[private] I know I need us more than I need me // Reign

[Indius]

i know i need us more than i need me

Early morning finds me lost in the woods.

The promises I made to Iri the night before last echo in my mind's ear as though to taunt me, I promise I'll find something new to show you out in the woods Iri! I'll bring it back by tomorrow night! But by now 'tomorrow night' has come and gone, leaving behind a navy-jade sky scattered with but the brightest of stars. Even they will twinkle out soon.

My eyes drop from where they clung to the sky. Such an affinity I have for the sky, the night sky most of all; ever since that night so long ago, I cannot seem to escape the sky. The stars fixed themselves upon me, strewn in my mane and tail as glowing white orbs. They even supply enough starlight for me to be able to fly during dawn and dusk, when neither star nor sun supply me with what my wings require to function. Exhaustion takes hold of me with great ease when I force myself to fly on such little reserve but it is good to know that I can do it, just in case.

I wonder if tonight will be one such case. Dawn will be here in an hour or two.

With a full body shiver, I force myself to look at the problem. 
(Did you really think I would stay out past bedtime and get lost in the forest and stay there til I couldn't fly on purpose?? Gods, no.)
I wish mother could come get me, I whine to myself. And it would be easy enough for her to do so, if I could just fall asleep and cry out for her, or even for Iri or my biggest sister, Warlight. One peep in the dream world and I'd get poofed back home before I could say "Svedka's you're uncle."
The only problem: my side.

Well, my shoulder, to be more exact. To make a long and stupid half-yearling story short, my escapade through the forest in search of the perfect token for Iridian resulted in a jagged tree limb imbedding itself in my shoulder, scant inches away from where my wings attach their starlit selves into my flesh. As I processed the shock of the thing, I wondered to myself whether my wings could have taken any harm from such a physical source, or if the branch would have just gone through them instead... I figure I can count myself lucky that I didn't have to find out. Flesh heals, who knows about starlight appendages!

Flesh, I soon found out, does not heal fast enough. One attempt at flight proved disastrous in terms of pain (it hurt more to do this than it did to get stabbed!); and the walk home would take so long. So long that, after some hours, I still cannot find the edge of the forest.

Navigation proves so much easier from above. Ugh! 

My face screws up in a tantrum-like sob. Anger, frustration, fear. I want to sleep but my sides throb and I'm scared. I've never spent a night without mother and mama beside me. It would be so easy just to sleep and wake up back home!

With a high-pitched squeal of anger, I send my weight back and bring my forehooves down into the loam of the forest. A cry of pain comes next as the motion jars my injured shoulder, the muscles there contracting around the branch that yet protrudes from me, a drop of blood squeezing its way out of the wound and down, down, down, until it meets the ground.

Indius

""

@[reign]

[Reign]

I can't remember what life was like before I walked across galaxies, before I learned to hide behind the starlight; it's cold here, empty, the sound of the two great beasts clashing together lost in the vacuum of the great black void. I should be dead. I should not be here to see this. He tore me to pieces when he remembered what he was and who he served. I could not reach him. No one could reach him. Not even Mother, as pretty and perfect as she was.

Mother didn't matter to him now.
I didn't matter to him.

My brother didn't matter.

Not once he remembered.
And then Caw came.

Begging, pleading, pretty please don't let her die, don't let anymore of them die—

I guess someone, or something, was listening. They must've been. Because here I am hiding behind the stars, the sole witness to a war that would never quite end. A war that waged on and on in the heavens, beyond Beqanna, past their moon and stars and solar system. They destroyed other worlds in their wake, oblivious even to the planets they annihilated all in the name of their Gods. Good and Evil. Light and Dark.

'Please let me go home, please...'

Someone, or something, was still listening.
All I needed to do to call upon their magic was ask.

""

It's dark in the forest. The sunlight fades faster here, as if the night creatures themselves were willing it away. The leaves snuff it out, smothering it, until the last little ray has admitted defeat and retreated further back towards the mountains and the hills. I've never been out after dark on my own, not as far as I can remember. I would be wrapped around my brother at this point, tucked in close to our Mother, while Father stood guard over the den outside.

Safe and warm.

I long for their warmth, I realize. Especially when my skin ripples and my black scales take its place for a moment longer than I like. Father had admonished me for it many times, he told me I needed to control it. But how does one control something like that, though? How does anyone control the monster lurking below the surface? Especially when they don't necessarily... want to.

My black tongue flicks out from between my teeth, tasting the air—searching for something familiar, but all I taste is blood. Hm. I pause, one little feathered hoof dangling precariously in the air as I consider changing direction. It tastes good, whatever it is, my mouth is practically watering and my pupils have no doubt turned to slits. Some of my relatives call it disturbing. I call them boring. It's the frustrated squeal that makes up my mind for me, though.

I'm less hungry now, more curious, as I slowly make my way through the brush and poke my crooked horn and head out from under a full bramble of blackberries. I'm afraid of him, at first, and I do not know why. There's something about the way that the stars engulf him, something about the starts. My heart skips a beat. I want to run, I need to run—the stars, something about the stars...

"I—" I can't breathe, holy fuck I can't breathe. My nostrils flare, my yellow eyes are wide, I don't know where I am or why I'm here but I want my mother, dear god. I. Want. My. Mother. "Please don't take me back there," I sob, my legs buckling beneath me. I curl in on myself, away from his starlight, away from all that might hurt me, and I stay tucked in my little ball for what feels like forever.


tldr; Tarnished and Caw were teleported to space to wage heavenly war in the name of Carnage and Cordis, they might come back one day. They might not. Cordis returned Reign to Beqanna as a child, Reign spent a little time in space recuperating after being murdered by Tarnished. She doesn't really remember it but has some... hidden issues? Because of it.

[Indius]

i know i need us more than i need me

The fog of frustration and pain which plagues my mind prevents my senses from picking up on the arrival of the stranger for longer than I care to admit. Not that I pay much mind to my surroundings during regular times, what with mother and mama always by my side to lend me their adult eyes, minds, and protection. When at last I do notice her (the creak of a blackberry bush causing my squealing to cease) I feel my youth upon me like a heavy snow upon hopeful spring grass.

I forget my pain as I regard her in the gloom. Steps taken towards her (she of the blonde hide and the unicorn horn) result in a pandemonium much like mine yet different in its own right.

Please don't take me back there!

With such a speed that my reeling, sleep-deprived mind almost fails to keep up, the filly collapses upon the forest floor. Her sobs play a skilled countermelody to my prior wailing, as though our suffering could somehow harmonize despite the woeful, insurmountable differences the exist when contrasting our childhoods. While mother and mama have told me that I ought to be humble and thankful for the upbringing they blessed me with, their warnings did little to prepare me for what this soul before me had already, in such a short time, underwent.

And although I do not know of those things yet, my stomach lurches and my throat squeezes, some inherent part of me intuiting the nature of the pain this girl writhes from.

I hit the forest floor with a thud, the wound in my shoulder as good as forgotten. She could be my sister, I think to myself, shaking somewhat as I consider my options, here. She could be my Iri. Wishing I could make myself less threatening (as though a small boy covered in twinkling lights could ever be cause for intimidation), I reach for the girl.

I hope for her.
Pray for her.
I just want her to be okay.

With a sharp inhale, I loop my chin about her thin neck and pull her to me, not hesitating to start into a gentle rolling motion from knee to tucked knee there on the leaf-strewn forest floor. Above us, the sky brightens as though to answer my prayers; and, though the stars in my mane and tail continue with their subtle glow, my wings (the most culprit of my light-related traits) begin to fade.

Soon, we will be in the half-darkness, half-light of true dawn.

"I'm right here," I whisper; the hours spent consoling my dream-locked sister prepares me for this kind of conversation, though still I feel unprepared. As though what little I have to say could never be enough to shoulder whatever burden this small life carries -- especially as a half-yearling.

But I try.

"The scary part is over. You already survived. Hey, please, it's okay." I force myself to inhale as deep as my lungs permit, then to exhale slowly, audibly. This style of conscious, regimented breathing continues long after my voice fades to silence. "Breathe with me. I won't let anyone hurt you. I'm right here..."

"I'm right here..."

Indius