"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
— there's something tragic about you, something so magic about you, don't you agree?
Even though she did not mind the dark, it still brought with it its own challenges.
The twins had been born healthy—or so she had thought. The boy, an angel made of ice, and the girl, with her rose-gold dapples pressed against a dove-gray. When she had first been born there had been no indication of poor health; she had shown an ability to shift and match Ryatah’s own angelic form, though everything on Este was the same soft, rose-gold as her dapples. She could not deny that it pleased her they both inherited something so clearly from her—their halos and their wings, and everything else ethereal about them.
She had not spoken of their father to Atrox, but she didn’t feel she needed to. She is sure her downcast eyes and reluctance to meet his stare was enough to tell him all he needed to know.
As the days passed in darkness, though, the girl began to weaken. She became less inclined to follow her brother, preferring instead to remain near her mother, often pressed into her side or nestled at her feet. She was quiet, too—rarely speaking. It was enough to raise worry in Ryatah; enough to make her try to heal her, though she didn’t know what she was looking for.
No matter what she did, though, it did nothing to help. Whatever was ailing Este it was not something that she could heal. The thought of finding Carnage crosses her mind, but she just as quickly silences it. She trusted him, to an extent, but she was convinced he would not see this situation the way that she did; she was afraid he would see Este as weak and not worth saving.
Today it is just the two of them, with Sela having wandered away to explore. Este had drifted into an uneasy sleep, and Ryatah found herself mindlessly running her nose down the ridge of her spin. She seemed thin, and she once again fought the knot of anxiety tightening inside of her chest.
In the near distance, she sees a light—or at least something starkly white. Almost immediately a smile forms on her lips, recognizing the figure immediately. “Beyza,” she calls her name, beckoning her closer. The sight of her eased some of the weight on her chest, knowing that at least one of her other children was safe.
there's something wretched about this, something so precious about this, oh what a sin —
It took Beyza a while to realize that this darkness was a danger to others, that perhaps they did not see it with the same affection that she did. But once that thought occurred to her, she set out to check on her parents - the whole motley herd of them. She’d spent a day with Agetta, both amused and annoyed with her mother over her current bliss with someone other than Plume. It had been a long time since she caught up with the blue-eyed mare and she was surprised to discover she now had four younger siblings, one of whom lived in Hyaline.
Which, conveniently enough, was her next planned stop - to visit her other mother. She wasn’t sure whether she’d approach her sister or not, and was still debating it when she spots Ryatah and is beckoned closer - and of course Beyza responds without hesitation - a smile already growing and warming her crystalline features.
“Ryatah! I’m so glad to see you’re safe.” A soft glow begins to grow around Beyza as she approaches, mirroring that emanating from Ryatah so that the area around them is bathed in a gentle light. It’s then that she notices the filly, and is already smiling at the idea of meeting another sibling. “Who is this?” She asks curiously, not needing to feign the softness in her expression or her voice when she looks upon the sleeping girl.
Beyza notices the frailty there, and feels concern - her mind sinking back to the sickly girl she had sacrificed and she feels an uncomfortable squeeze of her heart. Her gaze shifts back to Ryatah and sure that the next question is obvious without having need to be spoken. She instinctively wants to start poking around for the problem but refrains. Though her intentions may be for the best, she’s learned well enough that her magic would respond better with permission - especially with those she loves and does not want to harm at all.
— there's something tragic about you, something so magic about you, don't you agree?
She reaches over to gently touch her nose to Beyza’s cheek, and for a moment the smile on her face is free of all the worry she had been feeling. “Look at you, my beautiful girl,” she says the words without entirely thinking, because Beyza was, after all, hers. Perhaps not in the sense that she was used to, and there was the fact that Agetta did not know, but Ryatah would never consider her to be anything less than her flesh and blood daughter.
There are other questions on the tip of her tongue: how Agetta is fairing in this dark, if Beyza was still living in Pangea, and a multitude of other things. But Este begins to stir, having been roused awake by the invasion of a voice that was not her mother’s, and that is enough to redirect Ryatah’s attention. With a lowered head she softly touches her lips to her forehead, murmuring into the silver of her downy forelock. “This is Este,” and even her name tastes like worry, and she wonders if she will ever be able to look at or speak of her without a knot coiling inside of her chest. “And she has a twin brother, too, but she wasn’t feeling up to following him today.”
She tries to make light of it, tries to smile away the anxiety, though she has never been much good at faking things. It is clear by the way the little girl has to rest her cheek against her mother’s leg in order to remain upright to look at her older sister that she is weak in a way that goes beyond a child that has simply worn herself out. When her dark eyes meet Beyza’s she does nothing to mask the worry anymore, and reads plainly there on her face. “I’m not sure why she is so weak. I’ve tried healing her, but it doesn’t seem to work.” She hesitates, her habit of not asking for things from magicians so firmly ingrained into her that she is cautious even in asking her own daughter, “but maybe you can see something I’ve missed.”
there's something wretched about this, something so precious about this, oh what a sin —
A powerful sense of affection floods through Beyza at Ryatah’s touch and her words - shining brightly in her pale eyes. It had been easy to forget for a time how much she loved her family, just as it had been easy to forget that the eclipse had brought dangers into the world. She’s reminded of it now, and it dulls her obsessions - putting them into perspective.
When the young girl wakes, Beyza smiles at her - at the information that she has a twin as well. But that smile fades as Ryatah continues, as she watches Este rest her head against their mother’s leg just to keep it up. She cannot find words at first, but nods and then reaches out with her magic. Closing her eyes to focus, the tendrils of it soothing and gentle on the young girl’s mind. It does not take her long to find the source and once she does, guilt floods Beyza like a tidal wave. She had been so full of the desire to make the world dark for one that she had not thought about the consequences for anyone else.
Beyza’s crystalline features do not display her emotions easily but the sadness is obvious enough when she finally speaks. “It’s… the darkness.” There is a frown, but it softens when she looks to Este. “She has an ability so strongly connected to light that without it… she is fading.” Beyza tries to make her glow change, to truly be sunlight and see if this will give some temporary relief but it just isn’t possible now. She only has the memory of the sun and even then the glow around her barely increases at all.
She had not considered that the eclipse could diminish her magic either, had not thought that anything could.
The guilt continues to churn in her stomach but determination settles in too when she looks back to her mother. “I’m going to do everything I can to bring back the sun. She will be fine once it returns, I'm sure of it.”
— there's something tragic about you, something so magic about you, don't you agree?
She had thought that knowing what caused Este to be so sickly would bring some kind of relief, but at Beyza’s words, all she feels is despair. Light. She needs light, and she was born into a world that had none of it. She looks down at the rose-dappled girl, bathed in the glows of both her mother and her sister, but their light alone is not enough. She needs sunlight, and Ryatah is at a loss on how to bring that back.
“I could ask Carnage,” but even as she says it there is no confidence in the words. She has no doubt that he could bring the sun back; they have created children in far-off galaxies and in a valley that no longer exists, she does not see why he couldn’t also put an end to the eclipse. Most likely, he didn’t care, and he was waiting for someone to grow tired of the dark enough to ask him for help.
She wasn’t interested in saving all of Beqanna, though.
She just wanted to save Este.
In the light that exists between them she finds Beyza’s pale eyes, and reaches to again touch her nose to her cheek. “Thank you, Beyza.” She shakes her head though at what her daughter says, concern lingering in her nearly black eyes. “I don’t think bringing the sun back is that simple. I’m sure whatever triggered the eclipse and caused it to last this long isn’t simple, either.”
there's something wretched about this, something so precious about this, oh what a sin —
