This is the road to ruin; ANY

[Feyre]

Feyre

The war had passed. Calm had settled back across the lands and she didn't have to worry about what might happen to anyone while they were fighting. Once she had settled Siloam and the other two girls or they had left her alone she had moved away. She had traveled across the hot sands with the burning sun beating on her black coat and she had reveled in it. The sun had warmed her and soothed her soul, settling her back into her skin and allowing the adrenaline of the War to disappear.

She wandered for days (weeks, months) learning the layout of her new home. The Deserts was now hers to protect and love and nurture. So she would do her best to do her part in this beautiful place.

Today as she was wandering, she came across the towering sandstone cliffs. She gazed at them in awe. They were so large, so beautiful. She released a sigh on the wind as it whipped itself around her. While Fall was turning into cold Winter days elsewhere the Desert was still as warm as any other day. It was the nights that brought a chill. She moved around the base of the cliffs, looking for a path. She knew there had to be one around here....Aha! There it was.

She moved up the trail carefully. It was narrow and rocks were scattered across her path. She weaved back and forth carefully, one eye always on the edge to her right and her left shoulder occasionally steadying herself against the rocks.

It took hours for her to reach the top and when she did, it took her breath away. The Deserts was sprawled out before her. She could see the big oak tree that was so out of place and the big oasis. There were other smaller ones here and there, dotted with green foliage amidst the sea of sand. She smiled with contentment, taking in the view.

“If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.”

photo by Vitor Schietti

[Qatar]

The chatter of voices, or rather, a single voice, precedes the pair long before she might see them. The rocks are like that – a sound tunnel of sorts, distorting voices and creating whispers where there aren’t any. It surely comes off as an odd, one-sided conversation to the casual eavesdropper – though to be fair, there are many who lead a solitary, wandering life. Perhaps the sun and sand and endless leagues of nothingness has affected the speaker. Or perhaps the speaker is a desert cat, and his silent friend is a Desert Prince – and they are almost normal, compared to what these age-old cliffs have seen.

The caracal (his long, tufted ears appear first, followed by a black marked face, and then a tawny body with a white underbelly) is mid argument when his words become clear, “I’m just saying, Q, keep eating like a fatty, and you won’t be able to climb up here anymore. One little slip and whoops! down you go.” He turns back to grin cheekily at the yearling colt that follow him, “And then I’ll be free of you.” The black boy (at an awkward size already, but the mismatch in his parents does him little justice) snorts indignantly and tosses his head, sending his silver mane all over the place.

The cat laughs, though it comes out as half a hiss, his incisors bared in a non-threatening manner. “You mean I’ll finally be able to sleep at night without all your goddamn snoring.” There is a moment of silence before he looks back with a dangerous twinkle in his eye. “That’s not what your mom told me last night!” And then he cackles, and hightails it away from the colt, who disregards the proximity of the edge with the fearlessness of a child and rears, moving to chase him. It is only after he starts that he notices the black mare who is almost at the top, and he pulls up suddenly.

Well. This is a surprise. They don’t get many visitors up here – for the better part of six months, it’s been their little secret. His nostrils flare, identifying her as a fellow Desert dweller, though he doesn’t know her name. Qatar takes a few steps forward, and bobs his head up and down, which is the closest he’ll get to a hello, aside from maybe a soft whicker. But his father is a man of few words, so perhaps it is appropriate. Alek pops back over, jumping to land upon his friend’s back. “Hi. I’m Alek. This big guy is Qatar. Quite the climb, huh?” He takes this opportunity to wash his face, licking a paw and then moving it over his whiskers while waiting for the mare's answer.

[Vanquish]

The Nightwalker had no need to hunt them anymore, but still, he did. He could conjure them from the sand like bees riled from a hive he so wished, but he did not. Instead, he searches, he tracks, he stalks. Vanquish is twice-over a king, he has been reborn, renewed and so he does not waste it idling in the laziness his powers could afford him. And so he scours his beautifully bleak kingdom for his prey, the illusive, luscious cactus fruit.

It is today that he chooses the crowns of the sandstone cliffs to rifle through for the occasional patch of cactus, blooming with fat gleaming fruit, clinging to a stone edge. After rifling past a few bluffs with no yield of his quarry he reaches the wider ranges, where the sandstone bloomed with trails and caverns. Tufted black ears flick forward atop his head as his wings hold him steadily in place, allowing the echo his son’s companion’s voice to rumble into recognition. A soft smile edges his lips as he lifts himself higher onto the trail-top, calling out to Feyre with a pleased squeal as he spots her – as well as his son, with the Caracal perched atop his back.

His first instinct is to scold his son, the young prince of the Desert, allowing the cat to roost atop him as if he was not who he was. But time has taught Vanquish better so instead he merely shakes his head with a veiled grin, “I hope you boys are being gentlemen,” he says, a circle of redrock pillars bursting from the sand to ring around the pair, “I would hate to have to put you both in a time-out.” His dark face is stern for a breath before a smile replaces the grim-lipped expression, the pillars sinking back beneath the sand as quickly as they had come.

Vanquish chuckles for a breath, turning to Feyre, a gangly yearling replacing the small filly he had left behind when the war had called for him. “Oh, how you have grown,” he whuffles, reaching out to her muzzle with his own.


.

vanquish

black king of the deserts

[Feyre]

Feyre

It was a faint sound at first, some garbled desert bird call or so she thought. Until she realized that it was coming closer...and closer. She is finally able to make out that it is someone talking to...themselves? She turns to look back at the trail and with a curious glance moves a bit closer to the edge where she can see the duo climbing their way up. It it with amusement that she comes to some kind of a guess as to what they were. Obviously magicked. Probably by their beautiful queen. The caracal was talking to the yearling who could not but probably telepathy?

Ah well, she would wait and see.

So she moves back away from the edge, not wanting to crowd them as they come up over that last stretch of rocks. She sees the cat first, a small smile curling her lips as his words become much easier to understand instead of the garbled mess that she had tried to decipher on the path up.

She has to hold back her laugh while she watches and listens, thoroughly amused by the duo. Only when she is finally saw did she say anything. "Hello." She steps forwards, closing the distance between them into a comfortable talking zone. "I'm Feyre." She looks around at his question, then turns back to meet the eyes of Qatar and then Alek. "Indeed." She wasn't quite sure what to say at this moment because she wanted to know....so out she comes with it.

"So, what your deal?" She nods to the caracal, looking first at Qatar and then back to Alek. She was a little blunt...okay a lot and didn't like to tiptoe around anything really. No use beating around the bush at it. If you didn't ask you wouldn't know.

Its then Vanquish makes his arrival known when a happy squeal. Her head turns to him, smiling when she see him. She returns his squeal with a whicker, waiting for him to land. She is amused and smiles when he teases the boys, her laughter ringing in the air before she stretches her nose out to touch Vanquishes. "Not as much as you have." She says with cheek. "I can only strive to be as tall as you are." She says with another grin, sliding her nose from his to tug gently on his mane as it hangs on his neck.

“If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.”

photo by Vitor Schietti

[Qatar]

Deal? Qatar’s ears flicker back and forth once, as he turns to look to Alek, as he perches with style on the yearling’s ass.

Alek pauses in his grooming and fixes Q with a disappointing glance, but doesn’t answer his bonded’s question. Instead, he turns a black-tipped face to the mare and rattles off the usual answer. “Qatar is mute. Yael gave him the ability to talk to me, and I am his mouth - for better or worse - we’re together forever.” What he doesn’t say is that the boy has immortality, and so it will be a very, very long time (if at all) before they are separated. Not that they’ve ever tested the time and distance theory. Would they be able to separate at all? Or was it the type of the thing where they each grow nauseous and get migraines the farther they go? Luckily for the two of them, even with each other’s antics, they have’nt gotten sick of each other. Yet.

Only time would tell. Alek’s mouth quirks up in a very felinic smirk. “What, you’ve never seen a talking cat before?” Q’s ears fly back then, and he reaches back to snap at his partner. The cat is too quick, of course, but the message does not go unheard. Be nice to her, Qatar demands, and then turns back to the black mare as the massive shadow of his sire crosses over the trio. Ohhhh. Oh oh. Now Alek would behave. If there were three horses in Beqanna that the cat was well-behave before, it was Yael, Kratos, and Vanquish.

His sire lands, and Qatar takes a few steps towards him, bobbing his head to indicate that they are indeed, behaving themselves (if being a little bit sassy). He is stopped suddenly by a burst of red rock that shoots towards the sky before his very eyes. Alek is unseated when Q unexpectedly pulls up on his hand legs. He leaps off with a little chirp, and takes a seat a ways away from the horses, leaving the three to do their own thing. Once the pillars descend again, Q continues towards the two  and reaches his nose out to nudge one of the soft, leathery wings that sprout from his sire’s shoulders. He’s still at the stage where he hates to admit that he needs his father’s admiration and favorable glance, but seeks it out all the same.



[i don't know what this is :/ ]