[open] we stand still to see where it comes down | mazikeen + anyone

[Nashua]

His palomino aunt once asked him: Did you know that your Uncle Soren has green eyes? and sometimes Elena would look at his wings with a gentle smile adding: And you have cousins in Windskeep that can fly. Tarian and Liam have wings just like you. He'd nodded and smiled like he understood (because it probably was the truth) but these were horses that Nashua had never met.

This was family that seemed as far away as the constellations; pretty things to consider but there was too much distance to feel any real warmth.

Nash looks towards Gale and then flashes Mazikeen a quick grin as Tiercel mentions that their brindled sibling will certainly need that luck. His gaze wanders back towards the two brothers - who were part of a trio like his triplets - and the grin on his face deeps into a smirk. This brazenness was not something he had expected from Tiercel, who had seemed so (rightfully) reserved at the beginning of their meeting. It reminds him of Yan, in a way, who always seemed so determined to keep pace with him when they had been small.

(Not that Nashua would have ever gone far without his twin, but thinking of Yanhua now makes the pegasus wish his brother were here. The only thing he considers missing from what is becoming an almost perfect memory.)

The younger stallion watches the dunskin as he approaches the trunk of the fallen pine and takes note of the way that he seems to stall near the middle of the tree. It wobbles and shifts so Nashua tries to take a similar tactic when it is his turn to approach the arboreal foe. His first few steps are steady and the striped pegasus keeps his balance until the log creaks and groans underneath him, a little after the halfway mark. Deciding that it was too risky to take another step forward, the chestnut stallions leaps from his spot towards Tiercel and the nearby bank.

It's a leap of faith and with Nashua being the dreamer that he is, it is too far.

For a moment, he almost flares his still invisible wings. But no, he remembers. No cheating. They flicker back into existence but stay determinedly clasped to his copper sides. He crashes into the water like a breaching creature, with the white spray and clods of mud lifting to where Nash had been just seconds before. The Hersir might not have had much balance on the log but he is quick to stand and he shares that summertime laughter with the three horses near him, full of a warmth that he feels in the presence of them - of family.

When he finally settles, Nash shakes out the soaking wing nearest Tiercel. "It's no Loessian hot spring," he calls out to him and trying to supress a shiver (though it is summer on the Isle, the water still retains a glacial chill) says, "but it's not too terrible." Still beaming with a grin, Nashua says over the din of the current to @[Gale]: "Your turn, Mainlander."

NASHUA