anyone;

[Nashua]

NASHUA

Nashua is beginning to understand some things about politics. The chestnut yearling can’t say he entirely cares for it - if it results in his mother going missing and unease settling into Taiga instead of family. He had wanted to spread his wings and take to the sky as soon as he could but his brother, Yanhua, keeps him grounded to the Redwood Forest and Celina helps bring the sky to him.

There had been some apprehension in the back of his mind when the opalescent mare, Oceane, took her leave. The winged boy wasn’t entirely sure of his companion yet and managed to keep a respectful distance between himself and Leilan.

It’s hard, though, for a child of Lilliana’s not to look at something and wonder about something as wild as the dragon stallion - untamed (icy) edges of dragon scales, uncultivated curves of dragon wing.

This world is full of lessons for Nash to learn and his eyes widen when the dragon shifts. The fact that he can trade one skin for another is nothing new to him. His sire is capable of the same trait, with an ability to change form for another before the boy can blink. (And how many times has Celina told him that Dad is the very best shifter?) Nash just didn’t expect that underneath all that wilderness, that Leilan could look so ... tame.

(If Nashua knew better, the realization might have scared him.)

He still shudders when Leilan stashes his kill in a bush on the Taigan border. The boy looks away and continues to walk into his home, searching through the empty spaces in between the trees for a familiar form. The crimson glean of Yan, the light iridescence of Celina, even the sweet gold of his Aunt Elaina.

The boy looks back to his companion again and at the mention of his mother, his ears flick back and his expression darkens. "She’s not here,” he admits, rather gruff for a yearling. "She went out one night and never came back.” The caretakers in his life assure him that everything will be alright; eventually she’ll be back (or maybe she won't). Those assurances do nothing, though, to comfort a child in the quiet hours of night when it is just him and his twin in their clearing. They do nothing to ease a sting of pain that makes him wonder if there was something he could have done, that he should have learned better from Elio on how to protect and be brave.

Nash wouldn’t admit such a thing to a nomad outside of Taiga, but at home, it feels safe to here.

Quickly, he looks away, eager for a distraction. The red sheen of a sorrel ahead - patrolling their borders - supplies it. The boy takes a step forward and grins, his tenor voice echoing carrying through the Redwoods. "Rocky!”

and for every king that died
they would crown another

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@[Castile]