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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


    [open]  truth hurts; needed something more exciting
    #1
    Heat radiates outward from the stone beneath her small hooves despite the late hour of the evening. The odd geometric shapes of the basalt have captured her attention for the better part of a quarter hour now. Just now, she stands splaylegged, attempting to keep her balance as she moves across the stones without touching the same one twice. Her wings stretch out from her sides for assistance in this task, but they are thin and barely grown things, still more down than feather. The moon is only a few nights from fullness and provides good light for the filly’s game.

    Celina hums happily to herself as she plays, and when she tumbles to the ground (which she often does) she always stands quickly after, shaking away her bumps and bruises with a toss of her upright navy mane.

    The girl had told her Mother that she was spending the night with Pteron in his seaside grotto, which she knows is too far north for Mama to travel on foot (and on foot was the only way to travel in Taiga). She hadn’t told Pteron this though, and her older brother is off doing whatever it is that adolescent boys do and totally unaware that his youngest sibling is wandering ever deeper into Hyaline.

    She’s wanted to come here since she first saw the mountains. They loomed tall and impossibly beautiful against the first light of dawn. Celina had stared – transfixed – until her mother had to pull her away. The girl has thought of them frequently in the time since, and tonight she is finally wily enough to trick her caretakers and finally bold enough to have the courage to even try.

    Dusk had fallen as the white filly made her way into the mountains, her coat a bright beacon against the deep greenery and blue shadows. She’d followed a grey and brown bird and its three chicks for some time, but they'd eventually roosted for the night, leaving Celina on her own. The girl had envied them the warmth of their mother and their fluffy cloaks as she climbed higher and the temperature fell lower. It was the warmth that had first drawn her to the basalt columns, irresistable in the cool night air. Playing a game with their pattern had come next, and as she reaches the edge of the stone she raises her head curiously.

    She considers crossing back over the stones for a fifth time. Could she do it faster than last time? With less falls?

    The idea is tempting, but there is a dry tickle in her throat that reminds her she has not had a drink in several hours and has exerted herself quite a bit. Pricking her silver ears in hopes of the sound of running water, Celina takes in a long breath but finds only the scent of stone and earth and plants and horse. Horse? She turns in a half circle, trying to find the source of the last scent that she has only just noticed.

    “Hello?” She says, the smallest of quivers in her voice. “Hello?”
    #2
    We got older and I should have known
    that I’d feel colder when I walk alone
    Hyaline has attracted a visitor today. A tiny, leggy, playful visitor, who after not being intercepted by one of the more... social inhabitants of the mountain kingdom, starts to call out.

    Rookie mistake, but she’s only a few months old - maybe two or three - and although the scaled roan had been content with simply watching her scrape her legs on the rocks, for there was something intriguing in the she kept on tryin over and over again, he didn’t feel like having her be torn apart by the mountain lions.

    A sigh, a stretch, and the stallion makes his way down. It was possible she’d caught a whiff of him when the wind turned, but it was also completely logical for her to smell some older trail - at her age, he figured that she might not know the difference between ‘currently present’ and ‘passed by an hour ago’.

    He spots her movement much quicker than she would be able to find him, even with her tinier body - that’s why he hadn’t bothered to get down earlier; he could see her just fine and she wasn’t a threat to her environment or herself. Until now.
    The roan walks up to the little girl and gives her a scrutinizing look. ”Why do I have the feeling you don’t exactly belong here?” he asks her, almost rhetorically. His golden tail, slashed with mostly white and a single black streak, swings idly by his legs in a movement vaguely similar to irritation at her apparent running away from home (she smells of the redwood forest). Nevertheless it’s more meant as a warning or scolding, than that he actually minds her being here. ”Where’s your mother?” he adds. Surely she must be worried, and it might be good to remind the girl about that little fact.

    It would have been even funnier to him if he knew who her parents are, and perhaps he’ll find out later - for now though, she looks a random tiny white-and-silver filly to him. Taigan she might be, or an orphan raised there - honestly he doesn’t actually care as long as he knows where to drop her off later.
    Leilan
    no. 7 | ice forged in fire

    @[Celina]
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
    |
    #3
    KENSA
    we were golden. we were fire. we were magic.

    There are a great many things that could be said about the Primarch’s demeanor and the paths her thoughts take but she has learned to be present in her home and attend to her duties. She wears a face of quiet calm, emotionless in its way but rarely cold. Her cheekbones are carved of marble but with such artistry that she is a warm and accessible kind of beautiful. Never an ice queen inspiring fear with her perfection. All of the pain alive inside of the woman is concealed, and she pursues every distraction from it.

    Her domain is well known to her and patrolled with frequency so that she sees a great many visitors and trespassers, or finds their scent trails not long gone cold. Some she ignores, uninterested in their purpose (though if they linger long she will expect their allegiance or to see them moving on) and others she greets still as the woman who has always been eager for friendship.

    As Hyaline moves swiftly towards evening (seemingly before the rest of Beqanna as the shadows grow long and cool among the mountains) the marbled chestnut makes a swift patrol. Often she moves around Hyaline on the speed of her own feet interspersed with teleportation between springs, river, and the lake itself. So she is a little damp when she arrives in time to hear Leilan greet the girl, if it could be called a greeting. Though he does not come across as truly surly Kensa sees that Leilan is accustomed to taking a direct and firm hand with children. She understands the value of that, though she is by nature gentle and very fond of the young. Especially when they are wily explorers like herself.

    Kensa’s hooves sound against the rocks, the basalt uneven beneath her hooves. “Hello there. Hello Leilan.” So she softens the meeting, the girls mother will scold if she feels it appropriate once she is returned home. They can keep her safe in the meantime. Kensa will not prune the desire to explore from the filly, that will not be her sin. “You are very high up my darling. Have you come from somewhere exciting?” The Primarch’s topaz eyes are bright and curious, her tone kind but laced with a youthful eagerness she will never lose. Leilan too receives her smiles, if she might charm him a little into joining her in a gentler interrogation of their young visitor. “My name is Kensa. Have you been to Hyaline before?”



    @[Celina]
    #4
    Celina edges closer to adolescence with each passing day, but there is no doubt that she is very much a child still when she spots Leilan. She goes wide-eyed, as frozen in her splay-legged position as a fawn. There is no fight or flight instinct in her yet, just the biological imperative that she freeze in the face of potential danger. But the roan stallion is neither a mountain lion nor a wolf, and Celina’s tense muscles relax as she lets out the breath she hadn’t meant to hold.

    “Hello!” she repeats for the third time, but at last it is a greeting rather than a question. The six-month old filly takes a few steps toward the approaching stallion, unperturbed by his scrutiny. She does much the same, determining by smell that he is not Father is disguise, and then by the timbre of his voice when he speaks. There’s a warning in his voice, a question that she’s not sure she should answer. Celina had known that her parents might forbid her late night adventure, but it had never occurred to her that those she met might feel the same way.

    For a moment she feels uncertain, unsure, and then the chestnut mare arrives and her warmth reassures young Celina. The quiet smile she’d been wearing brightens under the sabino’s gentle encouragement, and she bobs her head in an enthusiastic nod.

    “I made it up here all by myself!” She tells them both. “All the way from home!” Here she turns about, pointing toward the redwood forest that lies in the distance. The nightly fog has crept in already, and those trees nearest the sea have already been lost to sight and distance. The striped filly turns back as Kensa introduces herself, and Celina shakes her head to indicate that no – she has not been to Hyaline before.

    “I’m Celina,” she tells them as one of her fireflies alights in her mane and blinks brightly. “I came to explore!”

    As she says this, her seafoam green eyes slip back to the roan stallion that Kensa has named as Leilan, and she remembers that he had asked where her mother was. Celina is not entirely sure (maybe with Papa? Or maybe on her way back from one of her frequent trips to Loess?) but she supposes that he might be wondering what her mother might want if she were here. This presents another opportunity for Celina, who thinks that perhaps this adventure trip might also be a good way to prove to her parents that she is old enough to wander by herself. And what better way than to do something that they’d like?

    “And maybe to find a husband. For my sister. She’s very old.” This is not true, of course, Marni has only seen three springs. To Celina, who has only experienced two seasons though, her winged sibling is impossible ancient. Only a little younger than the redwoods, and Mother and Papa. “Oh! And recruits. Papa wants someone to train. I told him he could train me but he said I am too small and that I have to be at least a billions years old first.” This is also untrue – he’d told her she had to have at least one birthday.

    “Do you have any husbands here?” She asks the pair of older horses, her innocent smile suggesting that such a question is not so different than asking an Ischian if they have any mangoes. “Or any recruits?”

    @[Leilan]
    @[Kensa]
    #5
    We got older and I should have known
    that I’d feel colder when I walk alone
    The young girl portrays all the expected emotions clearly; she startles when not an echo, but a stallion answers her call (and, of course, with his scales, changing eyes and draft build, he knows he can look impressive without trying, for such a young face - or even when trying not to) - followed by an indicative frown and her braving her prey instinct by pretending it wasn’t there at all. His eyes quickly change from blue to green, as he tries not to grin at her (pointy teeth and such); instead he nods at her actual greeting.

    Before their interaction continues (in which he would probably have tried to keep a stern face and let her draw her own conclusions of how wrong she was to just waltz in here), the Hyaline Primarch appears. Much softer and motherly in appearance, Leilan figures that today is a day for ‘good cop bad cop’. He’d always liked ‘fun parent’ much better than being the corrective one, but such luxury is only available when the boundaries were already set. In case of the silvery girl, that didn’t seem to be the case.

    The scaled roan gives Kensa a nod when the girl points to the forest; he’d already figured out that much but perhaps it’s good to see that the filly has a sense of direction. He muffles a laugh at the explanation that she came to maybe find a husband for her super-old-sister, and looks to the sabino mare with obvious amusement. ”Do you have one available?”

    Taking the filly more seriously than the mare (or he appears to, anyway), he looks at the white figurine. ”Those are very important tasks, young lady. Do you think we should help you find recruits for your dad to train? I don’t think Hyaline is the place, but we could use a few of those ourselves. Maybe we can look together.” He lowers his head and tone in confidence. ”If your father won’t train you for a million years, perhaps you should train with us.” he winks then, and tilts his head back up as if pretending nothing happened.

    Perhaps he's even recruiting her right now. But he sees no harm in that. The girl pretty much said her parents were looking to make an important match for their elder daughter; why not let the youngest live in another land to strengthen ties? And what better place to live in than Hyaline?
    Leilan
    no. 7 | ice forged in fire


    @[Kensa] @[Celina]
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
    |
    #6
    KENSA
    we were golden. we were fire. we were magic.

    Taiga.
    Kensa glances at Leilan unreadably. They have no ties to the land of redwoods that stands on their northwestern border. Kensa knows her own children have played down there before, she had told them it was full of ghosts and so naturally Risk had led Kelynen off to explore it when they were this girl’s age. Celina’s mother is no doubt as unaware of this little adventure as Kensa had been of that one.

    “Hyaline is a very good place for exploring. Would you like to see our lake?” She asks, though she has no intention of kidnapping a child of the Taiga (at least not tonight), it is still preferable to guide her into a more central area for the night. Pale hooves shift against the stone beneath their feet, an eager playful energy Kensa cannot help when in the company of the young. She is too confident in herself to worry if Leilan thinks her a fool for it.

    It is a very difficult thing not to laugh when the girl remembers another purpose for her expedition. “A husband for your sister?” Kensa manages seriousness, doubting very much that the sister in need of a betrothed is quite as ancient as she is portrayed. Leilan’s question undoes her and Kensa dips her head and laughs brightly cutting him a glance. “What are your parent’s names, Celina?” The average parent would not be looking for either of those things, but if this girl is born of the pair who have taken Taiga from that fellow with the bird… She might consider discussing something with them.

    “Choosing recruits is a very important job. You know... Leilan is Lieutenant here in Hyaline, that means he helps train our recruits.” This to give further weight to his offer to the youth, catching his train of thought. They have not discussed the promotion, but Kensa does not think he will mind...and a trade with the Taiga, a ward in exchange for one of her sons… a very appealing idea indeed. Both of them are old enough to recruit, though only Valek is of age to take a wife. A soft snort is the only indication of how seriously the Primarch is weighing the idea. “Shall we?” She asks, motioning in the direction of the lake and all the new exploring on offer in Hyaline. Not to mention the chance to learn more about the Taiga before she pays a visit herself.



    @[Celina] @[Leilan]
    #7
    Celina has not yet learned to hide her emotions, and they are as clear on her face and in her body as clouds in a summer sky. There is mostly excitement, plain in the quivering of young muscle and the brightness of her seagreen eyes, but the there is a breif shadow of cencern when Leilan repeats her question about available husbands to Kensa. Is he laughing at her, the crease in her silver striped brow seems to say, or at Kensa?

    Perhaps neither, she decides with a soft smile of reasurance, because he understands that her tasks are important ones. Her chest puffs up, just a little, as Leilan acknowledges this. Truth be told, Celina is not entirely sure what one does with either a husband or a recruit, but she does very much like that Leilan wants to help, and she especially likes that he offers to train her sooner than the next millenia.

    She is entirely distracted from the idea of training by Kena’s offer to see the lake, and Celina boounces hapily from side to side as she says: “Yes, yes, oh yes! Bubby says it is sooo pretty and I wanna see it too!” Referring to her brother Pteron by the nickname she’s given him, Celina expresses her desire to see the lake without qualm, and eagerly answers the sabino’s next questions in an effort to hasten their trip to the mythical lake.

    “Yes! Her name is Marni and she’s very nice and pretty and someday she’s gonna teach me to fly.” These are very important attributes, at least to Celina, and she tries her best to convey her honesty in her wide eyes and eagerly bobbing head. The question of her parent’s names brings a shadow to her face for a moment. She is sure that Kensa wants names other than Momma and Daddy, but Celina so rarely hears them called anything else.

    “Momma’s name is, um...Darling?” She is clearly unsure of this, but that sounds more like a name than “My love,” which is the other thing that Daddy calls her. About his name though, Celina is much more certain: “Daddy’s name is Bane! Wolfbane!”

    The little pegasus us glad to be distracted from her lack of knowledge by more information about what exactly a recruit is – and does. “Oh,” she says, nodding sagely “Yes. I think Leilan and Daddy have the same job.” This is reassuring to her, and she smiles up at Leilan with another bright grin. He can train her then, she decides, but maybe after they see the lake. As soon as Kensa has gestured, Celina darts toward it, her ring of fireflies gliding around her in a flickering yellow-green light.
    #8
    We got older and I should have known
    that I’d feel colder when I walk alone
    The girl’s arrival might be a very convenient one for Hyaline - though the roan is careful not to let the little white intruder know of this. But should she... choose to stay... or even, let anything slip regarding politics, like that her mother is looking to make a political match for her eldest daughter, then perhaps Hyaline might profit from it in some way. Thus, he makes sure to keep her talking. They already know that the mother figure is looking for this match. They also know that the father is looking to strengthen their warrior class.

    They sound very much like they’re preparing some sort of move.

    Now, Leilan usually doesn’t care about political ties. That’s why having Kensa as a ruler is so convenient - Hyaline as it is, is not often mentioned as a most important land to be allied with, but also has no real enemies as far as is known, as far as he is concerned.

    He wouldn’t personally like that to change much, but perhaps he doesn’t like change at all, like he didn’t like his kids growing up or people fighting him over what clearly should have been Nerine’s safeland from the start.

    All that is in the past though. Now, he is drawn back to attention by Kensa’s question. Names. He has his suspicions, but the girl already confirms her father’s name. Putting one and one together (Where is Bane, anyway? he’d asked not too long ago), he knows who they’re talking to, now. ”So that makes you a Very Important Princess, does it not?” the scaled stallion concludes in a light-hearted tone, as if her title doesn’t really matter to him. But he knows it might matter to Kensa.

    Kensa names him Lieutenant, which earns her a very subtle blink but otherwise he doesn’t mention it - possibly she just hadn’t had the chance to offer him this promotion, but he rather likes the idea of an alliterating title to his name. He nods instead to Celina, giving her a smile. ”I bet we do. I knew your dad once, when we were both in Loess; I don’t think anyone is better suited for that job in Taiga. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I told you a few tricks before you leave.” he thinks aloud, then looks to Kensa. ”But she wants to see the lake first, I’m guessing?” he says while already turning half-ways towards the girl, not wanting to make her feel excluded in the decision-making.
    Leilan
    no. 7 | ice forged in fire


    @[Kensa]
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
    |




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