“blood in the cut”

[Nashua]

NASHUA

"Nashua-," his mother struggles at keeping her tone patient and even,"you can't just disappear like that." The pegasus colt flicks his golden broom tail in protest of that but says nothing. Nashua knows Mama is right - she usually is. He knows he should listen and stay in the Taiga but how could he when Yanhua had figured out that he could pass through the trunks of the impressive Redwoods as if they didn't exist at all? His brother had been on one side of the tree and then Nash had blinked. Yanhua stood on the other.

His twin can glow. He can pass through trees. There was very little (it seemed) that his brother did wrong.

All that Nash had to his name are the fledgling wings on his back.

So Nashua is determined to master them. It doesn't matter that he still young and that true flight - the kind that will unfurl Beqanna beneath his hooves - is still ahead of him. However, the trees of Taiga (mighty and impressive as they are) are not the ideal for a young pegasus learning to fly. He hadn't intended to go so far but by the time the Northern Forest was behind him, the sun had been setting. The trees might have spaced out but now the shadows crept closer as the moon climbed higher. It had been well past dark by the time his mother had found him and it was darker still as Lilliana accompanied him back to their home.

"I'm sorry, Mama," the little boy murmurs and buries his pale face into her copper coat when they finally stop to rest. He's tired and he knows now that he shouldn't have gone so far. His mother slows and though she should be angrier with him than she is (Lilliana has a very good reason for not wanting her boys out of the Taiga), the crimson mare reaches down and nuzzles him. He will only be this small for so long. The time she has with her boys is fleeting and she is learning to treasure these memories like lightning strikes - things that will flash by them quickly but will illuminate their lives as they carry on. "Come," she says quietly, "Yanhua is with your Aunt Ruth and they will be getting worried."

A quick nudge and the pair move on, following the River back to the North. Its the throaty laugh of a mare that attracts Nashua's attention and the little boy stops, distracted by the two outlines standing beneath a grove of trees. "Mama, look," the colt whispers, his curiosity taking him a few steps further away from her than he intends. When he gets closer, he sees that they are painted in shades of white and black. His mother is still a few muffled hoofsteps behind him when he asks, "What are you doing in the dark?"

and for every king that died
they would crown another

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@[Chemdog]