"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
She had never been quite foolish or naive enough not to understand what her tryst with Nash might result in, but what she hadn’t imagined was that he would actually care. Truthfully, she hadn’t fully expected him to hang around. It had been something of a pleasant surprise that he had not, in fact, been after only one thing from her. That he seemed to value her company (even if she can’t quite understand why. She’d never done or been anything terribly exciting).
She hadn’t told him when she’d begun to suspect something might have happened. That they had made a child. Mostly because she hadn’t realized he might wish to know. But it had quickly become obvious, and his reaction upon realizing had surprised her. Rather than shrug it off as she had expected, he’d started to… hover. His concern and delight and worry had been blindingly obvious, but she hadn’t quite known how to react to it.
She knows now it had probably not been the best reaction. If anything, the way she’d withdrawn appeared to have worried him more. But, well, they’d figured out eventually. Sort of.
Sort of, because even after all that, it doesn’t occur to her to find him or somehow inform him she had gone into labor. Instinct drives her into the trees, telling her to find somewhere private. Somewhere secluded. It doesn’t occur to her that Nash might experience alarm when he couldn’t immediately locate her in what had become increasingly frequent check-ins. In fact, it doesn’t even occur to her that he might wish for anything more than to be presented with a healthy child at his next check-in.
Though she is aware of childbirth and what it entails, it hadn’t prepared her for the actuality. By the time she locates a nice spot, her neck and flanks are coated in sweat even as every instinct screams that it’s time. It takes her a few minutes to settle, but when she finally does, sides heaving as she pushes, it is only moments before her daughter is brought into the world.
She takes a minute to breath before struggling upright, instinct now pushing her to care for the babe. To her surprise and chagrin, she has only enough time to clear the wiggling form and nudge affectionately at the small, folded wings before the contractions grow overwhelming once more. With a tired huff, she settles next to her daughter. A short time later, a second girl is wriggling on the ground. She blinks at her in faint bafflement for several heartbeats before she is driven to care for her as well.
stars when you shine, you know how i feel oh freedom is mine
It had been an odd realization for Nashua. What had started out as running into Noel after the Alliance had blossomed into something else and when her sides grew rounder with the autumn, Nash found himself wanting to be closer and closer to her. If there was something she wanted, anything she needed, he wanted to be the first to hear about it. If something seemed remiss, he wanted to correct it for her. Nashua - who has always been a free-spirited horse - finds himself firmly grounded.
Only his duties as Hersir on the Isle and his loyalty to his mentor and Freyr, Leilan, could keep him away.
When he returns exhausted after meeting with Leilan and Yanhua in Hyaline, Noel is not in Taiga. His mother had three young ones to look after and Yan, returning to the redwood forest after him, had no more idea where the white pegasus could have gone than Nash did. The only thing he knew as a certainty was that Noel hadn't flown in months and if she had left Taiga, it meant she couldn't have gone far. Huffing and fighting the fatigue lingering in his muscles, the chestnut flares his wings and once again takes to the air.
Thankfully, he doesn't have far to fly. The pale mare had left behind a trail for Nash (unknowingly?) to follow and the striped pegasus flew North, turning towards a kingdom that he has known since birth. He hovers in the drafts above the moors, circling and spending a few hours looking for a piece of the sky on the ground. He keeps hoping to find a strikingly white form somewhere across the rolling fields below. He keeps hoping and hoping and hoping.
That hope keeps him flying.
But it isn't enough to keep him sky-bound. A late night flight and the hours spent looking for Yanhua forces him to the ground. He patrols the northern border - where Taiga and Nerine merge together in sparse pine and sporadic knolls. He tries to keep his worries at bay by clenching his jaw and tightening his wings against himself, like they might shield him from his troubled thoughts. Her scent finally blows his away, wafting across pale nostrils in a way that still reminds Nashua of clean air and clouds (even after all this time). The winged stallion makes short work of finding her and when he does-
His heart stops.
Nash doesn't have time to catch it.
It just falls and falls and falls until he is looking at two perfect shapes - two little girls who Nashua thinks that not even the Gods could have created. They are too perfect, even minutes after birth. One has damp wings and another is finding her legs. They share a coloring with their mother but there are Nashua's gold stripes, glimmering around the legs of both fillies.
Noel looks as bewildered as he feels and so the striped horse laughs, having too much joy for words.
In the midst of blossoming maternal instinct, she somehow still finds the time to be baffled at the situation. Still manages the particularly Noel response of confused consternation. It certainly isn’t resolved when Nash, weary and worried, stumbles upon them. He stares at them for all of two seconds before bursting into a laugh.
Ears pinning, she releases a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in a perplexed snort. She didn’t think they looked that ridiculous. With a soft huff, she shifts her hindquarters until they are facing him, effectively blocking him from her sight before returning her attention to the two small forms wriggling at her feet.
Still, now that she knows he’s there, it’s almost impossible to ignore him.
Lips trailing tenderly along one tufted mane, she lips the feathers of her folding wings before turning her attention to the other with a soft sigh. “I suppose you need names.”
Though the words are ostensibly spoken to her daughters, they are loud enough for Nash to hear, should he choose to. A concession she hadn’t realized she’d been making. It takes her a moment to continue, all the while watching out of the corner of her eye for a golden red figure she is absolutely certain would be rounding on them any moment. Touching the winged filly again, she murmurs, “What do you think? Elegance?” Even as she speaks, the filly wobbles, causing her to chuckle briefly. “Not yet maybe, but soon I bet.”
Turning to the second, she noses her gently. “And you?” Her lips find the gently glowing stripes on her spindly legs. “Luminesce I think.”
12-11-2020, 08:56 PM (This post was last modified: 12-11-2020, 08:57 PM by Nashua.)
stars when you shine, you know how i feel oh freedom is mine
His green eyes are swept up in the two little - perfect - girls. It is one tsunami wave sweeping Nashua entirely in love and the full force of it tugs on a grin that is already making his jaw ache from all the happiness beaming there. They look like clouds, he thinks of the two fillies. Little pieces of a sky all our making.
Nashua - who has climbed the wide and wild sky as high as his wings will allow - thinks this is possibly the best view of his entire life.
Noel looks tired and when her ears pin into the lovely white of her mane, he watches as she shifts her hindquarters to face him. Nash waits a moment before slowly approaching her (though being mindful of her back legs; his mouth has certainly gotten him in trouble before) and drawing his pale lips to brush against her side, up past her feathers until they finally reach her spine.
"You know I don't mind the view," he murmurs darkly against her pale skin (in a languid voice meant just for her), reminded of their time together after the Alliance.
The young pegasus only parts from her to better see their girls. He watches with quiet awe as their winged daughter stands and teeters toward her mother on long, elegant legs. The mare beside him seems to interpret his thoughts because she names that beautiful creature Elegance. The lopsided smile etching on his blazed face is full of pride - how quick they are to stand! How utterly perfect they are.
Their mother turns to the other girl - the one with his glowing stripes - and he lowers his head, hoping that the newborn might come closer to her father. "Hello Luminesce," he says softly. "Aren't you lovely?" They both were. As their mother was.
A spring breeze blows past the little family and it reminds Nashua of where they stand. Nerine. He is still reaching down for his daughter while the wing simultaneously closest to @[Noel] reaches for her.
He can't help himself: "Why didn't you stay in Taiga?"
01-06-2021, 01:22 PM (This post was last modified: 01-06-2021, 01:22 PM by Noel.)
His teasing earns him a swift glance, lashes lowered in half-hearted reproach. Had she not just been forced to push two not-so-little creatures out of her (not without pain, she might add), the low, suggestive whisper might have stirred a thrill. But for the time being, any such thrill has been thoroughly dampened.
At the very least, she could pretend the flutter in her heart didn’t exist at his words. Not that this was a particularly good time to examine those feelings anyway. Not with the two fillies already testing their legs, wobbling precariously as they try to gain them with a charming swiftness. She hides an unbidden smile in the downy tufts of Elegance’s mane as she fumbles against her, lest Nash see her reaction to his gentle words. She hadn’t realized it would be so heartwarming to see a father react so lovingly towards his offspring.
No doubt there is something significant buried deep in her reticence, but she hasn’t the wherewithal to dig for it. Especially not now.
She probably should have said something in response, but she finds herself unable to find words. Instead she busies herself with Luminesce as she too struggles to hold her feet underneath her forward momentum. Drawn by instinct, the two girls seek their first meal. An excellent excuse for Noel’s lack of words as she gently steadies them in their quest.
When he asks why she’d left Taiga though, she blinks for a moment before turning a quizzical gaze back to Nash. “We’re not in Taiga?” But as she looks around, she answers her own question when she notices the hardy grasses of Nerine peeking through the edges of the small copse she had chosen.
“Oh,” is the only response she can supply to the question she herself had asked.
01-15-2021, 11:41 AM (This post was last modified: 01-15-2021, 11:45 AM by Nashua.)
stars when you shine, you know how i feel oh freedom is mine
His green eyes - much like his heart - are full.
They are full of the two girls stretching their limbs and finding them. Of Luminesce who is already starting to glow around the gold stripes that mark both his daughters. Elegance manages to take a step away from her mother to peer up at her sire with infant-blue eyes and the chestnut stallion reaches down to gently brush her delicate cheek.
There is something about her scent - about both scents of his children - that seems new; pristine. It is clean and clear in the way that only the sky is. Nashua decides then and there that their daughters smell like the clouds and if anyone would disagree with him, he would happily dive into his first argument as a father.
When Nashua turns his attention fully back to @[Noel] as their children nurse, he stifles that wildfire grin. (It comes with relief, though. Some part of him had been afraid that she would have said him; that he had done something to make her leave. He doesn't know what but that would have been the problem, wouldn't it?)
Her dark eyes peer around Nerine - over the waving meadow grasses of the moorlands - and his emerald gaze follows. When they round back to the white female, there is humor sparkling there. "You were close," he concedes to the winged creature.
At that moment, he finds he doesn't care much where they stand. Nerine. The Isle. Taiga.
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