"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
It had been hard to leave Bolder behind, but it had been harder still to leave Nashua with all the thoughts she knew were battling inside his head. As much as she knows he would understand, sorrow still tugs at her heart. She had been a fool to avoid acknowledging all of her feelings for him before. Now, in the midst of such turmoil, she couldn’t acknowledge them. She couldn’t risk the weight of them fracturing her.
She had told Nashua she needed to do something to ensure their son would be cared for. And it’s true. She had veered away before they reached the border and doubled back because she had wanted to do so. But it is so much more than that.
Her mother is perhaps the one horse who could understand the heaviness in her heart.
She slips quietly through the trees, her feet remembering the path even if it has been years since she had taken it. She can only hope that Ryatah still favors this corner of Hyaline. Can only hope that she would be here rather than elsewhere. She had been young when she left this place, so perhaps everything had changed since then.
Her relief is immediate when she spots a figure of white and gold. “Mom!” The word escapes unbidden, quiet despite the easing in her chest. Her steps quicken, the gentle glow her hooves leave behind fading slowly behind her. The wings she hadn’t realized she was holding so tightly relax slightly across her ribs, dark eyes lifting to find her mother’s haloed features. “I’m glad I found you.”
She has been a mother for nearly all of her life—she had been so young when Seduire was born, so young that it seemed impossible—and still she has not mastered it. That perilous balance between keeping them close enough that they were safe and then loosening it until they were entirely unmoored was something that she struggled with each time they were born, and never has she been able to overcome the feeling that she is failing them all. Noel had the unique misfortune of being born in the most chaotic of circumstances (rivaled only with Aislyn being born as Tephra burned down around them) and during one of, if not the, most turbulent period of her life.
There had been something especially painful in having Ashhal there to see their daughter be born and still have him deny it—to watch him leave.
To keep that pain from their daughter had been nearly impossible, and she knows she had not always hid it well. She knows Noel had witnessed her strange periods of quiet and the way she tried using everyone else—Atrox, Larva, and Illum—as distractions, and she had not been surprised at all when Noel did not choose to remain in Hyaline (even prior to the new leadership and laws).
It’s why when she hears a familiar voice and turns to find her daughter’s beautiful face (and again is reminded of how much she looks like her father, and how she had told him as much when she was born) that she is both surprised, and then all at once relieved. “Noel,” she says with a small smile, and she wastes no time closing the distance between the two of them. Without hesitation she pulls her into an embrace, holding her perhaps a little too close and a little too tightly. “I’ve missed you so much,” she murmurs into her daughter’s neck before releasing her and stepping back. “Is everything okay?”
She has never been particularly good at categorizing her own emotions into something she can understand. If she had been, perhaps she would not have gone to Nerine so many times in her youth, always searching for something she couldn’t quite put words to. In the end though, it had been that endless seeking that had brought her to Nashua.
And she would never trade what she shares with him, even to spare all the recent heartache they have experienced.
Yet, never once had she considered her upbringing somehow faulty. Never once had she doubted her mother’s love for her. What vague memories she carries of her father have never truly had the power to sting her. Before, she had always imagined that her experience was simply the way of the world. Though she knows better now, she also knows there is nothing she could have done to change it.
That, more than anything, had always been Noel’s method of dealing with troublesome truths. If she could change it, she would try. If she could not, it is not worth her energy trying to do so.
Ryatah pulls her into her embrace, and Noel leans in, drawing comfort from her mother’s familiar warmth. It has been so long since she had last been here like this, and for a moment, she feels like a child again.
The feeling slips away much too quickly however. She is not a child anymore. She has children of her own now too. It’s a sharp reminder of why she is here, and slowly, she withdraws as Ryatah releases her. It’s almost on her tongue to say yes, an automatic response to such a simple question. But she doesn’t. She can’t.
Because everything is not all right.
“No,” she whispers instead, gaze dropping briefly as she draws in a breath. “No, it’s not.” She lifts her gaze, unable to hide the worry in her dark eyes. “Bolder, my son, is here. He was… stolen here.”
