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    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


    Our Tangled Roots; Rhaegor
    #1
    Warlight

     
    pop

    Warlight wakes with a start in a land very different from the one she fell asleep in. It only takes a second for her to understand what has happened, she still struggled to control her gift, and relief washes over her. She hadn't teleported since she caught the plague, and she was beginning to wonder if she had lost her touch. She takes a deep breath of Tephra's thick, humid air and a sputtering cough erupts from low in her chest. Looking down between her knees she observes the spattering of blood across the grass with mild interest. There wasn't as much, she notes, and it wasn't as clumpy and terrifying as it had been. 

    Or maybe she was just getting used to it. 

    But her head lifts after a moment and sleepily she trails a lava stream with her blue-black eyes. The dream she had been having comes back to her in pieces, it isn't very clear, but she knows that she had been dreaming of Rhae, and she smiles.

    Will is tired, breathing out of her mouth, and missing a little bit of hair around her muzzle and flanks, but overall feeling healthier than the dead-girl-walking she had been in the first two weeks following her night in Pangea. But she doesn't stand. She knew little of Tephra and it's geography. Her few visits had rarely lasted more than an hour. But it would be easy enough to find the buckskin colt once dawn broke. 

    Apparently, her subconscious had been missing her little brother more than she wanted to admit to herself and she wouldn't leave before seeing him.  

    — soul as sweet as blood red jam —



    @[Rhaegor] <333
    [Image: Warlightpageddoll1.png]
    #2

    and I could easily lose my mind; the way you kiss me will work each time
    calling me to come back to bed, singing Georgia on my mind

    Blood seems to be the focus of both of their lives, these days. Spilling it, coughing it, feeling it run like sludge through their constricted veins; sickness happened upon the eldest triplets as fire upon dry grass, though in this case the grass has consciousness. Will chose to kill Rhonen; Rhae chose to leave the safe lands. They'd discussed as much at the beginning of the outbreak, with Sviko too - but months have passed since then, and their sicknesses must be worsening.

    At least, Rhae's is. He hopes that Sviko has managed to stay healthy; it would be a shame for their mothers to lose all three of their children to this plague. Not that he knows about Aegean - like I said, months have passed since he last visited home.

    Home... Funny, that he should attribute that word to the place he was born, and not the land which now hosts him. Standing astride the depth of a particular valley where sweet grasses grow, the disheveled stallion considered these useless things as if he had all the time in the world, when really that became more and more questionable with each passing day. Twitching, the wings atop his shoulder shed a couple more feathers, the places worst effected by the sickness already half-bare. He would not be able to fly soon, if he still could at all.

    Yoooooo... Whyooooo...

    His ears perked; the wind blew as it always did here, but in its howl Rhaegor imagines he hears something more. Roused, the stallion surges forward, gritting his teeth as he comes to the slant which will bring him out of the valley and on to the ridge. As his heart begins beating more quickly to accommodate the extra strain on his muscles and lungs, blood begins gently rolling down his nostrils, lending the pink of his muzzle an extra bright hue. About half way up, he begins coughing, the sensation of blood trickling down the back of his throat both unnerving and frustrating; with a few pauses from here on out, Rhae finally finds himself atop the ridge, sweating profusely and bleeding excessively.

    He is the embodiment of Health, clearly.

    Swinging his shapely head from side to side in something of a daze, it takes the Hyalinian prince more than a moment to register that that red thing with sticks pocking out of it is not a Tephran rock, but the very familiar form of his normally boisterous and authoritative sister. Smiling (and coughing, though quiet now), Rhae drops his head low and approaches, coming at last to drop down next to Warlight in a heap of mottling feathers and sickness.

    From this close up, he can see the fur which has begun to disappear from his beautiful sister's sides; but though he retains his coat, the bones beneath it are painfully apparent. The sickness is affecting them differently, but altogether without mercy.

    "Hey Warlard," the boy said lamely, the childish nickname slash insult contextually hilarious but subjectively lame; "Didn't think I would be seeing you here."

    Rhaegor



    @[Warlight]
    [Image: rhae]
    #3
    Warlight

     

    She is thinner, her hips sharper, her topline harsher. But there is nothing which can dull her smile when she catches sight of her brother. Blood no longer phases her, and she sees right past his cherry-tinted lips. Her family always seemed to bounce back from whatever tried to bring them down, and the reality of the situation had yet to sink its teeth into her - as it had her fairer mother. There was always a healer around the corner or a dreamer to sooth her aches, and despite the mantra of doom-and-gloom each of her days were much like the last.

    Will begins to collect her legs below her to stand as Rhae nears, but he doesn't pause a step away for her to do so. Personal space had never been something their brood had accepted before, and she is happy to see that at least that hasn't changed. 

    "Hey you," she says, shimmying up to him as he collapses beside her. Her tone is playful, but he still gets and eye-roll for the use of her nickname. "I didn't plan on visiting tonight, to be honest."

    "Look at us," she adds through her cough-laugh, falling back into him and laying her neck across his shoulder. "We're pathetic." 

    Like Clayton, Rhae is not same lanky colt she had last seen she notes. Her male peers had begun to put on bulk. She could see the coiled power in his haunches and in the curve of his full crest despite his sickness, and there is a flicker of jealousy in her breast. But that is nothing new, envy, rivalry, they couldn't taint her affection. 

    Another of his feathers falls from his once elegant wings, and Will reaches out, picking up the delicate thing with her lips.  She lifts her head again, passing it to Rhae. "Here, put this in my mane," she asks, tilting her crest towards him and dipping her chin to her chest. "It will be nice to have a little reminder of you, ya know, if you wither away or cough up your lungs before I can see you again."

    — soul as sweet as blood red jam —



    @[Rhaegor]
    [Image: Warlightpageddoll1.png]
    #4

    Rhaegor

    the playboy

    "How out of character," comes the young man's frail but toying voice after he receives her eye roll. "You plan every aspect of your life, virtually, anyway." Here, he punctuates his jibe with a loving tug of her forelock, the warmth of his sickly breath billowing around her equally sick face.  "But, I'm glad you came. I can't be that much of an accident - you love me, or at least you claim to."

    Relenting, Rhaegor lays back and perks his ears to catch Will's words, just in time for her to roll her head atop his shoulder. Although their bodies are not adult-like but not near enough to to no longer be foal-like, they fit together as well as they day they were born; of course, the puzzle would be complete with the missing piece of their youngest brother, Sviko, but he had taken to the mountains in the Cove in the name of health. To be honest, Rhae couldn't begrudge him that decision; after all, look how things turned out for the two wanderers.

    "I don't know what you're talking about," Rhae scoffed, though it turned into a cough which sends her head bouncing wildly until his lungs settle. A clearing of his throat. "We are the picture of nobility, sister princess." But, his aching body tells him otherwise. So, the feeble prince carefully readjusts his position beneath Warlight, getting as close to her as he can while still maintaining comfort. With his mouth against her skin, he thanks the gods for her closeness, just as their mothers thanked the gods for the same upon many previous occasions.

    After enough time that Rhae dozes off, Will's weight shifts. Roused by the change in his sensation of gravity, Rhae lifts his head just enough to watch as she snatches a fallen feather of his. For a moment, he questions her motive for this, thinking the feather but a stinky, disease-riddled thing; but then she places the admittedly gorgeous thing in his mouth, and explains herself. Mouth full, Rhae's words fail to communicate how deeply he appreciates her, and her love for him; but his eyes say it all, and more.

    Obedient, the younger brother reaches and deftly tucks the golden feather into his sister's ebony mane; with only one adjustment, he resettles back into their original position, admiring his handiwork and her beauty from where he lay. As to her joke about him dying, he decides not to retaliate; if he is going to die, it would only be the right and just thing for him to let her have the last word. He owes her that much at least.

    Brows creasing, Rhae suddenly voices a random thought that occurs to him out of the blue, reminded of someone in particular because of his sister's befeathered mane.

    "Hey Will," he starts, "Is mother older than uncle Svedka? I was just thinking about how alike we are to them."

    And then, more quietly: "I miss them. Mothers, I mean, and Svedka, too. How are they doing?..."

    "Do you think maybe you could take me back there with you, for a visit? Only if you are able to, I mean..."






    ...my name on your tongue and your tongue on my...



    @[Warlight]
    [Image: rhae]
    #5
    Warlight



    "The Royal Assholes," she quips happily as he scoffs and coughs, "and heirs to nothing at all. Our Royal Mothers will probably exist forever in eternal queenly bliss."

    But the thought doesn't bother the princess much, despite her sarcasm. Of all the things she wants a crown would be an afterthought... and if she did eventually get one of her own she sure as hell would want to claim it for herself rather than be handed a kingdom by a parent. 

    As thy still, the tickle of his breath across her shoulder they only thing on her mind and she slips into her dreams. For a girl is restless and rarely content, she comes pretty close to true peace in those twilight moments of her consciousness, despite the rattling in her chest and the way her throat feels stripped raw. 

    It isn't long before her midnight-nap is broken by a rumbling in his chest, and her blue-black eyes flutter open as her brother speaks. "Probably," she snorts, "sometimes I forget they are even twins." But his tone is different than what she had been expecting and she lifts her antlered head to look him in the eye.  "I haven't seen Svedka in a while," she says, more serious now, "no one has. Mom said he always comes back, that he is probably off exploring Tang's homeland again, but I can tell she is worried. She seems worried a lot recently, and everyone is out on missions so often that sometimes the Cove feels empty." She realizes she is painting a gloomy picture of their idyllic homeland, but she would never dilute the truth from him. As he makes a suggestion her spark of energy returns. 

    "Yeah!" Warlight agrees quickly to his hesitant idea. If she was feeling well enough to subconsciously teleport to Tephra a return journey with her brother in tow should be manageable. "You just can't blame me if we end up in the lake or something, this it was your idea." She is stopped short as a massive, ungraceful yawn overtakes her. 

    "Maybe tomorrow," she manages to say, her mouth closing "I may as well get a look at Sylva while I'm here, then we can go."  But as she lets her head fall back onto it's living pillow she suddenly realizes he may not know why Sylva has a special appeal.

    "Valdis moved there," she states idly, enjoying (but trying to hide) the childish satisfaction of having a piece of inside information to relay. "Some guy recruited her."

    — soul as sweet as blood red jam —



    @[Rhaegor]
    [Image: Warlightpageddoll1.png]




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