anyone;

[Atrani]

Atrani

She lies abandoned, forgotten. Leaves of the new season are falling from their branches and scattered across her emaciated body, the ridges of her skeleton barely peeking from underneath the array of reds, oranges, and yellows. One would assume her dead; she feels dead. There is not enough food in the world to fatten her and to soften the crisp edges of her body. There is not enough magic to make her beautiful. There is not enough to make her wanted, welcomed, loved.
 
Oftentimes, Atrani has contemplated her own demise and how it would go unnoticed by the world. Mother has already since passed. Father? His scent is no longer carried on the wind. Magnus? A mere memory. Friends? None.
 
But after what seems like minutes of eerie stillness, Atrani draws in a breath. It rattles her lungs uncomfortably and she trembles with the chill that dives into her throat and chills her skin. ”Not today,” she whispers into the cool afternoon to no one but herself. Oddly enough, she had chosen a vacant area that has been spared from trampling feet. It has been a brief haven, but she isn’t quite sure for how long. This place – wherever it is – has held her idly in its embrace, letting time pass her by without notice. She cannot see the rising and setting of the sun, only the coolness that follows in nightfall’s wake. Unfortunately, nor can she see the change of the seasons and how the leaves paint the world around her one moment only to litter the ground the next.
 
Atrani’s world is lonely, dark, and cold.
 
Another breath. Another disheartened sigh. The rise and fall of her sides is enough to unseat more leaves until she decides to finally scramble to her feet. Unsteady, her body sways from one side to the other, the muscles long since atrophied. But she searches for no help, no support from a tree or horse. Her legs are splayed apart, farther than normal, to recover from the exhausting feat, but she manages to eventually gain her balance and ungracefully pick her way through the grass until a hoof clicks against a rock. The sound chills her, teeth clenching together, but it brings her to a stop just like a wall.
 
A statue in the field, a lost girl, a forgotten soul. No one would remember her, most wouldn’t care to, but that life is all she has known. Atrani is familiar with being a castaway.

dove into her eyes and starved all the fears

picture by haenuli shin- HTML by Call - words: ________

[Rhonen]

He returns to Beqanna unsuccessful.

Firstly, he still carries the dreaded heavy feeling in his chest, the simmering power of destruction and slow death. Rhonen had encountered no cure for it, no strange magician to take it away, no other land where he could bury the seal and leave it to rot. It is his cross to carry and having accepted that he will bear the burden forever, he took to mastery of it instead. The fire-colored boy no longer fears unleashing his power on accident in his waking moments, though no amount of practice has vanquished the ever-present nightmares.

Secondly, despite years of purposeful searching, he had not found his family. Wherever Natilyn and Mikhael and Aubri have gone, they are beyond his reach. Not dead; Rhonen believes that he would know, were his twin dead, but after this long and lonely journey he has accepted that he cannot go back to the time before. His dreamlike childhood, those few months before he was separated from them: those days are gone. If he wants a family, he will have to find a way to make one here.

Someday, perhaps his family will return to the shores they once called home. If they do, he wants to have something to show for himself. He supposes he should start with his daughter, though he does not expect her to forgive him for being an absent parent. Youth is no excuse for being an absentee father, but it might offer some measure of absolution for the boy who had not been ready to be a father, had still been alternatively mourning and cursing his own missing paternal unit.

The thing about absolution is, it only works when the recipient is willing to be absolved, and Rhonen hates himself too much for that.

So he doesn't go directly to the last place he knew Karaugh and Kolera to be, but instead wanders aimlessly into the Field, admiring the crunch of leaves and drying grasses underfoot and safe in the knowledge that the natural passing of the seasons has caused their demise, and not some monster from his nightmares. It is here that he sees a flash of chestnut, and his heart leaps in his chest for the barest of moments before hope is dashed up the hard stone cliffs of reality. His subconscious would ever have seen Aubri if he wasn't thinking about Aubri, but a second glance tells him that the skin-and-bones mare rising from the leaves is way to old to be his sister, and the extra White besides does not belong to his solid-colored twin.

But something draws him closer, his approach heralded by the destruction of fragile dead leaves underhoof, and the young stallion frowns at the niggling familiarity. He doesn't understand until his eyes rove from the body to the uniquely eyeless face, and even then this important to underscore the difference between understanding and recognition. He knows her, though she has certainly grown from the filly who stars in his memories, but he does not understand how a girl once a solid couple of years younger than he can look so starved and so sick.

"Atrani?" he asks it like a question as he comes closer and closer, but he is already sure. How many flaxen-haired, white-spotted, eyeless chestnut girls can Beqanna hold, after all? "It's been a while, Rhonen has to force the chuckle, but he hopes that without seeing his face she won't know, "Do you remember me?"

[Atrani]

Atrani

Oh, silly girl, who would want to see you?
Who would lay claim that they know you? That they remember you?

She hears his footsteps looming, his hooves scratching their way through the fallen leaves. Her senses, so acute to compensate for her missing eyes, recoil at the noise. A step is withdrawn, a breath exhaled. No one would be coming to her – not anymore – because she has no friends and no family anymore. Discarded, forgotten.

Once, she was surrounded by familiarity, but she destroyed every life that cared for her at some point in time. Mother perceived herself cursed upon seeing her eyeless newborn. She bid Atrani and father farewell for a short time, claiming she will join them later, but the child never saw her mother again. Dovev? Oh, father. He cared for his precious monster, but he also cared for women outside of his intimacy with mother. Atrani, aware of her actions, plead innocence as she destroyed his love for her. She hasn’t seen him since either. Rhonen, a fleeting memory but the only fond one she has in her dismal life.

Yes, a memory. That’s all he is now, so why is he here when she breathes in? Why is it that suddenly her nostrils are flooded with his scent for the first time in months, years?

A shiver crawls down the length of her spine but she turns her head nonetheless in the direction she smells him, then hears him. She recognizes the softness of his voice and she wants to smile at him, but something holds her back. This is a mirage, no? Her imagination running rampant with dehydration, she tells herself, but then he is speaking something other than her own name (and even hearing that is foreign to her ears now).

Breathe, child, breathe.

Emotion chokes her; it’s the first time her heart has leapt in excitement. Although afraid this will end quickly, Atrani inches toward him with her muzzle extended. At first, only an empty space to solidify her fears, but then there is skin and hair and warmth. ”Rhonen,” she whispers his name then repeats it louder, savoring how it tingles the edges of her tongue despite how raspy her voice is from neglect. Another step pushes her even closer to him so that she may press her cheek into the groove between his shoulder and neck. ”I missed you,” she admits, hiding her smile.

dove into her eyes and starved all the fears

picture by haenuli shin- HTML by Call - words: ________

[Rhonen]

rhonen

molten eyes and a smile made for war

He is as afraid to touch her as he was when they were children.

Then, he was afraid of being a monster, and she was so little. If his touch was contagious, surely even the lightest brush would kill her on the spot. But he had touched her, despite the anger of the monster masquerading as a parent, and she had been fine. It had been the first time Rhonen could breathe easily from the end of the nightmare, because he hadn’t tainted or ruined this thing he admired when he touched it. Now, he feels in complete control of his affliction, but he hesitates because she looks like a strong wind could knock her over.

Atrani has no such hesitation, and she breaks the tenuous barrier between them as she edges closer, finding him but touch and whatever other senses she uses in place of sight; he allows his muzzle to meet hers in the lightest of touches, as if she were glass, before she presses her face against his neck. Something warm and bubbly fills his stomach because she does know his name, remembers that too-brief encounter some time ago.

He thought his life was hard since then, depressing, but he is having trouble imaging what has happened to her. “I missed you too,” he says seriously, nibbling for a moment on her mane just above her withers, an easy reach when they are nestled together. He doesn’t smell Dovev, but his brown eyes are watchful on their surroundings anyway, careful. He remembers those tense moments, and though he has grown and toughened up a little, he doesn’t exactly relish a repeat performance with no forewarning. “What are you doing out here all by yourself?” He doesn’t come out and say, ‘why do you look like you are starving’ cause hey, that would be rude. But he can’t help himself when he runs his nose gently down the outline of one rib, frowning at the way the skin moves across the bone under his touch.

He wants her to be happy and healthy, not slowly starving to death by herself.

[Atrani]

Atrani

When he touches her muzzle – so tender, so sweet – Atrani cannot hold back the feeble smile that softens the edges of her emaciated face. There is someone, after all, whom reciprocates the little affection that she harbors in her body. It’s foreign, really. Instincts scream at her to retract because she has only brought destruction to those around her, but she doesn’t. The warmth of his skin is reassuring somehow and it would draw her in closer if she didn’t note the subtle change in his voice.

It could have easily been her imagination, but she has realized how much her body has changed over the years. It would startle anyone – mother, father, Magnus – but she has come to terms with it. A rattled breath escapes her and her head moves to the right as though something caught her attention on the ground. Her ears swivel and the muscles twitch beneath her empty eye sockets. Oddly enough, her heart patters more quickly against her ribcage but she isn’t sure if that’s from fear of his rejection or his admission for missing her, too.

In.. Out..

She continues to breathe in a placid manner as she contemplates ways to reassure him that she is okay, that somehow she is surviving. She tries a form of humor, an uncharted territory for her. ”I ate all the grass I could find in the meadow.” She knows the meadow solely by scent. Often she rubbed her body along an oak tree for her own navigation despite how the bark bit painfully into her skin and jumped across her ribs like a xylophone. An awkward grin trembles across her lips, but it flickers away in a heartbeat as she sighs with confession. ”I have nowhere else to go. Everyone is gone and no matter how much I try to eat, I look like this,” she wants him to know that she is trying to be self-sufficient, that she hasn’t entirely given up, but it’s an ongoing struggle. ”No one wants the starved, eyeless abomination.” There is a note of defeat sinking into her, but she tries to recover immediately. She cannot allow anyone to pity her.

”I’ve enjoyed the solitude.”

dove into her eyes and starved all the fears

picture by haenuli shin- HTML by Call - words: ________

[Rhonen]

rhonen

molten eyes and a smile made for war

She draws away from him after his question; not all the way, but enough for him to know the question wasn't altogether comfortable or welcome. But he doesn't withdraw it, because it's an important question. It doesn't matter if the question by default has sharp edges and the air of something neither of them really want to know; he will absorb the answer and his own armor is enough to take the cuts it might inflict. So the chestnut boy waits, silently, subconsciously matching his breathing to hers. Something harmonious to offset the sharp edges.

He takes in her words with the same stoic, frowning silence until she claims that no one wants her; it is that that opens his mouth, a disgruntled voice erupting. It's different than the gentle tone he was using, but he can't help himself. "Then they're stupid," he snaps, tail swishing (once, twice) in frustration. Childhood ideals and stories war inside the boy with the harsh realities of the world as he's known it. His parents might never know the conflict they put in the soul of their only son. His older sister had known the Kingdoms they told stories of; she had visited the Deserts and lived in the Sanctuary of their mother's beloved Falls but the twins had gotten only the briefest of visits, the faintest of impressions before mother took them away into the wilds beyond Beqanna; and Rhonen had experienced the Falls for an even briefer time before the Reckoning. Now it is like it never existed, a myth and a legend in his head and nowhere else.

"There used to be a Kingdom that considered itself a sanctuary," he adds after a deep breath, forcing his voice back to an even tone, perhaps a faintly cajoling one. Atrani says she has enjoyed the solitude but he doesn't want to even think about leaving her here after their visit; and surely if she left the Meadow for the Field, she was at least considering looking again for a home? "Surely at least one of the current Kingdoms would also accept two refugees." Refugees from lives that have been far from easy or nice. He still has nightmares, and he can't imagine she doesn't have them occasionally as well. "Though I know nothing of what has happened here while I was gone."

Beqanna could be a completely different world that the one he'd last know.

Weelp I realized as I wrote this Rhonen should be considerably older than I think of him in my head. #timelinechicanery #whoops #magicallynotoldstallionhere