11-15-2016, 05:36 PM
Exist had been born on the mountain, born dressed in the traits she would one day grow into. She had felt them glow warm and bright in her veins, had even loved the pull of the wings against her withers when she tried to open her eyes and struggle awake. But wakefulness had not come for the tiny child, only for the twin who had been born before her. Where Leliana had wiggled and fussed and opened bright, beautiful eyes, Exist had stilled and withered and felt the cold creep in to steal away all previous warmth.
She had been born to die.
Without Leliana, she would have.
If I exist, then you exist. Her sister had whispered into the curve of an apricot ear, and then with a brown neck slung across Exist’s impossibly thin back, Leliana had healed her. It felt like stealing warmth, and at first she didn’t like it, didn’t like taking so much from her other half. But the more Leliana poured into her, the more she was able to push back. Magic spoke to magic, and it woke with a quiet roar inside her until finally her eyes did flutter open and they lay together not out of desperation, but out of reflex. Tangled safely, happily together as they had been inside mothers womb.
Leaving the mountain was hard, to feel the magic siphoned from her veins and watch their wings turn to dust and fall away from their backs. It felt like leaving someone behind, someone important. But as she had looked between the faces of her mother (drawn and tired, wounded) and her sister (so bright, so perfect) she had pushed that feeling back and away, burying it because other things mattered more.
But when the blue mare appears in all her gleaming wonder, interrupting the play of the twins where they remained hidden in a smaller clearing dappled with sunlight, Exist could not help but be drawn to her – to the blue and the bright and the impossible. To things that reminded her of the ache she had buried in the deepest parts of her heart. She is quiet when she comes, wide-eyed and only a little uncertain, and touches her nose to a color that had always been so familiar, a blue that darkened the bottoms of her own apricot legs. “Hello,” she says in a birdsong voice, turning back only once to look to where she had left her sister, and then as if it weren’t entirely obvious to this strange mare, “i’m blue, too.” She hesitates and tilts her head a little, casting a glance around to see if there were other foals who had gathered nearby. “Are you looking for someone? Maybe I could help.”
She had been born to die.
Without Leliana, she would have.
If I exist, then you exist. Her sister had whispered into the curve of an apricot ear, and then with a brown neck slung across Exist’s impossibly thin back, Leliana had healed her. It felt like stealing warmth, and at first she didn’t like it, didn’t like taking so much from her other half. But the more Leliana poured into her, the more she was able to push back. Magic spoke to magic, and it woke with a quiet roar inside her until finally her eyes did flutter open and they lay together not out of desperation, but out of reflex. Tangled safely, happily together as they had been inside mothers womb.
Leaving the mountain was hard, to feel the magic siphoned from her veins and watch their wings turn to dust and fall away from their backs. It felt like leaving someone behind, someone important. But as she had looked between the faces of her mother (drawn and tired, wounded) and her sister (so bright, so perfect) she had pushed that feeling back and away, burying it because other things mattered more.
But when the blue mare appears in all her gleaming wonder, interrupting the play of the twins where they remained hidden in a smaller clearing dappled with sunlight, Exist could not help but be drawn to her – to the blue and the bright and the impossible. To things that reminded her of the ache she had buried in the deepest parts of her heart. She is quiet when she comes, wide-eyed and only a little uncertain, and touches her nose to a color that had always been so familiar, a blue that darkened the bottoms of her own apricot legs. “Hello,” she says in a birdsong voice, turning back only once to look to where she had left her sister, and then as if it weren’t entirely obvious to this strange mare, “i’m blue, too.” She hesitates and tilts her head a little, casting a glance around to see if there were other foals who had gathered nearby. “Are you looking for someone? Maybe I could help.”