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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    [private]  Out with the golden we sew // Rodrik.
    #1
    Out with the golden we sew, and the lower past that crawls.
    Now, to the doorway you run, to the girl that's not lost.
    It gets too much, sometimes.
    (As if it's ever been manageable.)
    I find myself wandering further and further away from the light, my eyes hurting, the sinner inside of me cowering in the presence of that which condemns it.
    (Or else, you're wandering closer and closer to the dark: to that which you are destined for.)
    Recruiting, being with Solace, even spending time with father - I can only go on for so long before I must retire to the shadows. Either with Khaedrik or Rapt, or someone new like Zosma - but most of the time, by myself. With the only company that at once understands me, and does not.
    (You stubborn girl, holding on to ideals and ideologies that you have outgrown. Shed your childish innocence. It's looking more like tattered rags than anything moral ought to.)

    I'm here again, in the forest. Looking for someone maybe, or maybe not. Surrounded by trees to which I have no connection, but which envelop my mottled figure nonetheless, claiming me, marking me as one of their own: a shadow-dweller. A black-sheep in my family of lights and neutrals...

    Or perhaps they are the black-sheep in a family of darklings.

    There is a small clearing ahead, and I blink at it; the moon illuminates the area, and the contrasting light is shocking to behold. Thinking of my recent encounter with Kagerou, in the white vapors of Hyaline's mountaintops, I decide to approach: to see if maybe, just maybe some tendril of her being will meet me there.

    I slip into the silvery area lightly, a wraith in the cool autumn night. As I lower my head to graze and be reverent of Kagerou's calm, peaceful spirit, something strange happens. Atop my mottled bay-and-white coat, markings begin to shimmer. The moonlight, strong and unhindered by clouds, reveals the gift that my grandmother bestowed upon me: clouded leopard spots, spread all across my body, visible only in the moonlight, the light beneath which we met.

    Perhaps it is because of these markings that he approaches.
    Kagerus
    sweet nothing


    @[Shelbi] this is absolute garbage, enjoy
    [Image: kag]
    dreamweaver
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    #2

    He faded away—just as the memory of those who we once knew do.

    The stories of the old simply become forgotten or old tales and legends. He has simply become part of those stories. The stories of the old world were where he fell into, just another old king that once ruled a kingdom. A kingdom that used to be feared by many and held the highest regard for.

    But he has been many things.

    There are names written upon his heart of those he has killed and the souls he has kept locked away. He has been a father to a handful of children. He has been a deceitful lover to some, but loved another full-heartedly. He has been a son to a once queen—a mother he adored like no other. And then he has been the devil, bestowed into this world—a ruler of death.

    He can never die though—he lives forever. The darkness pulls and tethers him together. Piece by piece he will always be rebuilt. The earth pulls and sews him back together. Flesh and bone mended together by anatomical and physiological entities at the will of death.

    He is ultimately a slave to the darkness, drawn to it to worship and created to corrupt. His thirst for greed and to be someone many years ago has shaped him to be this way. And at times he tries to return to what he once was—a man who only wanted to be something. There beneath the hollowed-dark eyes remain the boy he used to be—the boy his mother loved so much.

    ---

    The night claims him again. He finds himself as a shadow-dweller of the night, just as he had been with the weight of the crown long ago. However, tonight he is not sure what brings him through the forest.

    These trees are not the same he has grown up in, but he has become accustomed to them. He was forced to become familiar with these new lands, shifted and shaped by the fairies of Beqanna due to their own destruction and greed. Then again there always will be those who favor the darkness. He is a creature of the dark after all—and time again and again he falls back into that familiar pattern.

    But tonight he follows the light.

    The moon guides him towards the clearing. Rodrik pushes through the shadows and plants. His eyes catching onto a figure in the glade. Something pulls him forward—something deep beneath that has been forgotten. His heart pounds harder. The light helps make everything become more evident, but he isn’t quite sure what he is seeing just yet.

    He can feel the cold autumn air become even more colder. His steps are hastening to the figure—a body that is illuminated by the moonlight resembling an old, but not forgotten mother. This mare is covered in clouded leopard spots. He swears by his own life that her eyes are the familiar nutmeg one of his own mothers.

    It is his mother, but not his mother.

    “Who are you?” he demands at once.
    character info: here | character reference: here | image © rostyslav zagornov
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    #3
    Out with the golden we sew, and the lower past that crawls.
    Now, to the doorway you run, to the girl that's not lost.
    I, too, am someone who faded away. My father even more so - it seems to run in the family - but what makes us remarkable is the re-materializing, the seeming immortality, the stubborn refusal to meet with death despite his constant knocking. I am only beginning to truly understand this facet of myself, seeing it in the way my body remains youthful and spritely, no matter how mature I become in both mind and years.

    He, however, has a very different body to look upon; a body that seems almost to wish it wasn't immortal. A corporeal contradiction, though in truth it coincides perfectly with his nature - a nature I have heard of from his brother, my father, though only in short and tense phrases. Kavi preferred to highlight my uncle's love for his family, and the man he was in his youth - skimming over the more current attitude held by the elusive, seemingly immaterial stallion.

    It is the sound of his voice that alerts me of his presence, catching me off guard yet again, throwing in my face just how much time I spend inside my own mind. My head snaps to attention and pivots to find his figure, blasted in moonlight, illuminating his ever disfigurement and gore-ridden scrap of flesh. The whites of my eyes show as I step away from him, my senses telling me to flee --

    -- But that is the light in me, and in truth, the darkness has begun to take over.

    Flaring my nostrils and attempting to slow the rate of my heart, I replace my hooves, stepping closer to the stallion. One does not often forget a face such as his, a voice such as him, one such as him... But with my new markings, and the way I have grown since he met me as a child, I do not blame him for forgetting.

    I was forgettable, then.

    "Uncle Rodrik," I say evenly, if a little quietly, as the nighttime often begs of us shadow-crawlers. "It's me, Kagerus. Your niece."

    I take another step forward, not smiling, but with a newfound heartfeltness in my eyes, a kind of longing and trust that truthfully is misplaced in the chestnut devil. But I do not question the ingenuity I feel when looking at him - just as my brother, and their mother, never did either.

    "It's been some time since you last resurfaced..."
    Kagerus
    sweet nothing
    [Image: kag]
    dreamweaver
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    #4

    The gift of immortality often has promised everlasting youth and life. Some, however, are unfortunate to be gifted with the ability to live forever.

    While immortality to live forever seemed to be a gift to him at first, it has been a curse. He can feel the youth of what it is like to be a young stallion, but mentally and his soul begs for it to come to an end.

    However, he does not want it to end either.
    It cannot end.

    The afterlife is simply a place of hell, much often a place you would often think paradise lays at, that the old and dying beg to find the light in the darkness. There is simply no light for him there. Only darkness remains in both the living and afterlife for him.

    Rodrik chooses to live where he is free (most of the time). There is the hungry-driven within him that cries out into the night. Darkness entangles him, making him a prisoner.

    But it is his own fault for choosing this life.

    He had accepted the call—filled with greed and hunger for power. He wanted it all. And he was freely given with it all, accepting the price. It was a price he did not know how heavily it would be. He was naïve of the world, one that would take every bit of his life within him.

    Rodrik is careful to mask the emotions he feels right now as the scene unfolds in the dark of the night. He is never one to give way for his emotions. They are carefully hidden by years of mastery and deceit. He often has played many roles and parts. Only few could possibly override his mastery.

    He does not move from where he has stopped. Carefully, he watches her—the mare that masks his mother almost. The way she moves, tossing between her thoughts, quickly deciding if she should run or not are evident. He knows when the prey has accepted death, when it is close in the hands of a predator—but she is not a prey, simply deciding (knowing so strongly) that she is safe.

    “Uncle Rodrik. It’s me Kagerus. Your nice.”

    The words strike him—memories of old come flooding back.

    A family he had once been a part of. A family he had cherished. But is it a family he still has?

    “Kagerus,” he says softly. It has been so long since he had thought of his family. The years have passed and he thought by now the rest of his siblings had died off—immortality would forever make him alone.

    He cannot help but wonder what has become of them all now. It has been so long since he has been part of the world. He became nothing but an old forgotten tale, a boy who had once been a king.

    “Too many years, it has been,” he says softly because what she says is true. “I do not remember the last time I ever saw someone.” He smiles softly, a genuine smile that hardly ever touches his red torn lips. “You have grown to be beautiful, my dear niece.” He cannot help but comment, the way the spots illuminate her body only remind him of the beauty of his mother.

    He misses her so much.
    character info: here | character reference: here | image © rostyslav zagornov
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    #5
    Out with the golden we sew, and the lower past that crawls.
    Now, to the doorway you run, to the girl that's not lost.
    Where his options are life and death, I have a third - dreams. Ones that I am addicted to, that leave me with withdrawals after going too long without. If he could have this third option, I wonder what he would pick - would it still  be life? Or would it be a realm where anything is possible - but not real. Never real. Not for long, anyway.

    He had accepted the call, one that I have heard so often now too, it's voice filled with a knowing glee that leaves me sick and hungry all at once. I can see before me the very consequences of having accepted such a life, one where the thirst is stronger than any drink can quench... I can see it in his tattered red skin, in the black of his eyes, in the way he holds himself.

    And yet I see more in him too. For as he speaks, it is softly, and not in a menacing way; in a way that invites me to step closer, to ease into his personal space, comforted by this familial devil. He and Kavi are the same that way, at least in moments like these: inexplicably inviting. Except that it makes sense on Kavi - he is the essence of light and purity. Rodrik, though.

    Perhaps there is purity in the darkness, too.

    "I'm honoured to be the one who welcomes you back, Uncle," I murmur, smiling as he does, a shiver running over me as I recognize the expression as my father's - and as my own. But on his face, it is somehow more important - as if I shouldn't look away for its entire duration. But I lower my eyes at his final comment, not blushing but something close to it. For one such as him - a master, though of what I couldn't tell you - to say such a thing... It, too, is important.

    "Thank you. I only recently acquired the spots..." I pause, open my mouth, close it again, not sure how to tell him that I shared an embrace with his mother not a year ago. His dead mother, but - she had been real, too. And not a dream. "I was able to speak with Kagerou not long ago. She wanted you to know that she loves you." It's a falsehood, she hadn't been able to speak - but I could see the words in her nutmeg eyes, identical to mine.

    It's a falsehood I am happy to bear.

    Slowly, as if it might take minutes, an expression of dark intrigue and curiosity overcomes my pretty face. My eyes are continually snagged on the painful wounds adorning my uncle, distracting me not because of their gore, but because of the way they glisten in the moonlight. My tongue flashes across my lips.

    I am thirsty.

    "Uncle..." I tilt my head, squint at him quizzically, wondering if he can sense the occult in me, too. "Do you trust me?"
    Kagerus
    sweet nothing


    I always love it when you ghost back for a few threads Shelbi. You truly are a master at writing. I am always so humbled when I get to word with you. <3
    [Image: kag]
    dreamweaver
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    #6

    Dreams—he doesn’t remember them.
    When was the last time he had dreamed?

    He has never dreamt it feels like—not since he has been filled with the thirst and hunger for death. Dreaming was an impossible thing to do for him, it was something that was taken from him. Dreams gave you the possibility of having something. It gave you hope, something to cling onto, something that gave you strength to carry on when you felt like you no longer could.

    No—he couldn’t dream. The darkness would not have been so stupid to allow him to have dreams. Dreams would have given Rodrik hope (a hope that he could return to what he once was and be rid of the hollowed, emptiness, and hunger that filled him). Instead he is left wandering for an eternity. Searching and crying out for something to fill his empty heart—a love, a family, anything.

    But it is the hunger that only feeds his emptiness.

    Rodrik cannot help but be pleased that it is family that he finds on his return back to Beqanna. It has always been family that has kept him together—made him face the demons clawing and crawling at his soul to return to the shadow world. It would always be the ones he loved, and the ones that loved him too, that would keep him in touch with his humanity.

    He falls in silence and turns his gaze away from her, unable to speak when she mentions Kagerou. His mother, a shining example of all the good within the world. She was his everything—and he even killed for her (not that she would have been pleased about his sins, but it was revenge that day he had sought out and justice had been achieved).

    It is a lie that he believes in whole-heartedly from Kagerus though.

    The red devil shakes his head, finding his thoughts again. He cannot remain in silence and mourn the death of his mother—not anymore he cannot. “I love her too,” he says softly. The tears he wants to cry do not fall down. He cannot cry, he barely holds any emotion within his heart now to be able to.

    Rodrik finally looks back to her. It is a hunger that he sees within her—something supernatural melded together in a once innocent creature. He is all too familiar with the expression on her face. It is a hunger he often strays away from (as much as anyone can from the demons within them).

    But his hunger answers her thirst.

    “Yes, I trust you,” he whispers.
    character info: here | character reference: here | image © rostyslav zagornov


    Aw, thank you Smile I really love writing Rodrik. It's so good to write with you again <3 Seriously getting so much muse for him right now, haha.
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    #7
    Out with the golden we sew, and the lower past that crawls.
    Now, to the doorway you run, to the girl that's not lost.
    Funny, that his own breed of darkness prevents him from dreaming, whereas my own chastises me for doing anything but. Such intricate things, these demons of ours, catering to the complex fibers that combine to make us us. Like little handmade dolls, molded to sit perfectly just behind our withers, always guiding our eyes, guiding our legs, guiding the decisions we make.

    The weight behind my shoulders is heavy as I gaze at him; daring me to back down now.

    His face (bloody, as he has often left others), is free of tears, but I do not miss how they pool ever so slightly in his bruise-dark eyes. I loved her, too. As if he cannot continue to, even after death. The light in me balks at this, demands that he change his tense, spiraling as I imagine my own father perishing. Would I cease to love him, then? The good left inside of me screams no. Screams that Rodrik is wrong to have loved his mother.

    But I am not here because of the good inside of me. That girl lost control long ago, and I shove her pitiful, mewling voice to the side. I will love who I will love. And Rodrik can do the same.

    Yes, I trust you.
    I step forward, closing the distance between us. Our eyes catch, and the hue of mine darkens.
    "Then close your eyes."

    My mouth presses to his shoulder the moment he obliges me, and instantly there is a terrible sensation of falling. I grit my teeth against the weightless feeling, stepping closer to Rodrik so that I do not break contact with his mutilated skin. I don't dare open my eyes to view the portal that leads me to the dream-world, knowing that it could distract me into losing my subject in the Abyss.

    Our centers of gravity are suddenly reestablished, and I break our connection with a loud gasp.

    "...You said you trusted me," I rasp, chest heaving. "Don't go back on that now." Tearing my eyes from his, I take in our surroundings (always a surprise to me, although I can manipulate them). Beneath our hooves, pebbles are strewn, broken rock sculptures dotting the barren landscape. My eyes strain to see farther than several yards, a thick fog handicapping our peripheral vision - as dreams are wont to do. I slide a hoof forward, ears perked, wondering what else there --

    -- There is before us, suddenly, a small obelisk, about twice or three times our height. I frown at its materialization, glancing back to Rodrik to gauge his reaction. When I look back to the structure, its surface is no longer rock, but instead a non-material holograph across which images rapidly fly. I catch sight of a jungle, a mountain, a river, a mare, blood. My breath curls around my face as I step closer to Rodrik.

    "Lead the way."
    Kagerus
    sweet nothing


    Uh so, welcome to dream land: think Treasure Planet/Marnia kinda deal :| My purpose was to get Rodrik exactly where he didn't want to be lol, without wounds and maybe in the Chamber or the Jungle, wherever honestly. Rodrik has control over the dream as well (because Kag magic) so feel free to do, manipulate, change, etc, whatever you want. >Smile Also Kag can bring up the image of any horse as long she she's seen them or if Rodrik has seen them. I.e Kagerou or Rayelle orrrr one of the people he killed... >Smile
    [Image: kag]
    dreamweaver
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    #8

    “Then close your eyes,” she says.

    He closes his eyes.

    He feels the cold press of her lips on his shoulder. It sends a tremble down his back, making his stomach drop into the depths of his body. Gravity pulls him down. It cuts him apart, almost tearing him from limb to limb. He isn’t sure what is happening. Maybe he is flying. No, that’s not it. It cannot be that. It’s something else.

    But what is it?
    It’s too familiar. Too much of something he once knew.
    Oh, he has got it now.
    I am falling. But he doesn’t know where.

    The last time he had fallen like this was when his body fell in the world of darkness. It entangled him, trapped him in a hollowed dimension. It tore him apart, limb from limb. He felt himself in between two worlds. And now it was happening again.

    He is lost in the moment of these two worlds. A world of realism and dreams—it pulls him in both directions. He wants to be lost in in the middle of it all. Stuck between two worlds where no one can find him. Where the hunger can no longer reach him, where he does not feel the need to hunt.

    It is where the two places meet, where he can lose himself in the darkness and be forgotten.

    But he can never have what he wants.
    No one can ever have what they want.
    It did not work that way, not even in another world did it.

    Her gasp pulls him through the darkness. It begins to build the world around them two. The colors coming together as light and darkness work to form something, anything that it can grasp onto. “You said you trusted me,” she says, “Don’t go back on that now.” He knows he cannot. He won’t.

    “I won’t,” he promises.

    He doesn’t want to remain in a world where there is certainty and he is faced with the reality of where his life has come to. He wants to feel the life he once felt—a hunger for adventure and heart full of passion for the world and life.

    Finally, he opens his eyes.

    The small obelisk is the first thing he sees. It flickers between being solid and holographic. The images of places he once knew flicker in and out of his slight as he stares at the obelisk. They are memories of a life he once knew—places and people he once knew.

    It draws him, he answers the call.
    He fears it will fade away in an instant.
    “Come,” he says softly back to her. He cannot miss it.

    He wants go home, but where is his home?

    The red devil steps into the holograph. He isn’t sure how this works, but he cannot help to focus his thoughts on the place he misses most—the warm heat and the songs of the jungle. He wants to see his mother, his brother, and sister. He wants to see his father—someone he wishes he spent more time with. He wants to say he is sorry to Hakeem, to bring him back from the dead.

    He wants to make everything wrong he did into something right. But can he even do that in the dream world? Can he fix the broken things he destroyed in his life and in others? He doesn’t know.

    The world flickers around them. He instantly feels the warm heat of the sun. The sound of the jungle fills his ears. Rodrik smiles at the scene that unfolds before them. It is the jungle as he once had known it.

    “We are here,” he says with soft smile. It is a genuine smile, one that does not touch his lips in a long time. The smile is obvious that he is happy for the first time in a long time. “Tell me, niece, have you ever been to the jungle?” He turns to look at her with a smile and a gleam of joy in his hollowed, nutmeg eyes.
    character info: here | character reference: here | image © rostyslav zagornov

    @[Kagerus]
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    #9
    Out with the golden we sew, and the lower past that crawls.
    Now, to the doorway you run, to the girl that's not lost.
    He steps towards the obelisk worshipfully: lips slightly parted, eyes reflecting its images (or perhaps his eyes project the images onto the obelisk). My own eyes are tethered to him, enraptured by the way his breathing slows as if to a halt, by the way I can taste the adrenaline in his blood on the buds of my tongue. I have taken others to this land of dreams - but none before could come close to providing the rush of foreign energy that abides in him: Rodrik.

    Come, his voice softly calls. He needn't call. As he steps into the holograph, I step with him, pressing myself to him once more, closing my eyes as I feel my magic pulled from me by the thoughts that become semi-reality. The sensation of having my magic channelled through another being sends a shiver down my spine, as it always has, as it always will: like a two hands pulling out the lining of my stomach in strips from my mouth, causing nerves inside to fire as they never have, sliding through my esophagus and over my tongue until those too come unraveled. Alien.

    And then, the pulling stops; the cavity where my stomach once was slowly refills; and his voice comes to me again. We are here. Inhaling, my eyes flutter open, and the first thing I see is his smile. (Not the flowers or the birds, nor the Jungle where I too grew up, not the family whose scent is in the air, not any of it: just his smile, the light in his eyes... Nutmeg.)

    "I came to live here when I was a half-yearling," I murmur in reply, smiling back at the red stallion; but something is out of place. Here, in our home, his rotting skin seems out of place - and so with a blink, I sew his flesh together again, weaving the fibers of his being into its original design until he stands before me, both of us as youthful as two-year olds, immortal in the truest way. "The Jungle was my home, too, Uncle." The statement is not possessive, but empathetic; linking us; melding our souls.

    Before averting my eyes from his rare and beautiful smile, I step closer until our skin touches; then, I peer at our new surroundings. Ah, the Jungle; my hear leaps at its gnarled, rooted footing, at the vines that snag and pull, at the trees so thick that only dappled sunlight glimmers through their foliage. My nostrils flare and suddenly to our left, the tree-hollow that Kavi raised me in appears. Grinning, I separate from Rodrik and trot to investigate, ducking inside of the dwelling and nosing around at the ground, smelling my childhood self, and my more youthful father (though even then he had been middle aged at best).

    Yes, my memories here are nearly strictly good; but as I come out of the hollow and meet Rodrik's eyes again, I falter. Perhaps not all of his memories here are as wholesome as mine. The Jungle flickers around us, as if buffering, in response to my mental misstep; but the image refocuses, and my smile returns to its place.

    "It smells like our family, here," I allow when our sides touch again. "You knew them far better than I ever will."
    Kagerus
    sweet nothing


    @[Rodrik]
    [Image: kag]
    dreamweaver
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    #10

    The scene around him comes alive—the memories of this place he held close, tucked into the dark safe spots of his mind recapture this moment. For the first time (truthfully, it has been the longest time), he has felt a void fill within him. A void he had longed to fill with the hunger of life outside of these dream-like walls, away from the world of dreams he has escaped to.

    Rodrik turns to look back to his niece. He has forgotten many things, some of these things had been important to him one time ago. Yet, he is learning to find them again. They will rekindle into his life, or so he wishes to awaken them once again.

    He searches to fill his void.
    To find the emptiness he has often searched for his entire life since he left the jungle.
    Is it here where he will find his purpose again?

    “I am sorry,” he says genuinely, “I have forgotten many things it seems.” Their world had been the same, though hers likely had been more brief due to the change the fairies had brought to Beqanna. These lands he had learned, had known all of his life were left in a world far away—only fading memories, and this world of dreams he finds himself in.

    Suddenly, he feels in his body. The mending of his red flesh comes together, healing him into something he had been so long ago. It tickles at the way she shapes and shifts him into a young, energetic two-year old. If he did not have an immortal soul and lived as an undead-being, he would have something more ragged and ruby than what he adorns now. But he is even more so what he would be, a pure soul that knows no limits of death—only life fills his veins and fills his soul.

    When she pulls away from his presence, he cannot help but watch her.  She dwells in her own memories of this place. Rodrik wonders what life she has lived, what places and things she has seen and done. Did she find regret? Love? A family? He wants to ask, but he isn’t sure how long they can stay here. He knows he should do the same, pull his memories and find them. Rodrik isn’t really certain why he has picked this place of all place, but something tells him he must find out. There is something here he must learn, or relearn to live again.

    Then again is something else tempting in this world. Could he stay in the world of dreams? It felt more certain than the world he had left behind.

    But the world flickers around him. He finds himself frowning at the glint of the jungle fading away for a second. Was it so easily lost, just as his life had flickered and flashed before him these last something years?

    Rodrik smiles at her when she does, it replaces the frown that quickly had been placed onto his fire-red lips. “It does,” he agrees as he finally realizes the scent that fills his nostrils. “Times changes everything though,” he whispers back to her, “Even our own family does.” He knows time and death has taken the ones he has loved, even though he could simply summon them to the world again, so easily. But was it even real if he did? Would they be the same? Is it the same here, or they just pieced together from the memories and dreams he has of them?

    “Would they even be real?” he asks staring at his niece, he stares at her longing to know the answer.
    character info: here | character reference: here | image © rostyslav zagornov

    @[Kagerus]
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