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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


    Little butterfly // Any
    #1



    Tornados from a butterfly's wing


    After the battle, Ama did not recover. Days turned into weeks until it seemed that the ink-black pony was destined to slowly atrophy into nothingness. She would graze until it got too tiring to chew, and then she would sleep deeply, a cycle that did nothing but make the days go by. 

    It had been a colder than usual spring evening when she'd felt the weariness set in. Sleep had been a large part of her life recently, but tonight it felt like a black wave was crashing down on her. Heavy, inexorable weight on her feet and her eyelids demanded she find some place to sleep, and quickly. Deep grasses, a hidden vale in the moor, a place not to be disturbed any time soon. 

    A nest of sorts was constructed haphazardly. The long, coarse grasses coerced into a canopy of sorts, the heather trampled into a deep bed. And then, with little thought, she collapsed into a dreamless sleep. 

    While the gemstone girl slept, her body went to work. The tissue of her muscles softened and rearranged, molded into something new. Tendons built to fly as well as walk, joints swollen with new fluid and young chitin. Building blocks for big things. 

    It was a blessing that she was able to sleep through it. That she didn't have to experience the pain of growth, or the horror. She simply surfaced one day in early summer, aching and groggy, dust in her coat and nothing but the vague sense that time had passed until she tried to stand. Then she knew. 

    There was a weight on her back, wrinkled black masses that she couldn't dislodge. Instead her heart picked up speed, sending shocks of adrenaline through her and blood through the newborn wings. They unfolded slowly in the hot sunlight. Gradual flattening until they looked less like tattered scraps of fabric and more like flight appendages. Massive replicas of the fluttering things butterflies wore, strange and uncomfortable on a pony's shoulders. 

    Ama looked until her neck cramped, not believing the evidence of her eyes. Nope. She must be asleep again, dreaming impossible things and waiting to wake up. Had to be. She stepped towards the treeline, and stopped again quickly when the bizarre sensation of the wings moving with her followed. She very sore, more than she'd realized on first becoming aware. It was like her shoulders had been flayed open and left to the elements for weeks. Perhaps that wasn't so far off the mark. 

    She was dazed. Hungry, too. At a loss for any other reaction, she dropped her head to crop at grasses far greener than when she'd fallen asleep.

    ...Amarine




    #2

    I got extra feelings

    For the time being, reuniting with his twin brother was out of the question. Yanhua would have to be content with the possibility of Nashua coming to visit him and nothing less, for a while. It wasn’t that he was afraid of venturing onto the Isle, nor was he cautious of running into Leilan again (hadn’t he proven as much in the first round?) Simply put, Yanhua wasn’t eager to pick at a sore wound he’d created. The echo he’d sent to Leilan in the midst of their battle yielded startling results, and the putrid anger he’d stirred up in Leilan because of that echo honestly didn’t sit well with the goat-horned stallion from Taiga.

    It wasn’t like Yan to be so… willfully mean.

    He’d been born with a gift and the freedom to use that power for either good or evil, and had told himself from a very young age that he would always do his best to use what little magic he possessed for good deeds only, but in that fateful moment something inside of him had changed. Yanhua had known that echoed memory of the spotted mare had been a strong memory for Leilan - else why would it haunt the dragon-shifter like it did? Why would that image be the most poignant of images he received, if it held no weight in Leilan’s memories? Yan knew the strength of emotion behind a memory like that, and he’d still used it to try and gain an advantage over his opponent. In the moment it'd felt good. Now? Well, now Yanhua was stewing in a mood of regret and self-disappointment.

    He could’ve chosen anything else.
    An image of his mother. A dazzling sunset. Anything, really.
    But instead he’d used that one - the spotted mare whose name he never knew.

    Because of his choice he’d pushed Leilan too far, and now the gap between them (already grown from their previous disagreement in his redwood homeland) seemed like it might be too far a distance to bridge. He sighed and rambled north with only his thoughts to guide him, in search of a familiar face he’d not seen for many months, but had missed terribly all the same.

    “Amarine?” Yanhua called out questionably, looking up from his reveries to see a similar-looking mare just past the treeline he’d been emerging from. The female certainly looked like his old friend, but not entirely like her. As he drew nearer, the difference became obvious: this mare had a set of wings across her back, and as long as he’d known Amarine he’d never seen her burdened with such additions. But he was wrong - it was Ama - and so Yanhua stopped in his tracks amidst the tall-growing bracken and heathers, to try and process exactly what he was seeing with his own blue eyes.

    “Have I really been away that long?” He asked her gently, smiling through a small pang of guilt. Then, remembering himself and who he was with, Yanhua did his best to stop feeling sorry for himself. The world wasn’t about him, not when Ama was giving off fresh echoes of her recent awakening. He tried again, this time a bit more kind. “Is there anything I can do?” He offered.
    PERSONALITY | HISTORY | REFERENCES


    @[Amarine]
    #3
    Information 



    Tornados from a butterfly's wing


    She had slept so long, and yet it felt like perhaps she was sleeping still when Yan's voice broke through the quiet day. Her delicate head rose, unearthly eyes blinking first with doubt and then joyful recognition as the sun touched stallion neared. 

    She took a step toward him, then paused as the unwieldy sails of her new wings shifted too. With a grimace, she paused again. Blasted things would take some getting used to. That thought was quickly shoved to the back of her mind once Yanhua trotted up to stand besides her. The familiar warm glow of connectedness lit her up from inside to see him here again. To feel him, and know he truly felt her too. 

    It was that connection though that made her smile dim a shade when she felt the undercurrents of the caprine man's emotions. He was Happy to see her, yes. But something ate at the happiness from deep inside, and that worried her. Well. A topic for later, if he wanted to broach it. It had taken her a while, but Ama had finally learned not to speak of every feeling she came across.

    With a vague nod, the petite mare reached up to press a light, welcoming kiss to his shaggy cheek. "I think you might have been," she laughed, a little uncertain. Yes, it seemed that time had passed. More than she'd realized. A soft pulse of Comfort echoed from her, an attempt to ease his mind. "You came back, though. That's what matters, isn't it?" She asked, no accusation in her voice. Simply pleased to be with her friend once more. He was the first to see her in this new way, and it seemed a fitting thing. She'd always felt that he'd been the first to truly see her as she was. 

    "Oh these, well." With a wobbly series of steps, she turned a circle before him. The wings fluttered like they had a mind of their own, catching the light on their irridescent scales. "Now you've seen what's new with me," she announced, tail whisking as she competed her turn. "What's new in your world, Yan? What marvels have you seen since we met last?" Her feet parked beneath her in a neat square, ears pricked with careful attention. What had she missed while she'd slept? And more importantly... She hoped he would share the weight on his heart. As well as hoped there was some way she could ease it, tired as she was.

    ...Amarine





    @[Yanhua]
    #4

    I got extra feelings

    A kiss from Amarine was a kiss Yanhua hadn’t realized he’d been longing for. The last time they’d been together on that fateful day after the attack, Yanhua had left as soon as Popinjay had arrived. He couldn’t stand to see the horses he loved so defeated. It stoked something inside of himself that he’d resented ever since. Afterwards he’d felt foolish for leaving in the heat of emotion, for leaving Ama and his mother to deal with a situation requiring his help, but he’d told himself it was for the best: both his dam and Amarine would’ve felt his true intentions and been inadvertently affected by them. His distance would only serve to help ease their unrest, and time was the only thing capable of healing all their wounds.

    Amarine had been on his mind ever since.
    The sight of her then as compared to now was a stark difference - he lingered in the warmth of her augmented comfort and watched as she turned a circle for him, grinning. All was forgiven in her eyes, in the way they lingered on him; Ama swept away his long absence in so many pretty words, and Yanhua took them to heart. For her, he’d always come back. She was what mattered most, not dead grass or the wounded pride of a nation.

    “Oh yes, those.” He laughed half-heartedly at her attempt to deflect his attention away from herself and the newly-formed wings. Clever butterfly, he thought, narrowing his vision. “You ask me like you don’t already know how much of a hermit I am, Ama.” He responded flippantly. “But since you’re so curious… I guess I can tell you where I’ve recently returned from.” The chestnut’s mouth tapered up at one side, more like his father in the moment than he’d ever know. Handsome, a bit mischievous, but still sweet underneath it all.

    He ambled closer and took a longer look, marveling quietly at their myriad colors and the way each wing’s surface played in the light. Subtly, he was also antagonizing Amarine by holding off on following up his earlier announcement. Better to increase the suspense, I think, Yan’s cheek turned, revealing a playful sort of expression.

    “The Plains.” He finally relented, supposing she’d suffered long enough. “Round one of the Alliance is over, sleeping beauty. It was alright… I fought Leilan.” He admitted at last, the expression fading into seriousness at the mention of their Freyr. There it came again, the pang of inner turmoil, but Yanhua didn’t feel like straying away from it for Amarine’s benefit. A part of him was longing for her involvement, actually. Of all the horses he knew, only Amarine was privy to his deepest feelings. Even when it came to Lilliana, Yanhua held back. But he remembered how the teal-jeweled mare had been there for him when he’d needed a friend the most, when Lilli had been captive and every day spent alone in Taiga seemed never ending, so he trusts her again.

    “I think I might’ve fucked up big time.” He muttered joylessly, unable to meet her gaze any longer.
    PERSONALITY | HISTORY | REFERENCES


    @[Amarine] tag, you're it <3
    #5



    Tornados from a butterfly's wing


    It was startling, how warm his cheek was. How warm it made her feel to touch him. A soft smile echoed his as she pondered it. As close as they were, she realized that touching was not something they did often. That was probably on her. Touch made every feeling more real, impossible to discern from her own if the contact lasted long enough. So it was often easier to keep her distance, and so keep her feelings to herself. 

    Kissing him, though. That brought a touch of giddiness to her belly. Butterflies, if you will. She smiled like she kept a secret, though secrets didn't last long between two souls as close as theirs. It was a bright, burgeoning thing, and she tucked it to her chest for later examination. 

    As he admired her wings and spoke in his turn, her muzzle wrinkled in wry acknowledgment of his game. He was at his most handsome when there was mischief in his eyes, a fact accepted ruefully. "Oh, don't make me guess," she requested blandly. "You know I've been exactly nowhere in my life." Which was true enough. If Yan was a hermit, then she was positively a bug under a stone for all she could tell you of the world beyond Nerine. It was the comfort of the Known that kept her there, but it was growing obvious that this had left her rather naive of more than simple geography. 

    The Alliance. It was something she'd heard of, but only in the vaguest terms. Nothing that had impacted her directly. "That must have been quite the honor," she speculated aloud, but the waves of Regret that followed the stallion's statement belied that idea. She stayed the impulse to wreath him in Comfort and Peace. Whatever emotions he was dealing with were there for a reason, and she figured it was better that those get settled before she tried to wash them away. Otherwise, they had a nasty likelihood of coming back to haunt him. 

    "Will you tell me why you think that?" She asked, mouth soft. "If there's anything I can do to help, you know I will." It was a offered with all the solemnity of an oath, and meant with the same intensity. Not that there was much that was in her power. She was no diplomat or warrior. Not really. But she could listen and she could be there, and with luck that may lighten some of his load. It was what she had done after the battle, it was what she had done when they were children. It was, she had determined, her own small roll in life.

    ...Amarine






    @[Yanhua] back at ya <3
    #6

    I got extra feelings

    Was it an honor? He thought to himself of Amarine’s reply. An honor to face off against a king? Or an honor to simply face Leilan, who had a lifetime of experience compared to Yan? Did it really matter? Yanhua let the silence stretch for a moment after that, considering what Ama had said, then he responded in time with the heavy weight of a burdensome thought. Regardless of whether or not facing Leilan had been a good thing, Yan felt he hadn’t responded to the challenge in a very honourable way, and that was the reason his feelings were so clouded.

    Leilan could’ve easily won in a single stroke of icy dragon’s breath. He could’ve frozen Yan to the spot, frozen him solid if he’d wanted to, but even in the midst of an unimaginable rage he’d kept himself from going that far.

    “Oh, I know that. I know.” He told Amarine, recovering quickly enough from the bout of unexpected depression. Her kindness knew no bounds when it came to his feelings, and Yanhua had always believed he was the more emotional of the two empathic horses. First his mother, now this. Seemed like he always needed her help in one way or another. In truth, she leveled him when it felt like the world was spiraling out of his control - when he didn’t feel like himself, Amarine was always suspiciously there to remind him. He smiled at her and reached down to push his nose into the topside of her teal-colored mane as a quiet thank you.

    Then he withdrew, somewhat reluctantly. She felt warm to the touch and smelled exactly like the woven grasses she’d been tangled up in for months. He really liked that scent, and it wasn’t just because he had a natural affinity for grass (you know, being a horse and all.)

    “Not long after the attack, Leilan came down to Taiga. Lilli and I spoke with him and the conversation turned sour quickly. I don’t know, Ama…” Yanhua sighed, a tinge frustrated but mostly tired at having to dredge up the past again. “Ever since meeting my real father as a foal I’ve just been so angry and defiant against male authority. Everything I try so hard not to be comes out.” He tried his best to explain, hardly realizing how the emotions played out over his face. He’d gotten so serious all of sudden. So somber.

    “I played on Leilan’s strongest memory and used it against him in Round one, and he went berserk. Nearly froze me solid in a follow-up attack, but he stopped at the last second. What does that say about me? Leilan could stop himself, but I couldn’t. In a moment I’d chosen a darker path, and now I’m struggling to face that side of myself. It’s bothered me ever since.” Yan spoke lower, now. Not as uneasy as he’d been before, more thoughtful. He sighed again and side-stepped, just to graze for a minute or two while Amarine processed his issues. When he stepped back it was with a mouthful of edible clover, hidden underneath the taller grass and found out by his whiskery nose.
    PERSONALITY | HISTORY | REFERENCES


    @[Amarine]
    #7



    Tornados from a butterfly's wing


    Ama's newly unfurled wings fluttered pensive while she listened. Yan was troubled, more so than she'd realized, and getting him to talk about it seemed to be a race of inches. She smiled as he bumped against the wind tangled locks of her mane, the familiar gesture settling. 

    The gentle feeling seeped away though as the conversion turned shades darker while he spoke. These were not, she hoped, endangering circumstances that Yan had walked into. She didn't have enough information to guess one way or the other. They did not seem to be small things either, though. Her delicate expression grew somber in turn.

    These were heavy topics. Things that seemed so far away a year ago now loomed over their shoulders, impatient and unforgiving. This was one more layer of her idyllic world being stripped away, and she was struggling to find the answers for it. With a deep breath, she shrugged, crystalline eyes shrouded as she considered. "Have you apologized? To Leilan, I mean." That seemed like it would be a logical place to start healing things. A relationship that she suspected may be closer to the parental bond Yan missed with his real father. 

    Mouth pursed lightly, she hesitated before adding the second part. How he would take it, and wasn't sure, but it was truth. "You know... Anger isn't usually anger. Not really. What I mean is," she scrunched up her nose, looking for the right words. "Anger isn't the whole feeling. Folk hardly ever feel just Angry. They feel Frustrated or Sad or Betrayed first. Or something else. Maybe it would be worth looking into why you felt angry enough to do what you did. And go from there." She finished lamely, hoping she wasn't spouting nonsense. It was hard sometimes, to translate into clumsy words what felt so instinctive to her. 

    Shaking the gloom physically from her mane, Ama grinned sadly at the golden boy. "You're going to drive yourself off a cliff if you keep overthinking it." She chided with a nudge to his neck. "Let's do something more fun." A rainbow-feeling bloomed from her then, Hope and Joy in little droplets to rain down on him. Her slim neck reached up to lay against his, an embrace that didn't need augmentation to express what she was feeling. "I really have missed you." She murmured into the gentle glow of his mane.

    ...Amarine





    @[Yanhua]




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