"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
He had been looking for Lily for some time now. Her scent was all over the place, lingering here and there amongst the Pampas where he had been residing since finding her there again. But it was faded and she had not been to the River or Meadow in some time either. Frankly he was worried, because everytime she was gone off by herself bad things happened to her. And he did not like it, not even a teeny tiny bit.
So he finds his way back to Tephra, looking for the uncle that he had met so long ago. He did not expect to find her here, but he had little doubt that Magnus knew things. Chaol expected the ruler to have many people in many places finding things out for him. He would be a good guy to get to know.
He shakes his head, pushing his wings down roughly with a grunt. His eyes are narrowed a bit against the wind from his quick flying. Purple and magenta mane and tail, streaming back from his body. He was a bright beacon to those that knew him and well to those that didn’t. He would never make it as a spy. Too noticeable, to bright and right there in your face.
He shakes his head again, circling around Tephra once, looking for Magnus, or for the figure that looks the most like him. Their meeting had been brief, but Chaol had liked him. Especially when he gave off the unmistakable dislike of Vulgaris. So when he finally thinks he sees him, he slows his speed, angling downwards immediately and landing with a grunt not far from the other stallion.
“Hello there. I don’t expect you to remember me, since our meeting was so brief last time.” Even if he secretly hoped he did. “I came and got Adna for Lily...I mean, Leliana?” And was followed by that git Vulgaris. The thought sends a scowl across his face and he irritably slaps his haunches with his tail, ears tangling back briefly amongst his mane. “Have you seen her?” A pause. “Leliana, I mean.”
Magnus does his best to keep tabs on his sprawling family, but Beqanna is large and his bloodline tends to be independent. Even with the onset of the plague, he had worried, but it had been abundantly clear that Leliana was fiercely set on doing what she could, and he wasn’t about to try and keep her from what she felt was right. So he said hello when she was able to stop by for a visit, but he resigned himself to the fact that she was a grown woman now—and for all of her kindness, stubborn enough to not listen.
So he is surprised when he sees the purple stallion landing next to him, unused to people electing to land in the center of the island instead of waiting at the border. The reaction manifests in confusion instead of upset though and he merely angles his body, a frown touching his brows briefly as he studies the other stallion. “I remember you, Chaol.” He had made a point to remember the two stallions who had arrived for Adna, scooping up the vibrant snake girl and taking her back home to Leliana.
He wasn’t exactly going to just forget the two men’s faces.
At the worried questioning though, the frown grows deeper and Magnus just shakes his head. “She’s been busy healing. I haven’t seen her often since the plague hit.” A muscle jumps in his jaw as he looks to the horizon in thought. “The last I heard, she was helping Tiphon on Island Resort, but I haven’t talked to her directly for at least several weeks.” He pauses for a moment, bringing his gold-flecked eyes back to Chaol, the gaze suddenly intense. “Why? Why would you think that she would be here?”
He cannot stop the fear and the fury that blossoms in his belly.
He’s not sure he wants to know the answer.
MAGNUS | I don't belong to anyone, but everybody knows my name
There is surprise there, but Chaol is worried and agitated enough not to let it register in his mind what Magnus is feeling. He sees it but it means nothing to him. No, he was too lost in the fact that Lily was missing. That he had not scented her at home in sometime and nor had he seen her. Nor had he found her at any of the places he had found her before. Perhaps had he known that Vulgaris was king someplace, he would have went there first. Would have demanded that snake bastard to bring her forwards, but he was not up to date on the currents of their world.
Perhaps he would have to change that.
Magnus remembers him. And then when the King speaks, Chaol’s heart beats steadily harder. It’s the worry in his blood, making him want to growl and strike out and beat the world into submission to find her. His eyes have narrowed and he cannot help but start to pace back and forth until Magnus was done. “I cannot find her.” He says, after another long moment of pacing where all that was heard was his hooves on the ground. When he speaks he stops, turning to look at Magnus for a long while. “There is a...a feeling that something is not right. I cannot shake it. Every time I feel it I find her broken and in pieces from that snake-bastard she loves.” He practically spits the word.
“But I cannot find her.” His tail slapping against his legs, a crack of noise in the silence that surely follows his words. There’s worry there that rises up briefly in his eyes before he pushes and beats it back down into submission. “I will go. I’ll knock on every damn door in every kingdom if that is what it takes to find her.” A snort. He itches to go, wants to go but waits to see what the King has to offer before he does.
Magnus watches quietly, his gold-flecked eyes smoldering, his lips drawn tight. He has known Leliana to go off on her own, to get into trouble, to put herself in dangerous situations if it was what she thought was right. She had never had much idea of self-preservation; for all of her calm serenity, she was constantly endangering herself. He has no idea her relationship with the purple stallion before him. He has no idea whether it was out of character for her to disappear without telling him.
But his stomach tightens with worry all the same.
When he mentions Vulgaris, Magnus scowls—that same feeling of distrust seeping through his veins that he had experienced the first time he had laid eyes on her serpentine husband. “What happened with her and Vulgaris?” he questions, angling his head. Then he shakes his head, blowing out a breath hard. “When was the last time you saw her? Are you sure that she hasn’t gone somewhere to heal someone?”
Then, another pang as he pauses, a thought occurring to him. When he looks back up toward Chaol, his face is contemplative. “And have you checked with Dovev? She may be with him.” It would be like his niece to get herself tangled with that bone armored stallion again. Magnus feels a flare of fury in his belly at the idea—remembering all too well the last encounter between the three of them with Atrani stuck in the middle. “I’m sorry. All I have are questions for you and no answers. I haven’t seen her.”
The familiar burn of failure rises in his throat and he does his best to ignore it.
Leliana was fine.
She had to be.
MAGNUS | I don't belong to anyone, but everybody knows my name
Chaol can tell that he does not know, long before he had said anything. It chafes at him, but he understands. He blames himself as much as the older stallion blames himself. He should have known better to give Lily space but after her snake lover had hurt her, she had asked and so he had given what she had asked. Chaol was perhaps, half in love with her and half in love with the idea of her. But not all the way, not the soul ripping and rending type of way. He loved her, loved her enough to hate seeing bad things happen to her.
Wanted to shake her when she put herself in troublesome situations. But actions like that reminded him of his grandfather and so when he touched he was only ever careful to touch with tenderness.
“The bastard raped her and brutalized her. She had physical wound she wouldn’t heal.” A deep grunt rolls in his throat. “He fucking broke her. I shouldn’t have left her alone afterwards. Maybe he came back.” He trails off, shakes his head sharply, turns his dark eyes back upon the other stallion. “She had a girl, beautiful like the rest of her kids.” He says, a small smile on his face, but it’s quickly erased with the guilt he feels. Guilt like Magnus feels.
“Who’s Dovev and where can I find him?” He smothers the hope, not wanting to feel it if he finds the stallion and he hasn’t seen her. “You can keep an ear out for Vulgaris? Kings have spies that tell them this stuff right?” His gut told him the snake stallion had something to do with this, but he hadn’t heard anything from him since he smelt him all over Lily.
“Oh, uh, too long ago, not long after her last was born. And no, but with how she was, how she looked and acted, I do not think that going to help others was top on her list. I don’t even think she was eating.” Another sharp shake of his head. He was going to be taking a cross-Beqanna journey it looked like to find her.
Magnus feels a fury that he has not felt in a long time when Chaol finally answers his questions.
It brings an old light to his eyes, something fierce and furious. There is nothing kind to the stallion now. Nothing of the gentle Tephran leader. Nothing of the stallion who laughs with his family and guards over their sleeping bodies. It bleeds away to leave the stallion once called a warmonger. It bleeds away to leave the man who had killed his brother in a moment. It leaves the son of Atrox and Twinge.
It leaves the darkest parts of him exposed.
His lips pull back from his teeth and his ink-dipped ears lay flat in the wild tangles of his mane. “He did what?” There is guilt, of course there is guilt, but it is smothered by the heat of his anger, and Magnus gladly turns himself over to it. He gladly lets himself sink into it so that he can focus on that kernel of rage that expands in his belly, swimming through his veins. For a moment, he says nothing at all.
When he finally trusts himself to speak again, his voice is cold. “Dovev is…” his voice trails off and he shakes his head. “Once, I may have said the love of her life, but I would have called it a mistake then.” His laugh is harsh. “Little did I know.” His pulse pounds in his ears, swelling around him. “He used to call Ischia home, but I don’t know if he still does. I haven’t seen him in some time now.”
He listens to what else he says but it rings in his ears and he feels the sudden urge to do something. To fight. To take up arms. To do something reckless. It is only when he looks out into Tephra and sees a flash of Isle, of their daughter, that he pauses, that he restrains himself. He takes a measured breath, trying to fight for the edges of control. “I would start on the islands and see if you can find something there. She was spending a lot of time at Island Resort. She may have been hiding out there if things turned sour.”
He brings his gaze back to Chaol, something dark flaring within his eyes.
“I will do what I can to find information. We will find her.”
MAGNUS | I don't belong to anyone, but everybody knows my name
Chaol can see the anger and agrees with it. Knows that anything with his power, Magnus will do to help him find her. So he takes the names, takes the starting point and nods his thanks before opening his wings and pulls himself up into the sky to head into the direction of Island Resort.
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