[PQ - in progress] between the lines of fear and blame

[Gale]

There are answers on the mountain, Blue has heard.

He certainly has questions.

The brindle stallion makes his way from Island Resort on a bright summer's day. The wind beneath his multicolored wings is warm and strong, and he watches the change from jungle to red forest to hills to mountains with electric blue eyes. 

Around the Mountain, the winds become less predictable, and so Blue lands at the base of the tall spire. He'll have to climb the rest of the way on foot, he knows, and does not delay. There is no one else around - at least no one that he can see - and the young stallion makes his way ever upward in a strange sort of silence. Now and again he pauses to regain his breath, and does so more frequently as he climbs higher. The air is thin this high, he thinks, somehow thinner even than when he'd flown at similar altitudes.

By the time he reaches the peak, the summer sun has begun to turn the western sky to fire.

Blue takes a deep breath of the thin air, and calls out: "Hello?"

OOC: he's here to find out about his family but i thought maybe him finding a new family in the form of companion animal might be fun? or some sort of bird shifting so he can make a family with the birds? i'm down for anything

[Wysteria Fairy]

”You come with questions,” says a voice. It is only after she has spoken that she materializes. She is a tiny thing, a small horse-shaped creature made of white and purple, hovering a few feet away. What a funny image, she is really, living proof that looks are deceiving. Though today, she is not particularly hostile, but then again, his motives are not particularly greedy. ”And yet, they are questions you could answer yourself, I think. Return to Beqanna and ask others about their ‘families’ or, if you can, about your own. Come back and tell me what you have learned.”

***

You have rolled a 6 and received a quest. Thread with two other horses about their families (this could be a family they chose, one they were born into, or a lack thereof), or ask about your own family history. Return and report on what you learn. You may use the NPC account if you wish.

[Gale]

The Mountain is not his destination, but rather a deviation. A necessary one, the brindle stallion thinks, critical to the rest of his journey.

When he had first come here, climbing the mountain at the cusp of adolescence, he had not been sure what he truly searched for. His memories? His family? His purpose? He had not found those things at all, and instead been tasked with discovering the answer to questions that he had not yet been ready to ask. He had balked at first, and spent the better part of year as though he had never been to the Mountain at all.

And then, just as he had been ready to put his quest from his mind, Eyas had arrived. With her came answers: the names of his family, his history, everything he’d forgotten. That had led him Loess, where he had been spurned by the woman he had been sure was his mother. The fury in her eyes burns him still when he allows himself to dwell on it. So he rarely does. More months passed in the quiet resort, peaceful months broken only be occasional run-ins with the other residents. Only one has stuck with him as a portion of what the Fairy had tasked him with, and at first he had thought that was only so because he had told Divest of the task. And yet, as winter bled into spring and summer creeps ever closer, he has come to realize that it was more than that.

So now he comes to the Mountain, intending to make his way to Loess despite the hurt that he can so recently recall. Gale has things to tell the fairies, answers to the questions that he had been asked, and then asked himself.

He once more climbs to the peak of the Mountain, to the place where he has seen the tiny creature who had commanded him come back and tell her what he has learned. She is not there, at least not to his eyes, but he speaks regardless, certain that she will hear him.

“I did as you asked, and the questions I asked of you I have answered on my own.” Admitting his own fault is not difficult; he has always known he was flawed. “I know my family now – their names at least – and I mean to find them now. More importantly, I’ve learned that I am more than the family and the history that was lost to me. Others have their families taken from them, or choose to leave those families. I did neither, and yet still I was without them. But I can make my own family, I see that now, of friends and companions.” Of a lover and children, he does not add, because speaking of his dreams to the fairies without sharing them with the woman in question feels far too much like tempting fate. They will still understand, he thinks. Surely they would.

“Thank you for making me find this myself,” he tells the intangible creature. “I grew too comfortable wallowing in my amnesia, allowing it to drive me when I should have been defeating it.”

Thread with Divest
Thread with Eyas
Thread with Cormorant (less on topic, but he does ask about parents!)

@[Wysteria Fairy]

[Wysteria Fairy]

All hail the Queen of the Boards.

She does not come. She does not need to. Instead, what does find him is a little ball of light. It hovers and dips around him, as if trying to speak, but all he will know is that it needs a form and a name. Both must be given by him. Once he does, he will have the start of his own family, though it is only a start.

***

Gale has received a companion animal of your choosing. This will be non-genetic, because of trait spaces, unless you choose to make a different trait non-genetic. Please post in updates.