09-12-2017, 08:02 PM
She had no mother. Or, in the sense of the word, not one that I knew of anyways. Jinju had been more or less adopted, from what I could recall, and Ruan had really been the only parental influence in her life since the time I had met her. Brought up in the Taiga and letting our son grow old there too, even after I had felt the urgency to leave. It had always been my itching ideal to have Ander grow up as a cultured sort of stallion - away from the turmoil of Kingdom duty and what that sort of life pertained. For Jinju, though, family had been her everything. It drove a knife between us, made it hard for me to focus on what I felt was my obligation rather than my intuition, and my final act of leaving to visit Loess had been a proverbial closing-of-the-door on any sort of future we might have had.
But it hadn’t changed how I’d felt about her, or the love I still harbored for my only son who had remained underneath his mother’s intensely watchful eye. Perhaps that instinct buried deep into my bones what was had drawn me from the roost of a mountaintop cavern and down into the valley where Taiga lay.
Had lain, I should say. The smoke had been the first to assault my vision and in anguished flight I’d barreled into the heart of it, mouth agape with screams for Jinju and Ander until I was half choked by fear and soot. What horrible things my eyes had seen below I won’t relate - creatures twisted by malady and driven on by wrath. Destruction on a scale we Beqannan’s had become so sadly familiar with. It was all a freakish nightmare and somewhere, in the middle of it, was my only fragment of happiness.
Most of the others had scurried like rats to the river and so I followed from above, wings pumping a mad rhythm against my back while my legs pounded a tandem tempo over the clouds. Chaos ensued - all manner of natural life had fled cover of the redwoods to streamline for the channel and there they’d tangled with Taigan’s large and small until the screams intermingled to form a crashing, screeching crescendo.
There was nothing to be done, nothing I could do aside from looking ahead to pursue the heart of my intentions. Frantically my amber eyes had scanned the earth - a glimpse of antlers flashing white before disappearing into the Forest, the glint of ruby as a strange mare fled with rolling eyes, a glimmer of gold sliding through brackish underbrush …
Gold!
Twisting, I rounded on my back and dove head-first to the earth, wings closing near my dark body with the force of the wind whipping past my face. I leveled with a breath-taking swoosh, just above the dark treeline where I once again scanned for signs of Ander until at last, his pitiful cry alerted me to where they’d come to rest. I’m only in time to glance the bright flash of heat, to turn my head aside as I banked with the powerful, forward thrust of my wings and descend where she - Jinju - is waiting.
Breathless, terrified with what I’m witnessing, and mostly confused, I amble towards the two carefully until I come to stand beside baby Jinju. “Oh … dear.” I murmur, glancing once between the inky foal and her (now elder) son. “How could this have happened?”
OOC: in the process of making him some new html! lol I wanted to get this up though
But it hadn’t changed how I’d felt about her, or the love I still harbored for my only son who had remained underneath his mother’s intensely watchful eye. Perhaps that instinct buried deep into my bones what was had drawn me from the roost of a mountaintop cavern and down into the valley where Taiga lay.
Had lain, I should say. The smoke had been the first to assault my vision and in anguished flight I’d barreled into the heart of it, mouth agape with screams for Jinju and Ander until I was half choked by fear and soot. What horrible things my eyes had seen below I won’t relate - creatures twisted by malady and driven on by wrath. Destruction on a scale we Beqannan’s had become so sadly familiar with. It was all a freakish nightmare and somewhere, in the middle of it, was my only fragment of happiness.
Most of the others had scurried like rats to the river and so I followed from above, wings pumping a mad rhythm against my back while my legs pounded a tandem tempo over the clouds. Chaos ensued - all manner of natural life had fled cover of the redwoods to streamline for the channel and there they’d tangled with Taigan’s large and small until the screams intermingled to form a crashing, screeching crescendo.
There was nothing to be done, nothing I could do aside from looking ahead to pursue the heart of my intentions. Frantically my amber eyes had scanned the earth - a glimpse of antlers flashing white before disappearing into the Forest, the glint of ruby as a strange mare fled with rolling eyes, a glimmer of gold sliding through brackish underbrush …
Gold!
Twisting, I rounded on my back and dove head-first to the earth, wings closing near my dark body with the force of the wind whipping past my face. I leveled with a breath-taking swoosh, just above the dark treeline where I once again scanned for signs of Ander until at last, his pitiful cry alerted me to where they’d come to rest. I’m only in time to glance the bright flash of heat, to turn my head aside as I banked with the powerful, forward thrust of my wings and descend where she - Jinju - is waiting.
Breathless, terrified with what I’m witnessing, and mostly confused, I amble towards the two carefully until I come to stand beside baby Jinju. “Oh … dear.” I murmur, glancing once between the inky foal and her (now elder) son. “How could this have happened?”
OOC: in the process of making him some new html! lol I wanted to get this up though