[open] protect your neck & triumph.

[Wu]

Light, and dark. There is always a fighting force inside of you - an in-between that is felt although you can never quite place a finger on which side you would like to be on. One foot in, one foot out. 

Wu has only been on this earth for but nearly a year, and already he can feel the tear inside of him. There is something dark swaying to a song, and there is something light that is begging for the sun. Souls and roots and sun and shade- and it feels like it will never sort itself out. He feels; but he does not know quite yet what the rift inside of him can do. He couldn’t begin to fathom bringing life back from the dead, and he couldn’t imagine edging life into death - but that is what rests tightly inside him, awaiting discovery. 

He too, is waiting to be discovered. He is a result of quick thinking, hormones, lust- not to be desired, but to be carried until birth because a split second decision made it so. And now? Now he is alone- not yet a man, but not quite still a child. Drifting in the rift between. 

He is still in the heat of the day, the dried and brown grass of the field begging out to him for some semblance of life. He feels it tugging on the strings inside of him; they ask and plead and beg to not succumb to the aching heat of the barren skies. So he tries- he reaches out, feeding green into brown, coaxing life into the flora when there should be none. 

And he waits- for life, or death, or something in between. 

[Roselin]

"Oren?"

Roselin asked behind a rather large, densely-leaved bush. Looking behind the shrub, the silver-black filly didn't see her brother. He wasn't hard to miss - not with his metallic-colored socks or blaze. Oren was always rather easy to find (and that was why Rosey preferred to be the seeker in their game of search-and-sometimes-find). Their game, however, had extended past the borders of Taiga and the girl had mistakenly ventured away from the Redwoods. Her dark ears flicked back and she turned to look behind her, unfamiliar with this part of the forest.

But the forest was no longer a forest and the further she walked (towards what she had originally been certain was towards home), the trees became sparser and finally the world opened up above her. Distractedly, the blue-eyed filly had stared up into a particularly wide expanse of sky. She had known it was big but out here - wherever she was - the sky suddenly seemed so much wider.

She wove through the crowds, keeping her head down and her ears back as Roselin began to realize that she was lost. There was no Oren to tell her that it would be okay. There was no Yanhua to save the day. No Da to ask her to be a brave lass. It was just her - just Rosey - and she was terrified about being alone in the crowds. She wandered for a few hours, trying to keep distance between herself and the others. She had managed to convince a mare and her weanling that she was alright. Roselin had told her that her Mum was nearby. She's over by the trees, Rosey had tersely replied. The girl had supposed it wasn't a complete lie.

Her dam was most likely by the trees.
Those trees just happened to be in Taiga.

There is relief when she is finally alone but terror as well. What will she do? How will she get back to Taiga? The River, she remembers. Mama says you can always listen to the River. When she finally leaves the shade that she had been hiding beneath, the young girl walks past a rather dark colt who appears to be sunbathing. Normally tentative about meeting others and shy, Rosey would have happily kept herself and attempted to try and find that bubbling brook that she could hear in the distance.

But something makes filly stop and look down to the ground she walks on. It had been brown a moment ago. The stalks of grass had begun to parch with the summer. But as she studied them and lowered her slender head, she realized that they were turning green. Turning to look behind her, she watches the older colt. "Was... Is that you?" she whisper-asks, hesitant to raise her voice and scare away the plants blooming back into life.

@[Wu] what, no I am totally not procrastinating on my Alliance post.

[Wu]

wu

Wu did not have time for games. He did not have time for a mother, or a father, or a friend, or a sibling. He was born, he was nursed, he was weaned, and he was let go to discover the world on his own. While not ideal for a young colt, it was his only option, and precisely what he did. Luckily, in Beqanna, there are faeries to watch over all- and gently he was guided to the field (a gift, of sorts. The possibility of a new beginning). 
Aside from his stumbling discovery of the field, Wu had little else. He had only the field, and the yin and yang that pulled inside his chest - the cry of the flora, and the call of the afterlife. He had wondered, on his journey over, what it would feel like to belong. To have a place that was home, one that he was not swiftly dusted out the door. To have people he belonged to - not simply a mother that forced him away when he was far too old to continue suckilng. The field the faeries had said - the field would give him such a place, such a people, such a world. And so he went. 
The grass is not stubborn - it drinks in the light of his gift like a fish to water, a fire to flame. No plant ever really wants to die, you see. They all want to flourish - want to thrive, and grow, and spawn seed across the land. The grass beneath him relishes in the delight of growth (and truly, Wu felt jealous - felt the desire to flourish so freely from a hand so lovingly) - the emerald green is a burst of a gem amidst the blotted brown of the land. His ferocity burns so bright - his anger and resentment and lack of love pushed forth into bursting and bloom. There is so much anger in the pit of his heart that although he is creating life into the land, he almost simply wants it to burn, too. Can he take away what he has just given?
His face is taut and furrowed, ripples of anger and unjust marring his too-young, too-soft face. It is not fair that he can somehow create life beneath him, but not inside of him. Why cannot just not burn and die? Why must it only grow?! Why can he not make it die like the feeling he has inside of him? ‘Is that you’ And Wu jerks back, his concentration breaking, the grass already fading from a rich green to a dull yellow (these traits are not built so easily). 
“What… I don’t.. I don’t know. I think so? I just feel this pull inside  of me? I don’t know how to describe it. Do you feel it too?

@[Roselin]

[Roselin]

Rosey was fortunate.

She had a mother who made all the time in the world for her. She had three elder brothers who kept her company when she wished it. They played games with her and told her stories. She had a father who visited often and was never unkind. In fact, he liked to tease her and Leilan had been the one to teach her about the clouds of ice-smoke that sometimes came ribboning out through her dark nostrils.

Roselin knew about the Fairies but she had yet to meet one (and when would she? The silver-black filly rarely left Taiga). If she had known that the dark colt was familiar with them, their conversation might have taken a different direction.

But instead, he had called to the grasses below their petite hooves and Rosey’s slender head was still glancing towards the now-green ground. She doesn’t know that this creation stems from a lack of love, that it comes from brutal anger that can be tragic in one so young.

All she has known has been an abundance of love. All she has known that her days - apart from this one and getting lost - have been mostly happy. The vibrant green of life begins to fade and Roselin lifts her blue eyes to look at the older colt. "Look,” she says and dips her head to motion at the yellow grasses, still a shade more alive than the others. Her voice is nearly breathless because she hasn’t seen Magic like his yet.

When she glances up at him, she smiles shyly. He should be proud of it. "I can’t do that,” says the girl with a simple shake of her head. "Daddy calls me a glacier, sometimes.” Roselin tries to explain. A soft snort alludes to what her sire has claimed. A soft tendril of silver emerges from her nose and sparkles briefly in the sunlight before the warmth of summer melts it.

"But you can call me Roselin.” She says, that tentative smile coming back. “Or just Rosey. Everybody else does.” Her head tilts curiously, "what does your family call you?”

@[Wu]

[Wu]

wu

He wasn’t quite certain if he would be deemed fortunate or not. He wasn’t neglected, per say- it was simply the way of life. You birth, you raise, and you let go. It was the ‘let go’ part that Wu was struggling with. It was the listlessness of not knowing where he fit in, where he belonged, what he should do. Should the anger be roiling inside of him that so soon his mother and father would be ready and willing to procreate again? Should he just be satisfied that he had made it out alive, weaned and willing? How do you quell anger with justification? How do you balance between knowing what is right, and what you want?
Wu wasn’t sure if he knew the fairies- but he felt them in the marrow of his bones. Something was there- even if he could not put a finger to it. A tickle in his throat, a sneeze in the depths of his lungs, a calling to the afterlife and equally strong begging toward the flora beneath him. It felt like a tear in his already unstructured life- living and dead, the dark and the light. Where did the faeries want him to be? Why was he placed here just to grow and grieve and destroy or culture everything in between?
Why are there never answers when he asks?
And then - her smile. A sunlight stretching across his feeble attempts of turning death into life. She is a mirror of the sky- golden eyed and untainted; something that has never seen a black day. She is a wonder in the tragic death below him. She is a sight to see. She is sipping tea from the petals of his creations, her lips a delicate rosebud on the tip of his unseasoned flowers. She is such innocence in the sight of insolence, and he is besmirched in the ever-enveloping darkness of her skin. How can something so beautiful hatch from something so dark?
Her delicate head dips toward the tragic mess of his magic- and he almost wants to shy away from the thing he created from the gaps in his lackluster life. But she.. appreciates it? Sees it for more than what it is- and perhaps is even in wonderment of the small splash of color in the curling brown earth beneath them. He looks at her, the last of the yellow hues fading away, the magic gone.
“I wasn’t really sure that I could do that, either. I think I’m learning.” She mentions glaciers - something he knew little of, but had heard whispers of those towering icy behemoths. He was quite sure they were made of ice - but the lass looked to be dark in hue. Until, that is, he sees the wisp of glimmer coming from her nose. ‘’You can make… magic? What is it?’’ The word ice, or snow - is almost foreign to him - something he had rarely seen. It is more like magic to him. “I’m Wu. That’s all my mother ever called me… Where is your mother? Did she leave you too?”

@[Roselin] .. this was written over three days. so sorry if it's all over the place.

[Roselin]

Her blue eyes widen before she smiles again.

"You're just learning?" He had brought vibrant green into something that had been a fading brown. It was nothing like Roselin had seen before so she looks at the yearling with wonder in her gaze. He seems so much older than she, so much wiser, with that entire year of life he has. And give the midnight colt more time, Rosey doesn't doubt that his powers will grow with him.

It is almost impossible for her to imagine; he fully-grown with this gift. Could he bring entire forests to life?

When he looks at her, Roselin is unsure how to describe her own Magic. "I-," she starts and her nervousness emerges in another plume of silver frost from her dark nostrils. "I think I'm still learning, too." The edges of her mouth turn up again - a little more reluctant than before but it still comes. The young filly arches her neck slightly, tucking her head towards her chest, and watches the colt. The summer sun radiates down on the pair but after a few moments, Roselin reaches out to touch him. If he'll allow it, he could feel how cool to the touch she has made herself.

It's the middle of a sweet, heady summer day and yet here stands Rosey emulating the fiercest parts of a winter storm.

"It's...," she tries to explain as she pulls away. "It's kind of like that. I like the cold." Her blue eyes dance, looking up to the older boy. She wonders what he thinks of her Magic. "It's not like yours," she adds. "I can't make the plants happy." Roselin looks down towards the grass again, her expression almost wistful. She doubted that the plants wouldn't like her or her winter-like abilities at all.

But the boy distracts Rosey with his name and so she blooms a smile for him instead. She brightens at the mention of her mother, before she remembers that she had gotten lost and when Wu asks if her mother had left her, the filly shakes her head.

"No," she says, "No, I was playing a game with my brother and I got lost. Mama would never leave us." The thought that parent could just vanish has never occurred to Rosey; both of hers have been strongly present through her young life. But what @[Wu] says leaves her worried. She looks to her new friend, "Are you lost too?"

ROSELIN

html by castlegraphics; art by Calcifer

it was wonderful - i loved it <3

[Leilan]

Leilan

Of course, she just had to disappear when it’s my watch.

I’d frankly been preoccupied with her twin, Oren, who’d asked a million questions about the aurora lights and their origin, from speculating they were fire to that they might be ghosts, and then a hundred or so theories and stories that might be the cause of this. I’ve at some point wondered if I had been so annoying too, and found the answer to be probably yes.

The problem was that Rosey should have been asleep, and then she wasn’t there. Only when I mentioned her to the bay roan colt, he remembered that they had been playing before and he’d gotten himself distracted.

He does that a lot, I think, and while it’s worrisome and should be pointed out to Lilli, it’s not so bad as the other twin going up in smoke.

I’ve dumped Oren with Nash. Very unceremoniously, I told the older boy to be a good brother and watch him, then took off with little explanation - other than that it was the other one who now needed attention.

My question however was, where’d she go? Every foal-shaped patch of warmth I found, turned out to be another - Roselin’s icy scales, not unlike mine, give her a rather unique appearance when scanning the infrared. If that’s not enough, my silver-white wings, that I have adorned for the occasion of quick transport, cast a shadow large enough for her to recognise my searching.

She is not in Taiga, it seems, and when I catch her trail on the border it smells relatively old. I snort once and continue in the direction she went, my brow creasing as I gain on her and finally track her all the way to the Field.

When landing, I fold the wings back, but do not dismiss them yet. Ears catch every sound, eyes scan the horizon quickly. ”Roselin? Rose!” I realise I’ve dismissed the part of her nickname that makes it sound cuter, but perhaps that’s a subconscious thing when I’m in a hurry to make sure she isn’t harmed.

My legs carry me automatically through the Field, settling on the image of her talking to a stranger, and my earlier crease softens (only a little) when worry makes way for relief at finding her in no obvious peril. That the colt she is talking to (though why is she talking to an older colt? Well, I suppose I should be happy it isn’t a man of my own age), is acting friendly for as far as he can see. ”There you are,” I sigh more than say the words, and take in the young boy with curiosity. ”I’m Leilan - her dad.” I shrug a little to appear unconcerned, and turn to Rosey. ”Are you gonna introduce your new friend?”

I have to remind myself that Roselin is not Chryseis, and that she, unlike her sister, doesn’t deliberately go looking for trouble: so I expect a civil answer and behaviour from both, and deep down pray that I’m doing the right thing in not being angry with her for running off like that.

May you be as fascinating
as a slap bracelet

Image commissioned by Vanilla, made by AshesDrawn on DA

@[Wu] @[Roselin] <3