[private] my bad habits lead to wide eyes staring at space

[Nashua]

He can't help the smile he gives her.

It's the same one that he's worn his entire life (his grandfather's smile; though his is far more mischievous than any smile Valerio ever wore). It's the one that he has given Yanhua when they had played foalhood games, when his excursions had taken him too far and he was relieved to his brother again. It was the one that he gave his mother, always hoping to lift her smile so that it might finally reach her eyes again. He has shared it with his half-siblings, with his extended family, and strangers alike.

And yet, he has never considered this woman who never gave Nashua her name a stranger.

Perhaps, he hopes as his smile tugs to one side, his smile might be enough that today she finally tells him.

Nashua continues to approach her, noting the changes since the last time that he saw her. (Though part of him wonders if it might have been the Endless Night or the beast that ripped his chest open that made him miss the twin halos above her head.) His green eyes linger there a moment, studying the double rings that spiral there. The first one is thin and Nash -  who has always been too quick to jump from one thing to the next - almost misses it. But the silver sheen of it (like the moon) catches his attention and then his head lifts to consider the darker one that hangs at a different angle.

(If he had known how the second tormented her, Nashua would have told her everything can only exist in balance. There is no sun without the moon. No light without the dark. And in his eyes, she becomes what he had first thought: a perfect existence of light and dark, like the two colors now shining on her skin.)

The pegasus only slows when he feels something. For a moment, Nashua stops because the only similar feeling he has to this is when his sister - Aela - had come to Taiga and hurled every painful emotion she could at him. She had even shared a particularly hard memory of their mother and his pale lips had curled back in a sneer, warning the palomino to never step foot in his presence again.

There were many things that he could tolerate but the way that she (she! The only full sister that Nashua and Yanhua have, the child that Lilliana asked them to keep their distance from and allow her to be fostered out because of their father, had grown up to be as terrible as their notorious sire) had intentionally created and crafted grief had been an unforgivable act for the Northern king. Not when their family was already so rife with it.

So when the mare that saved him does something familiar, Nash comes to an uneasy stop. He feels them - the shock and the relief, the affection and the wariness (though the winged horse thinks that the last emotion might be genuinely his).

"I -," he starts and then glances down to the haloed creature before him. "I'm not very good with names." Nashua finally explains quietly.

She is full of questions and Nashua is grateful, since he seems to be at a loss for words.

"Still standing," he offers to one of them as he watches the black-and-gold woman study the parts of him that she had healed. The wounds had healed up nicely and were only visible under certain angles of light. Nashua had gotten good at presenting himself that the zig-zagged scar across his chest blended in with the plethora of colors on his copper hide. It was just one more thing to look at - like his flaxen mare or his gold striped or speckled wings.

Are you well? she asks him and something tightens in Nashua. He doubts that she would want to hear about his troubles as King of the North. About how his Thane has recently suffered two injured legs or that there is a widening chasm between he and his youngest child over his shifting. About how something dark seems to be afflicting the mind of his twin brother and how it makes Nashua so angry that he wants to lash out at the entire realm of Beqanna.

"Tell me how you've been," Nash counters to his companion instead, taking another step forward. It'd be nice to think anything else for a few moments. His green eyes glance up at her halos and then he looks back at her, "Was that you...," he prompts, curious about the empathic exchange from earlier. "All that.. feeling?"

@illuminae