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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


    [private]  you're always holding on to stars | vastra
    #1
    and since you’re the only one that matters,----------------
    ----------------tell me: who do i run to?


    The storm has spent itself overnight, and as Pteron picks his way over fallen branches and downed greenery in the pre-dawn light the only sign of the storm is in the destruction that it had left behind. His usually clear path to water is obstructed by a dozen hurdles, and he must hold his wings tightly to his sides as he slides between hanging vines and thick mossy trunks. Minor nicks and scrapes along his legs and belly go ignored, and by the time he has finished drinking, they are fully healed and leave behind flawless blue-green, white, and creamy grey hide. As he makes his way back along the path, he pushes the worst of the debris to the side, the sharp branches that might draw blood on an unsuspecting passerby or a round log that might trip an unalert child. It feels good to be useful, and he continues in this manner until he reaches the beach.

    The usually pristine shores are littered with the bounty of the sea.

    The tide will take back the display in time, Pteron knows, drawing much of this back into the depths. The pegasus makes his careful way through the seaweed, wood, and shells. Now and then he pauses to look more closely at what’s come up. He flips a peach-colored conch with a dark hoof, and finding it occupied by an irritable crab, promptly flips it right back again.

    The dawn light comes slowly to the western side of the island, and Pteron enjoys the leisurely start to the day. He continues down the beach, watching both the sea and the shore with his curious olive eyes, and remains aware of the distantly circling osprey, through which he suspects his far-away brother keeps watch.

    @[anyone]

    -- pteron --

    Reply
    #2
    It has been a long time since Vastra was pregnant but she recognizes the early signs and they infuriate her. What a stupid thing to allow to happen. She much preferred the way it had happened with Brunhilde - just ask a kind magician for a little bit of help and the other parent has to do the hard work. If anyone should be carrying this child - or, god forbid, another set of twins - it should be Svedka. It only seemed fair.

    She’s on her way to Tephra to give him a piece of her mind but is flying over the coast to burn off some of her energy first. There aren't many motherly instincts in her but she knows well enough not to pick a fight or get herself too worked up and risk the baby at all. And seeing as how she's already worked up, better to tire herself out as much as she can first.

    The wreckage of a storm on the islands catches her attention simply because it is something else to focus on and she drifts over on a current of air - noting but not thinking much of the osprey that is also circling in the air. And then, on the beach, she spots a familiar figure.

    Which is a feat of itself, considering how often she’s preferred to keep with her own company over the years.

    There’s some embarrassment when Vastra thinks about the small collection of times she’s spoken with the other pegasus - either wounded or pledging her support and protection for him and his family. Which, well, didn’t end up happening - they lost track of each other and then Vastra had been sidetracked by Brunhilde and their family.

    But Vastra is not the kind to allow embarrassment to have any sort of hold on her emotion and she brushes it aside effectively as she lands on the dawn-lit beach. She muscles aside her annoyance at her current condition and folds her wings at her side as she calls out in her perpetually rough voice that is softened with a glimmer of a smile. “Pteron! It’s been a while. How have you been?”

    She’s only a little bit curious, but it’s a polite thing to ask and - regardless of his answer - she’d rather talk about him than anything going on in her life at the moment.

    VASTRA


    @[Pteron] Smile
    Reply
    #3
    and since you’re the only one that matters,----------------
    ----------------tell me: who do i run to?


    A large piece of driftwood looms ahead: grey and still dripping from the gnarled tips, the dead tree still draws his attention. Drying barnacles and bits of juvenile coral cling to the wood. It’s been displaced from the sea floor here in the tropics, Pteron decides, and nibbles gently at the coral. It is disappointingly salty and very hard, and he spits it out just in time to see movement at the edge of his olive eyes.

    There are few pegasi on Ischia, and none of them up this early or prone to morning flights over this beach.

    He nearly brushes it away – greeting visitors to the tropical isle is a responsibility he neither has nor wants – but then the distant shape circles back, and soon it becomes clear they’ve spotted him and mean to land.

    In the dim morning light, with the wind in their favor, Pteron is only able to eliminate possibilities of who this might be. It’s too small and pale to be Gale and Eyas never visits. He nearly decides its Nashua before the horse lands. She is not too far in color from the half-lit sand and his feet, and Pteron recognizes the dun mare with a bright laugh.

    “Vastra!” He calls out, lifting a wing in greeting, and then making quick work of the distance between them.

    How long has it been, he wonders? Time has an odd way of passing here on the islands, Pteron has found. Quickly, but gently, not at all like the way the Forest had felt when it took a year from him. That gentle sensation has only added to the quiet sense of inevitability that Pteron experiences as a creature away of his own immortality, and it seems perfectly serendipitous that Vastra would arrive now when he very least expects it. Fate, he thinks as his smile turns bittersweet for just a moment.

    She asks how he has been, and the question doesn’t elicit the sadness he has nearly come to expect. The loss of his parents had been anticipated, but still it had struck him far harder than he had expected. The damage of his own hurricane still lingers, but perhaps interaction with others will be the tides that slowly work to smooth away the damage.

    “I have been worse,” Pteron answers, and though he sounds quite light-hearted, there is a edge of weariness to his voice, and he hears it as soon as the words touch the morning ear. Unaware how closely her thoughts mirror his own, Pteron falls back on old habits, deflecting attention from himself and taking comfort in familiar interactions. “You, though, seem to look better each time we meet. Have you found a Fountain of Youth where I might get my own glow?”

    @[Vastra]

    -- pteron --

    Reply
    #4
    It is good to be greeted with welcome and with kindness. It makes her feel less foolish for thinking of Pteron a friend through all their very odd interactions. Perhaps he is just incredibly polite - but since Vastra isn’t overly capable of hiding her feelings she assumes everyone else is just as honest about them as well. 

    Though she notes the faint weariness to his voice, and how his answer is not really an answer, she does not ask any further. She wouldn’t want anyone to pry if their roles were reversed - if he wished to tell her, he would.

    Besides, she’s plenty distracted by his next words.

    The compliment would have earned an eye-roll on any other day, accompanied by a good-natured smile. On this day, on this beach, it earns a faint scowl that she quickly attempts to soften and to explain. It’s not really him she’s scowling at anyway and she’d like for him to know that. “Unfortunately, that glow is the result of pregnancy. And if you’d like to experience it in my place I will happily change places.” Surely the magician that helped her and Brunhilde create Chel wouldn’t be opposed to a tiny little transplant. There’s a teasing sparkle in her eye when she suggests this - it’s a joke but only just barely.

    “Not that I don’t like kids but… I much prefer being the father.” She admits with a small quirk of the corner of her mouth. She's much better at being the father, too.


    VASTRA


    @[Pteron]
    Reply
    #5
    and since you’re the only one that matters,----------------
    ----------------tell me: who do i run to?

    His compliment had landed somewhere tender, Pteron realizes, which puzzles Pteron for the brief moment before she explains.

    Pregnant, she says, and willing to trade places.

    Pteron is shaking his head before he realizes it. He’d seen the little seahorses, and he’s no desire to ever experience a child popping out of his chest. Though he’s not entirely sure Vastra has the ability to make that happen, it is better to be safe than sorry. She’s kidding though, he sees, and tosses his forelock from his eyes as though that’d been the intent of his head shaking the whole time.

    “I do too,” he replies with a grin of his own, a roll of his eyes suggesting that he’s aware of his own folly, and even amused by it. “Though in my case, I’ve never been anything but the father, and would prefer to keep it that way.”

    @[Vastra]

    -- pteron --

    Reply
    #6
    Vastra would’ve been shocked if her mostly-joking offer had been accepted, and it’s entertaining to see Pteron shake his head. She would, absolutely, give up this burden if given the choice - and given the chance to give the foal to someone who could care for it. In place of that, though, she knows that whatever little beast might be growing within her now they are probably better off with her.

    Her stormy eyes are still light with a growing smile when she replies. “Just as well, I was on my way to Tephra to harass the father with the same offer.” Her eyes turn momentarily to the direction of where that shore lies and she wonders what sort of father Svedka is going to be. He’ll be given a choice, naturally - much as she hates being pregnant she won’t force her child on anyone that does not care to be involved. She’ll be annoyed but content to raise it on her own - but he’ll damn well know the price their little game had come with and meet the child first.

    But her attention turns back to Pteron and this debris-strewn beach as thoughts of those future conversations are brushed aside.

    “The tropics suit you. Have you been here long?”

    VASTRA


    @[Pteron]
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