anyone;

[Castile]

They should all know that it would only be a matter of time before Castile answered the temptation of visiting Nerine. It was as much a part of him as the dragon that coils and growls in the depths of his soul. Here is where his home – his heart – lies. It’s here that he took his first breath, that he played in the ocean waves, that he learned the deep-rooted love of family.
 
From the sandy shoreline to the cavernous tunnels to the plateau of sea grass, this is home.
 
It opens beneath him as he passes over a cloud, peering down with a nostalgic grin. The ocean’s whitecaps loom toward the beach and the grass ripples with every gust of wind. Almost like a dreamland, it lures Castile into a half-lidded daze. When he breathes, even at his altitude, he can nearly taste the salty air that once engulfed him from birth. A slight shift in his position glides him downward, spiraling him gradually to the shoreline until his hooves sink into the sand’s embrace for the first time in years. An instinctual glance finds the caves behind him, but he doesn’t venture to see whether his parents are there or not. In his heart – as it happily beats – it’s their place, where they will always be.
 
This is for his memory, his sanity.
 
Beneath the veil of spring sunlight, Castile turns from the lapping ocean waves to drink in the sight of Nerine, his mind wandering as high and far as the cliffsides wondering if anyone is even around anymore.

[Hestia]

sweet as sugar, hard as ice.
if you hurt me once, i'll kill you twice.

She knows they are around, they will be around at least. As soon as the announcement is made. The inhabitants of Nerine will crawl from their hideaways curious about what change has occurred in their land. They will either find hope in this change, or dread of another failure. Whatever may be the case Hestia knows what she must begin doing. She has a clear vision of her goals in this time that she has been given, and achieving those is going to take everything she has. She is spending her last day of no responsibility watching the waves roll in.

Walking along the beach in deep thought has become a relaxing routine for her. She occasionally gets to meet new faces, most of whom she has learned to like. She also gets to stretch her legs without the chitter of gossiping horses looming in the background like she would in the meadow. Today seems to be one of the former. She doesn’t smile when she spots him landing on the beach. Rushing around hasn’t been on the menu for many years. Instead she continues at her leisurely pace until their paths naturally cross. Hello, it’s a simple greeting, but she doesn’t know this soul. If he lives here she doesn’t want to mistake him for a visitor or visa versa.

The black hag observes him, waiting to find out more about him before striking up a conversation and making things awkward should she erroneously presume something. For a long while Hestia didn’t feel that she fit in well here, she missed the heat and noise of her Jungle; the craggy cliffs of the Valley. As time passes she finds more things irritate her less about this place, and some things she, begrudgingly, begins to favor. Like the grass, for example, in the Jungle it had been scarce, here it’s plentiful plus the sea air does something for it that can’t be described. Slowly this place has grown on her and the people she has met because of her needing to step out of the comfort zone has enriched her experience in this new world. So today when she is walking she doesn’t immediately duck away from talking to other horses, and she doesn’t turn up her nose at the sound of gulls. Any other day she may have dreaded the idea of being forced into a conversation. Today she takes it has a chance to be just another nameless face before she becomes a public figure representing Nerine.  

Hestia

@[Castile]

[Castile]

When he looks at Nerine, he sees nostalgia. He sees his childhood playing over again.

There were foals playing and Castile was too afraid to use his wings. They frolicked in the waves and bounded up the rocky paths. Mother watched from a distance, typically from the Cliffside, and father tucked himself into the ominous caves. Laughter poured in abundance. He was a prince. He was a son, adored, and then a brother.

Nerine cradles his life and his heart since he was a newborn. The salty air prickled his lungs at first, but nowadays he savors it as his eyelids lazily droop shut. The memories swell his heart. Instinctively, he watches the mouth of father’s cave, but no life seems to stir within.

For a few long minutes, Castile is unable to tear his eyes away from the cavernous mouth, willing his family to appear, but the only life is a salty gale that tousles his locks. It brings with it an unfamiliar scent. He almost ignores it, presuming it old and irrelevant.

(No, it’s fresh and so very alive)

The creature inside him stirs to life and turns his mismatched eyes toward the looming mare. A creature in Castile’s soul, rattling its cage, suppresses the solemnity. It’s replaced by an ignited curiosity that lights his gaze on fire. Hello, she says, and he hesitates to respond as he quickly looks her over before leveling on her face. There are stories in her eyes, unspoken truths. ”Hi,” he finally says with a punctuating silence that lasts a few heartbeats until he admits himself to her. ”I was seeing if my parents were still here… If anyone was still here…” It had appeared so abandoned from the sky, a forgotten peninsula on the edge of Beqanna.

But she, this solitary mare, proves he was wrong.

”I’m Castile… My parents were – are – Nayl and Lior.”

Sorry for the wait!

[Volcan]

volcan

Burn slow, burning up the back wall
Long roads, where the city meets the sky
Most days, most days stay the sole same
Please stay, for this fear will not die

There had been a time when borders and boundaries had been respected, when such blatant trespassing would’ve been met with angry faces and stern words. But things change, she supposes, as she comes across a stranger on the beach, who had perhaps flown here, given the wings on his back.

He has already been met by her Queen, Hestia… but the smokey woman approaches anyway. Let him see that there exists at least one soldier willing to put her life on the line for her kingdom. Let him see it’s not just a kingdom of dead bones and ash.

She overhears his words as she draws closer, and she can’t help but scoff.
”Look harder. We are here.”

She stops beside her Queen, says no more. But she is on her guard, eyeing this parent-flaunting stranger with suspicion. She supposes that he expects them to know these people - were they Kings, Queens once? He will have to try harder to impress. Royal blood is hardly a rarity.

[Hestia]

She can see the look in his eyes, its one that she is all to familiar with. One that she wishes she could have about this place. Maybe one day… patience… as it is only time that can offer you the gift of nostalgia. She knows the life, the loving cushy position of people doting on your every whim. Her own antics haphazardly caused just enough trouble that the adults would make a sound between a groan and a chuckle. The spunk in a filly may have been treasured, but the pranks were feared. Eventually it got her sent away to learn some manners. The black mare watches for a moment quiet as she respectfully allows him the moments that she to would be folding up in herself should she have them with this place.

Her voice is soft, not wishing to disturb, she knows to well the reluctance to be pulled away. Hestia remains quiet afterwards, not pushing him to say a thing. Almost distant in her gaze, she too looks to the cave, wondering and imagining what is special about this one in particular. He does respond eventually, and she ghosts a twitch of her lip, in understanding. Sometimes I wond… , she’s interrupted by one of the Nerinian residents. While she appreciates their fervor in their serving, their dedication to making her rule a successful one warms her soul, and the love they have for the land gives her hope for them. Hestia does frown on lack of decorum. All her people hold a special place in her heart, each one of them she treasures, and she hopes to build them up; giving them that connection with the land, each other and herself.

A year ago, she would have been broody, silent, with no ability to show sympathy. Even though she would have secretly sympathized with the male, she’d been adverse to touch, and sharing. But her beloved people refuse to allow this for their queen. They give her their burdens, and in turn ask her to give them hers. It was healing, but it was also painful, as becoming stronger often is. She hopes that with this connection she is able to reach the hearts of the people who live here, to bring them out of their brokenness and heal as they have helped her heal.

Her eyes flashing a warning to the roaned mare. You never know who you may be talking to. Even so, general respect for others is important. Too often in her life she’s experienced the degradation of being a ‘nobody’, and look at where she is now? Most of those who’d looked down their noses at her are whitewashed bones, as she outlives them.

Attention is quickly diverted back to the winged stranger. Well, stranger to her. She knows Nayl, she watched Nayl grow from child to adult. I’m sorry, Nayl is no longer with us.. Her words are tender in their cadence to many times she’s had to hear those words. She pauses giving him time to absorb and understand that she doesn’t know if the mare is alive or dead before she continues.

I remember Nayl as a child, I remember her becoming queen, her daughter Isobell followed in her footsteps. Hestia isn’t sure if these are things that he wants to know or already knows, but she does believe that he deserves to at least know that someone remembers. Understands what it’s like. She pauses before asking, would you like a moment? She can stay, she can go, whatever it is he needs. Hestia steps closer to him brushing her nose to his shoulder. The black mare may not understand herself why she does this, but she does it. Maybe she sees herself in him? Maybe its just sympathy? Maybe she’s just letting him know that he’s not alone. For whatever reason, they’ve met, and for whatever reason she senses some form of connection with him.

HESTIA

The devil whispered in my ear, “you’ll never survive the storm”
I whispered back, “I am the storm”

I LOVE Castille!!! <33333

[Castile]

Admittedly, a part of his soul crumbles when Hestia confirms Nayl’s absence. He doesn’t want to believe it, glancing longingly to the cavern and desperately holding onto a thread of hope that she is simply in hiding with father. Her immortality would spare her from death, right? Hestia mirrors a compassion that he so rarely sees among strangers, reaching toward him and brushing against the bulk of his shoulder. Castile doesn’t flinch away from the contact, his body frozen in place as he mulls over her kindness in contrast to the other mare’s hostility.

(Break her.)
(She would be so easy to rip. So tender. So small.)

Castile swallows past the lump in his throat – past the vile and bold demands of the monster coiled within him – and funnels his attention on Hestia. ”No, I’m fine,” it’s only half of a lie as he battles his new inner hunger and the despair at being alone without a family. A storm cloud brews inside him, black and foreboding and unpredictable.

When he blinks, his pupils turn to slits.
When he blinks again, they’re normal.

”So, are you Queen now?” He assumes by sparing a glance to Volcan to notice how she sidles close to Hestia, submissive to the hierarchy but still with a venomous tongue. In attempt to subdue the roiling anger inside him, Castile eludes responding to the mare’s quip. An easy breath escapes him, refusing to let them see any sign of his inner battle.

(She is irrelevant.)
(Be done with her.)

A lackadaisical sweep of his tail settles his nerves by a minute amount, but enough for him to speak again, his voice remaining level. ”I would never bring harm to Nerine. Family means a great deal to me and this is where they settled. This is where I grew up. I will always be an ally for this land.” Its salty air is a part of his blood, part of his soul. His unruly locks still hold remnants of both salt and sand, never having washed it out. Castile’s love for Nerine will never be cleansed.

[Hestia]

You can never know what is going to happen in Beqanna, a fact that may be true one day may not be the very next. And in the same breath that she states Nayl has not been seen since before her own rise to queenship Hestia is in full realization that this could change. Another reason she always has her eyes turned in hope to the horizon. She doesn’t say anything more for the moment, and there’s a change, one that she can’t quite put her… hoof on, mainly because she is to busy dipping her head for physical contact to see it happen. It tugs at her phoenix flame, feeding it gently to brighten and fill the space inside her just an inch more, the heat just a degree hotter.

He changes topics, gearing towards one that she has tried to keep quiet. Her lips thin wryly, I see word still travels faster than the wind around here. And just as the change had risen, it dissipates washed away with the ocean breeze. As if there never was a thing out of place to begin with, her flame quiet once more, easily swept to the back of her mind. She nods a little deeper out of respect for his sentiment, everyone is welcome within our borders until harm is done. We appreciate and remember all our allies. She knows just how powerful blood ties are for a land.

It quite possibly could be the strongest means of building friendships and connections between kingdoms. It’s an idea, and one that plants itself in her mind to be cultivated and grown later. Maybe when they actually have the numbers to begin making these kinds of ties. And what is it that takes your time? Normally she would add, these days at the end, but seeing as how she’s just met this man; even if she knows his mother, and can only guess at the kind of childhood he had obtained. She can not speak to his age, or past activities he may have indulged in-between current events, and childhood. Still having known Nayl when she was a filly, it’s a little difficult for Hestia to picture this man as being her foal. Sometimes immortality can still find ways to befuddle the mind.

HESTIA

The devil whispered in my ear, you’ll never survive the storm
I whispered back, I am the storm

@[Castile]

[Castile]

Castile shrugs rather nonchalantly as his eyes break from Hestia to look at the other mare – Amazon? – with a quirked brow. ”That, and the fact she acts as your subordinate… And you looked at her in a certain way that would mark your dominance.” It was a glance that he was familiar with, that mother occasionally did when she disapproved of someone speaking out of hand. He doesn’t indulge them or admit his familiarity with the situation, taking a more humble place as the wind at his back tousles his unkempt tail.

(Silence her)

Volcan is quiet now, so he suppresses the thought easily enough and focuses more heavily on the amiable nature of Nerine’s newest Queen. ”A different approach,” he admits with a whiskey grin, ”most times the Amazon-type are less welcoming.” His mind flickers to the brash mare at Hestia’s side, but he purposely avoids looking at her.

(Look at her)
(Dare her)

But it’s Hestia that continues to hold his attention, both for her conversation and her fire-kissed body. The heat draws him in; his inner soul is a moth to her flame. He is not cold; Castile has his own form of insulation with a fire always burning in his stomach, an unnatural heat during the winter months. It’s a tug on him that he occasionally feels when Tephra’s volcano comes into view. Not yet understanding why, Castile is able to easily enough hold his ground and not cave into the temptation.

A slow, thoughtful blink breaks his gaze. He looks down to the sand, then to the ocean behind his shoulder. Another breath of salty air is drawn in as he contemplates what, exactly, he does. It’s nothing impressive, nothing that his family would brag about. Castile has always been more humble and content to wander in their shadows. In Loess, that had mostly been a plan of his. He wanted to be a soldier, but then Ivar appointed him to something far greater.

”I’m in Loess,” he finally admits when he turns to face the pair again. He wants to say that he went there for his friend, but then Ivar abandoned his post and Castile was cast back into solitude when Isobell left as well. ”Just working on being a soldier, I guess.” A partial lie. He doesn’t confess that he is Regent – he expects it to be short-lived anyways – or that he is assisting Lepis in her reign while she learns as a child Queen. ”And you,” he shifts the conversation again as they do, back and forth, ”What brought you to Nerine?”

[Hestia]

Her lip twitches, his perception is keen. She tries her best not to announce she is queen. But rarely is she ever successful in keeping that fact to herself. Somehow, someway they all figure it out. It confuses the hell out of her as to how they can guess that she is the queen of Nerine, and not some other random black mare. Could be her eyes that give her away. Its not often that they find eyes as venom green as her own. They’ve always been a sweet spot of pride for her, but still everything else about her is so… ordinary it’s hard to imagine that if another black mare was standing next to her they would know which was which.

Was Nerine’s awaking whispered about this much? Most she talks to know of her name before she has a chance to introduce herself. So, she’s resorted to NOT giving her name, and that seems to work fairly well, some of the time. If they don’t know her name, they can’t know she is queen right? No, not right, there must be some sort of fashion gossip or some other type of gossip group, because it’s as if she approaches someone and they already know what to look for to identify the queen of Nerine. Oh well, life in the spot light, he would know, she doesn’t know he would know, but still he would understand this plight, and she would understand his reluctance to speak of his own experience. She chalks it up to being the son of Nayl, he probably saw a lot of that while living here as a child. Enough on that though, instead they chat of other things, pleasant things that don’t weigh on the mind and shoulders.

I am woman, here me roar, she quips back to him rather dryly. He looks comfortable on the beach, comfortable here in Nerine. She’s half tempted to offer Nerine as a home for him again. He talks of the Amazons causing a wry and bitter glimmer to mask her face, yes against better advice, and look at where it got them. She’d warned them, told them that alienating was not the way to make a strong Jungle. Did they listen? Of course not. They scoffed at their older sister, they starved for the golden age, and saw her generation as bitter angry beasts. Even though they were not. They wanted something they were to angry to have, and she knew she would live to see the day they would regret it. She’d dreaded that day, and still when the day came it was worse than she could have ever imagined.

These winter months make this gift a true gift to be grateful for. Otherwise she would absolutely hate it here on the coast, and probably end up leaving all together because of how terrible the weather is. So she remains grateful for the blanket of warm. If you ever wish to come back to Nerine, there will always be a place for you. Males are no longer unwelcome, and I’ve already appointed one as Champion. Nerine will not be the same as it was. She leaves out the part of her trying to pull all their heads out of their own asses. But it’s implied through her word choice, and tone. She looks up to him watching as moments pass where he is intent on her, and other times where he is more relaxed.

They ping pong back and forth, sharing and inquiring, acquainting themselves with other linked through a woman who’s life was spent dedicated to the one place they both care about. My children, she states matter-of-factly, there is no point in lying. He’s shared something equally as painful a burden to bare. I am looking for them, and if they ever come back, they know of my past with the Amazon sisters and wouill… know to look for me among those I’m familiar with. It’s my only hope, being at the top, it’s the only way they stand a chance of ever making it back to me. Or me to them. She doesn’t say it, just lets her words drift away into private thoughts for a moment glancing out over the angry waters. Before bringing herself back to the present and their conversation along with it.

She changes to another piece of information, have you been in Loess long? She doesn’t bombard him, even though she’s a little curious as to how long Isobell was on the throne. She’s still not aware of how much time passed since she fell asleep that day and left this world to its bickering nonsense. It would be nice to at least have a gist of that. Maybe if she can find out how long Isobell was on, then later casually find a way to indirectly ask about Nayl’s reign she can figure the math from there. Clever, clever girl that she is, Hestia is pretty confident that she can get this information. FINALLY.

HESTIA

The devil whispered in my ear, you’ll never survive the storm
I whispered back, I am the storm

@[Castile]

[Castile]

”Where it got them,” he repeats thoughtfully before a shrug ripples through his broad shoulders. Mother told him all that she knew about the Amazons, but it was limited to the stories passed down from his great-grandmother. They could be bias, subjective truths, or even lies; nonetheless, they survived. ”But also look at how many successful generations there were.” Even with the minor contradiction, his voice remains fairly light, but still somewhat distracted by the workings of his mind…

(… and the fire)

Her body has been kissed by fire, but her eyes are an alluring veridian that entice him each time he levels his gaze on hers. ”Each Queen will have different expectations and different rules,” Hestia wants equality in her ranks which is an enticement to him, but his reservations prevent him from accepting the offer. ”So what makes this the Amazons then, and makes it any different from the other kingdoms?” An inquisitive tilt of his head slants a sheet of sunlight across his mismatched eyes. They study Hestia’s face, noting her glances and reactions and how she weighs the idea of having him among her ranks to join her male champion. He could come home, he muses, but something deeper growls at the prospect.

(Change)

Castile is different from when he was a child romping in the shallows. There is something in him that is stronger, more volatile. He’s as dangerous as the volcano in Tephra.

(Find it)
(Find fire)

Hestia.

The inferno of her body, her wings, still continue to draw in his attention, but her words distract him albeit briefly. ”A wise way to think,” he admits to her planning as he considers what it would be like to have children and to hope for their safe return. ”I hope they find you soon,” it’s all he can fathom to say. What would parenthood be like? What about to lose children? Is it remotely close to the sense of loss in his heart with not having seen Isobell? He had searched for her in Loess. Although her scent permeated the air, he never saw a flash of her face, only Ivar.

And then he left, too.

”I haven’t been there long,” he confesses in a husky voice, ”I wandered for a long time before deciding to go to Loess.” What he doesn’t add is the reason behind a nomadic lifestyle. It wasn’t a decision he made happily. The pain and fear of what he is clouded his judgment and spiraled him into a dark place. He wanted to hide from himself and from Beqanna so they wouldn’t see what a monster he had become.

But he needs to accept it, to live with it. To move forward.

(To hunt)