars.

Erebor does not know what it is like to give everything to the Chamber because he has never known anything else. To him, sacrifice for your home is simply part of life. He skipped the selfish period of childhood, where the primary focus is inward, on himself, on the wants and needs of a growing boy. He'd skipped over it completely, born as close to an adult in a child's body as it is possible to get.

But there are some things that cannot be learned other than through experience, and heartbreak is the first on that great and terrible list. The boy has never given his heart to anyone but the Chamber, and so he does not know what it is to have that heart ripped and shattered. The Chamber may be a cruel mistress, but only rarely does it take your heart. There are notable exceptions, of course; giving your heart to the Chamber does seem to run in his family. His grandfather's heart beats beneath their feet, a reminder of that very fact. His mother and other grandfather have done it too, although their sacrifice is not quite so tangible.

And so it is that he doesn't know this stranger who appears in the middle of their kingdom. She smells strange, but she smells more or less like nowhere, and she has a gaggle of children around her. It isn't long at all before his mother appears too, and his mother seems to recognize her instantly. Oksana – he's heard that name, and he flicks through his memories, trying to pluck out where from. Goodness knows he's pestered his mother for information enough that she might have mentioned it.

He comes up blank, but decides to approach anyway. He's come to learn that he's welcome in most any conversation his mother is holding; she may have secrets from him, but if she does, she guards them well enough that he doesn't even suspect. Or perhaps he's simply too respectful to pry. Or perhaps all of the above.

"Mother." he greets, his voice flat and even, but with a hint of a question that only she would likely recognize. They've come to know each other well in the time since his birth. They had traveled to the Amazons and the Tundra together, and passed many hours talking together in this very spot, or walking as mother and son amongst the pine trees. He knew she'd know that he was curious and unwilling to pry, just as he could see that whomever this mare and her children were, they meant something to his mother.

He turns his attention back to the other mare and to the children. The oldest is not so different in age from himself, he suspects, although the youngest look quite a bit younger. "Oksana," he greets, his voice soft and gentle. Welcoming her doesn't feel like the right thing to do here, and so he decides to stick with something simple, something that can't go wrong. "I'm Erebor."

Erebor

Native Prince of the Chamber

warship x straia