[private] you know i never forgot

[Nashua]

The flight to Taiga takes him hours (though it feels like an eternity).

Had the weather been warmer or had Nashua waited for daylight, he could have made the journey in half his usual time. But the words that Ciri had said on the Isle keep him company, driving the striped stallion further into the sky and pressing him into a faster pace. Gale, she had told him - speaking the name of one of his elder brothers. The one that Nash had often flown to see in Islandres, who had been genuinely happy for when he moved Hyaline and sought to ease his worries when his brindled sibling revealed that he and Mazikeen were expecting twins the following spring.

Told to him by a Magician, Nashua thought to himself, replaying their last conversation for the thousandth time. Had he been Cursed then? What about at the Midsummer Fair when he and Gale and Tiercel had laughed together?

Had those moments been a taunt, a glimpse of what life might have looked like if they weren't their father's sons?

There are a thousand other thoughts and memories swirling around his frantic mind. None of them take precedent over this one: his family. The moment that the Thane had said Something wore his body, a familiar chill had gone up the chestnut's spine and Nashua knew that he had to return to Taiga. He kept thinking of Noel and their children. He had to reach them. Even if he was wrong (and he hoped to the Winds he was) and Taiga was left alone, he just needed to see them.

(And for the first time in his life, Nashua is divided. The only one who might understand this anguish best is Yanhua; the one who has been beside him through everything. And yet if he can't immediately find his twin, what happens? The Northern King keeps coming back to the tendril is that he needs to find his mate and children first and once assured they were alright, he would track his brother down. They would -)

Nashua has no clue.

He only knows that he needs to see his family safe.

"Noel!" he roars when he finally lands in the meadow not far from where the white woman and their children often rest. The first hours of daylight creep along the Taigan forest and the dark, sweat-covered stallion calls out for his winged mate again.

@Noel

NASHUA