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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


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    [private]  Let the feeling come take you - Leilan, Nashua
    #1

    Yanhua

    Once the ceremony had ended and after the crowd had dwindled, Yanhua stood apart from the others for a moment to watch as Leilan gathered congratulations. This bunch seemed a good one, even if the Isle wasn’t what Yanhua would consider ‘warm and welcoming’. The way they interacted with each other was warm enough to chase away the cold. When his twin, Nashua, got his chance to speak on more familiar terms with the Dragon King, that was when Yanhua pushed his way politely through the muddled gathering and toward the front.

    “Apologies,” The bearded stallion interrupted them before they’d had a chance to get deep into discussion, “I just thought I’d introduce myself properly before heading south again.” Yan bent his head and eyed Nash for a moment, allowing something unspoken to pass between them before he turned to Leilan again.

    “The Other Brother, Yanhua, at your service.” Yan smiled and dipped his horns. “I’m sure you’ve heard all about me.”

    This was a joke, mostly. He expected that Leilan might know of him but Yan knew they’d never met personally. Distance had played a major part in that, while the other half could be blamed on duties. Yanhua and Nashua had been young when they’d parted, and since then their lives had taken similar routes. They kept busy - or at least Yan did, and he expected as much of his twin. Time got away from them, but now it was coming back and Yanhua wanted to take full advantage of a reunion while the opportunity allowed it.

    “Apparently we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other.” The Taigan said to his brother, bumping his taller shoulder into Yan’s side. Not so much a formal greeting, very much a brotherly one. It was obvious they shared a familial love for one another. “Promise you’ll go easy on me if we’re matched up in a fight?” Yan smirked kindly to Nash, shivering a bit as the wind picked up.

    I GOT | Extra | FEELINGS



    @[Leilan] @[Nashua]
    Reply
    #2
    Leilan
    The council meeting just earlier has been... something, to say the least. But truth be told he hadn’t actually held back on any sort of sharp, quick-witted, and somewhat rude comments had been born into his mind. He hadn’t put a stop to it, and once started, as usual couldn’t help himself. It’s possible that that was what had earned Lilli’s glaring - or the fact that both her sons would join him in the Alliance. While they were adults in almost every aspect of the word, he knows that two years old, for a firstborn, feels like two months. Hadn’t he, after all, once upon a time decided a two year old colt wasn’t protection enough for his daughter?

    Circumstances had of course been different, and honestly he needed them. Not for the protection they could offer, but he needed them to grow and prosper perhaps more than they needed it themselves. Proving to himself and to outsiders that he could, in fact, take good care of the boys who made it to the Isle - and that it was an okay living place again, even without the pine forest.

    As the meeting - announcement really - ends, he’s not surprised to find Nashua and Yanhua both lingering. To offer oneself to fight in the Alliance battles wasn’t a decision made in one day (though he suspected for Nash it might have been), and it might be good to use the opportunity of them both here to talk it over.

    The dragon-blood stallion grins to the duo, easily chipping in himself. ”Horned one, Winged one. Got it,” he nods to them and smirks. ”I hope you both didn’t take bets on this?” More or less a joke, he waits for it to land it’s hidden meaning. It’s all fun and good to challenge one another, but to fight your own, takes a different sort of guts than stepping forward at all. And who knows who they’ll meet. There’s lots of friends and families involved in this, especially for Nashua who has wandered to the ends of the earth already.

    When Yan asks about going easy though, the ice-scaled stallion snorts. ”About that,” he looks to Yanhua, more serious now. ”How much battle experience do you have?” He’s pretty sure he knows the striped boy’s answer - none, really - and figures for Yanhua it might just be the same.
    I just wanna be someone
    well, doesn’t everyone?

    Image commissioned by Vanilla, made by AshesDrawn on DA


    @[Nashua]
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
    |
    Reply
    #3

    stars when you shine, you know how i feel
    oh freedom is mine

    Gods, he’s missed his brother.

    Nashua is often here on the Isle and then gone again. It’s no secret that the chestnut pegasus has been driven by a wanderlust that had been sparked almost since birth (it’s how he met the Freyr). What exploring the borders of Beqanna is to him is what patrolling the borders of Taiga means to @[Yanhua], the green-eyed stallion thinks.

    They are finding purpose in their daily lives - even duty - but in the accumulation of those things, moments with the horned Champion of Taiga becomes more and more infrequent. Nash had been looking forward to Leilan’s coronation for many reasons but standing beside him was perhaps the greatest one: Yan.

    A moment of quiet passes between the twins when his younger brother eyes him and Nashua grins back at him, lopsided and charming. He flicks his flaxen tail and turns his attention back to the Dragon King, watching his mentor curiously. There’s a twinge of anticipation in his chest, wondering what they make of each other.

    It’s his brother’s manners - a politeness brought with him from the Taiga - that settles it and Nash flashes his green eyes gratefully at his brother. The Golden Child, he might have teased. His twin literally glowed gold from his mane down to his tufted tail. It was Nashua who had always felt a little different, as Leilan blatantly points them out between the two brothers. The Horned One. The Winged One.

    "No bets,” Nashua finally laughs, breaking his unusual silence. "Just chance.” Confirming, perhaps, mostly what Leilan had assumed. (While Nashua had considered entering the Alliance longer than a day, when the moment came, he leaped into like he did most things: wings wide and his thrill already soaring.)

    Yanhua bumps into his shoulder and Nash pushes back, playfully extending his brown wing. "After all the damage that those," (he points to the proud, curled horns atop the taller stallion's head), "put me through?" Nash smirks back, knowing that most of the skirmishes of their shared youth could probably be placed at his hooves. Nashua the little explorer had also been the instigator of their foalhood. The striped one grins, all brotherly-affection. "No way."

    He snorts gently and then focuses his attention back on Leilan, remembering that the reason for this reunion wasn't all about fun and games. "Cormorant and Alcinder and I have been practicing," he tells the Freyr of the Isle, turning serious. When we can. He doesn't add. (The roan leader already knows that his young ward is as often gone from the island as he is here.) But Nash knows what he says implies exactly why the King of the North is asking. They are all young and regardless of how much they might practice and spar on the Isle, in Nerine or Taiga, the North is young and therefore, untested.


    NASHUA

    html by castlegraphics; art by MirrorLands
    [Image: jCdBK6.png]
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    #4

    Yanhua

    Yanhua laughed at the suggestion of betting against his own brother, and his twin answered Leilan’s joke aloud. Maybe Leilan and the others were right; the differences between the young horses born to the same mother at the same time were many and obvious, but to Yan they’d always been necessary differences. Nashua had always been a strange extension of himself really, like a second personality split apart and made whole in the flesh. Two halves of a damn unit, each one of them strong in an area the other lacked. A perfectly ‘imperfect’ being.

    “You say that like you haven’t nearly dive-bombed me to death a few hundred times before.” He shot back at his brother, forgetting himself the moment. Even after months apart it was simple falling back into their old habits. Yanhua liked to wear his familiar memories like warm sweaters, and the recollections he had goofing off with his twin in Taiga are some of the warmest he keeps in store.

    But Leilan’s inquiry returns him to the present, and Yan keeps his mouth in a tight line and his concerns out of his expression when he supports Nash’s training with upturned ears. So that’s the upside to the Isle, then. More stallions to really spar with. The bearded Taigan grit his teeth and thought about his own practice partners. There was sweet Lethy, recluse Owin, and the foals of past season… Yan chuckled awkwardly.

    “Does relocating an ornery badger count?”

    I GOT | Extra | FEELINGS



    @[Leilan]
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    #5
    Leilan
    Ah, boys - this is the reason he brought Alcinder in first place, convinced Lilli that it’d be good for Nashua too. Well, and the international relationships of course. He remembers his own early life - sadly not many boys to play with in his first year in the Jungle, he’d quickly found a roaming group Beyond to stick to. Perhaps, he muses, his life would have been so different if the Brotherhood of the Tundra had still existed then; now, all he can do is offer the younger generation what he didn’t have himself, but desperately needed. It’s strange to see in Nashua and Alcinder pieces of himself, without having sired either of them. Though to be honest, Castile had had a similar childhood and upbringing, and Bane was still family.

    Dive bombing... his eyes gleam emerald green for a heartbeat with the idea. Something he’ll try with someone, someday, he thinks. ”Those sound like fun battle tactics,” he says, not able to hold back a mad grin. Though his face grows more serious when he hears that Nashua has only sparred with boys his age, and Yanhua had too little experience, as well. Time for something else then. War-prepping.

    ”Alright,” he looks to the both of them, does a quick check of their surroundings (Lilliana better not see this), then takes one, two, three steps backwards. A hard icy glance comes over his light blue eyes as he seizes them up. Yanhua is a little larger than himself, Nashua is smaller, but possibly quicker. His scales harden with a touch-up from his shifting abilities when he thinks of hoofs and horns, then he lowers his head automatically to gain a defensive, strong srance. ”Hit me.”
    I just wanna be someone
    well, doesn’t everyone?

    Image commissioned by Vanilla, made by AshesDrawn on DA


    @[Nashua] battle practice! all yours <3
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
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    #6

    stars when you shine, you know how i feel
    oh freedom is mine

    "Me?” Nashua says, feigning shock. The gleam in his eyes says otherwise. More like a few hundred times and then some, Nash thinks with a smirk. Once the young pegasus had found wings, @[Yanhua] had more or less been the unfortunate tester of his practice landings.

    As they got a little older, trying to fly over Yan had become their own version of William Tell with Nash trying to avoid the ram horns of his twin brother and Yanhua trying to avoid any lack of precision Nashua most likely had. (Popinjay had loved the stories about this game. His Aunts had frowned and tried to encourage other ways for the colts to test their growing abilities.)

    The time for joking doesn’t last long. Nashua turns his attention back to Leilan when the Dragon King asks it of him. The larger stallion looks around and Nash more or less follows with a shorter version of the action, wondering if there was something they should be looking for. Leilan backs three steps away from them and then lowers his head with a command.

    "Shit,” Nashua says quietly, not expecting a spar.

    He glances to his brother, trying to catch the blue eyes of Yanhua. This spar is meant to be an elementary lesson on fighting another with experience, another with traits perhaps greater than their own. It’s an introduction to the other kinds of horses the twins are bound to face in the Alliance. There is even the chance that Nash and Yan might have to fight against each other but today, Nashua has an idea.

    If they are to get an education about fighting, they might as make the most the opportunity and learn everything they can.

    Moving carefully a few steps from Yanhua, Nashua can feel the tension coiling underneath his copper coat like electricity. His muscles tightened and the young stallion focused all his energy into charging forward, rearing up aiming to strike behind Leilan’s shoulder as he came down (is there a weakness in his scales?). Nash could attempt to distract the Freyr from this side so Yan might attempt a move of his own.


    NASHUA

    html by castlegraphics; art by MirrorLands
    [Image: jCdBK6.png]
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    #7

    Yanhua

    Yan feared that his twin, Nashua, might also have the brain of a bird to match the body of one. He rolled his eyes backwards and threw his long nose aside with a tch of disapproval, knowing good and well their boyhood games could’ve been close to bloody murder. They’d run wild together in Taiga; now they’d run just as wild through the rest of Beqanna. Truly, Yanhua couldn’t express how deeply excited and happy he was to have Nash in the Alliance with him, (the fear of being a half-stallion newbie felt less daunting now) but for appearances sake he’d never seemed more annoyed.

    “Wait, what?” Yanhua asked at the same time Nash whispered shit, turning to watch Leilan for any hints of a joke.

    Was he being serious? “I mean, he looks serious.” Yan considered, a bit dumbfounded by the sudden change in conversation and slow to start, whereas Nashua was thinking two steps ahead.

    Yan caught the look from his twin, just from the corner of his eye, and his expression darkened in an instant. “Oh - he’s serious.” Yan thought with an excited grin, seeing a blur of movement to his side.
    Nash had positioned himself and then leapt into a frontal attack. Yanuha had seconds to consider a next move while that was going on, but the reaction felt as natural as breathing when his turn came. Where Nash went high, Yan went low - he guessed that Leilan might turn and take Nash’s hooves on his ribs or flanks, even though his scales looked impervious. So, Yanhua bowed his head and dashed quickly, making out as if he were aiming to ram Leilan from the opposite side, but at the final moment he chucked his horns up and struck out with his own goat’s hooves to take a shot at hitting Leilan’s closest foreleg. The horns swaying through the air were just to give himself some room; they acted as a distraction while his true intention and strength went behind the swipe at Leilan’s scaled limbs.

    I GOT | Extra | FEELINGS



    @[Leilan] @[Nashua] Big Grin
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    #8
    Leilan
    There is in fact little that Leilan takes truly serious, indeed. Sparring however, when it means bettering the young ones and hoping they'll be able to defend themselves, is certainly one of them. The other is possibly, the covering up of emotion between a layer of laughs and jokes - right now, he doesn't have time for them and stows them away like always. He's very effective at that (some might say too effective); glancing over Nashua and Yanhua as he anticipates their movements from the way they stand and their muscles contract, he shows little to no emotion indeed.

    Except maybe for the hint of a smile at his lips.

    Nash makes a daring, but almost foolish move. The young pegasus exposes the underside of his wings and his belly in his rear, but Leilan is experienced in the defence of his land, family, and himself. Yanhua lowers his head, he sees in the corner of his eye - so Leilan moves opposite of their expectations.

    The dragon shifter's head changes, growing bulkier and horned in an instant. Teeth follow suit although he doesn't use them: instead, he lowers his forelegs to avoid Nashua's hooves, and makes a running motion forward into Nashua's belly area. This effectively keeps his underbelly away from Yanhua's reach, also, though he anticipates any sort of blow to his scaled hindquarters, and makes sure to steady himself between his two attackers. He expects the pegasus' hooves on his left backside near his spine, and Yanhua's on his right hindquarters. If anything, they won't topple him over because of their dual attack (which is the downside of attacking two against one), and maybe Leilan's movements are enough to unbalance the rearing Nashua, as well.

    He then continues his forward movement, making use of his momentum to pick up a little speed and turn to face them again. He still has a dragon's head, not having bothered to shift it back (truth is, it's hard to change to a horse when in battle, with fighting instincts kicking in). He eyes them, one to the other, and narrows his reptilian orbs to slits as he doesn't expect this to be quite over.
    I just wanna be someone
    well, doesn’t everyone?

    Image commissioned by Vanilla, made by AshesDrawn on DA


    @[Nashua] I know it's super old but I wanted to at least get one response out! If you guys want to, we can just end it and say they sparred OOC, or we can continue it even if it's old xD
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
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