"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
In the pleasant quiet, Cheri waited for the Creature’s answer. Anubias took her suggestion and also a smile to boot; his winged companion hadn’t expected that her name idea would be taken so seriously, but she appreciated the gentlemanly kindness of a stranger in the midst of chaos. They could keep their secret: Cheri was happy enough to be none-the-wiser, and eternally grateful for a stroke of luck that sent these two her way. The green colt had been the last thing Cheri had expected to come across in the dark, and as she looked between him and the companion he’d found, her equally soft heart warmed with a fresh appreciation for happy mistakes.
“I’m Cheri!” She told him quite naturally, voice bubbling. “Cheri from Taiga—which is where I’m heading, I think.” She followed through, hesitating when it came to the matter of how she ended up on the Riverbanks in the first place.
Under the strange, thin light of the Eclipse she looked around, thrown off her bearings. The trees and the shape of the water seemed sinister now that she thought about her detachment, and the old fear from before came creeping in again to give her a little shiver. Cheri pulled her wings closer, swallowing, and focused on the bubble of calm that Anubias seemed capable of creating around them. Creature seemed to be curled peacefully on his backside, content in the little atmosphere of tranquility.
“I’m… scared.” She admitted quietly to him, knowing that Anubias was probably already aware. But it felt better to Cheri just to address her problems head-on, get them out in the open where he could hear them and she could confront them. “My parents were supposed to come for me, but they never did.”
She glanced toward the sky and its ominous warning, thinking of Pappa Yan and Mother Ama somewhere out there, possibly dead, and Cheri bit her lip to hold back the warble in her thin little voice.
An overabundance of naivete meant that Anubias has not yet really experienced fear. He had not even been particularly worried about the darkness (possibly because he had not managed to stumble across any of the monsters as of yet). He is, however, quickly sympathetic to Cheri’s situation and he reaches out to bump her gently, encouragingly, on the neck. He doesn’t know what it is to be scared, not really, but he doesn’t like to see his newest friend worried.
“Oh, it’s okay to be scared! I bet they just got lost, everything looks the same right now so it'd be real easy to.” If it weren’t for the river being right beside them, Anubias wouldn’t even know where they are. He imagined that the meadow looked much like the forest too - except in the woods you had a slightly higher chance of running into a tree. “My parents sometimes get lost too and I need to find them.”
Of course, much like Anubias is going to pretend his companion is named Creature for Cheri’s sake, his parents did not let him know that they never got lost - he did.
He falls quiet for a moment, thinking hard about how he can help Cheri from Taiga. He wishes that he had paid more attention when his mom had told him about the different lands. It hadn’t seemed like important information then but it probably would be helpful now!
There’s definitely no chance that Anubias could do nothing. He and Cheri are friends now and he wasn’t about to just walk off and leave her to look for her parents on her own, especially if they were lost. Parents were always getting lost. “I’m sorry I don’t know where Taiga is… but maybe we can find your parents or someone that knows which way to your home? Six eyes are better than two. What do your parents look like?” Anubias quite liked this plan - it was like having a quest!
Cheri felt instantly better the moment Anubias touched her. It was as if he’d unplugged her concern from the source by giving her just the slightest kindness, replacing her insecurity with reassurance. He reminded her of Reynard, her older twin, who always seemed to know the answer to tough questions. She nodded; he was right, her parents were probably just lost somewhere like she was. This darkness was heavy, anyone could get turned around in it.
He even manages to wrangle a little laugh out of Cheri. The idea of him having to constantly track down his own parents! Funny image—Anubias was a funny colt. A friendly, funny colt who Cheri liked very much.
“Then they’re very lucky to have you, and so am I.” She answered him.
While he thought, Cheri slipped closer to the water and lowered her nose for a quick drink. She let her ears wander freely, felt the way each gulp traveled down her dry throat, and then wiped her lips over her foreleg to clean up any drops that might’ve traveled messily down her chin before stepping back into place beside Anubias. He was being strangely quiet, studious perhaps. Cheri couldn’t make out the finer points of his expression, so she missed the little indicators that would’ve given her a hint at his frustration.
“Well… Pappa Yan is tall, very tall. And he’s brown and gold like an ear of dry wheat. He’s got big horns on his head, and his hair glows. Momma Amarine is dark black, like me. And she’s got these smooth blue gems covering her body—oh, and she has butterfly wings! You can’t really tell because she keeps them folded a lot, but they’re there.” Cheri explained all of this with a smile, and then when she’d finished the smile disappeared. All of a sudden the reality of her situation hit her hard: Anubias was kind and sweet, but even his infinite sweetness couldn’t shake the idea that Cheri might never get her own hair tousled by Yan again, or be rocked to sleep beside Ama like she was accustomed to.
Looking away in fear that Anubias might see her, Cheri bit back the tears springing up again. Winds, she always had to go and be soft like a filly. Memorie wouldn’t cry, and Reynard would probably be out enjoying himself. She needed to stop. Crying wasn’t going to get her anywhere.
“Wait,” she suddenly remembered something ingrained in her, sniffling away her sadness as Cheri turned back toward Anubias, “I think if we follow the River upstream I can find the way.” The glowing filly told him. Mother and Father had taught her once that the River divided their home from Hyaline; she could use the water as her guide! Cheri’s sadness faded, replaced instead with a sliver of hope, and she kept herself from laughing with hysterical glee by smiling and bumping Anubias with her nose instead.
“Come on!” She urged him, eager to be on the way when only a few seconds ago she’d been too petrified to move.
Anubias had been trying to make her laugh and he’s grateful when he succeeds, feeling a current of pride go through him. It doesn’t matter that it’s a small laugh - it still counts. It had done the trick, after all! And that feeling of pride turns into a shining smile when Cheri says she’s lucky to have him.
He listens intently when she gives a description of her parents. They sound distinctive, at least, which should make finding them a little easier. If they were just black horses then man it would be hard with these shadows. Everyone blended in right now but some were definitely going to be harder to find than others.
She looks away after giving the descriptions, which leaves Anubias to look around - as though Pappa Yan or Momma Amarine might appear out of the shadows any moment. He wouldn’t think anything of her tears if he noticed them - this is the perfect situation to cry in.
He’s got his eyes narrowed on a distant figure trying to figure out if there’s butterfly wings (he is, in fact, looking at a rock), when Cheri turns back to him - breaking his concentration with a brilliant idea. He brightens with her, declaring “That’s smart, Cheri!” before moving up river. His companion exclaims at the injustice of the movement of her bed, and after a few awkward strides manages to dig her claws into his mane so she is not in danger of being tossled off.
“What’s Taiga like?” Anubias asks as they fall in beside each other, hoping talking about her home will help distract Cheri from her sadness a little more. Though he doesn’t think less of her for being sad one bit - he sure does prefer to see her smile!
Such a little filly Cheri was, to be carrying around such a big heart full of emotions. One minute laughing and then the next crying, trembling on the riverbanks asking Anubias for some company and now here she was, leading him off into the dark mystery of the unknown. They were children, how could they have possibly known that a journey like the one Cheri was pulling Anubias into was one that required weeks of travel? In her fine, airy head Cheri only remembered the first trip down this way had taken a long time. So for her, that just meant they’d be walking for a long time back up the river.
It seemed so simple a solution to such an enormous problem.
But those worries would come later. For now she had company and Anubias’s belief in her. Both were equally important for the filly: Cheri could be a little lion if she had the right encouragement, and in the present moment she felt like roaring. Her strides, though lanky, had a bounce to them as the pair took off upstream, and she flicked her wings now and then with excitement.
“Oh it’s huge.” She exaggerated the word, tilting her feathers up and folding them closed like a pair of waving fans. The arc of them was meant to illustrate just how huge Cheri was talking about. Like, huge huge. Big. “We got trees that hold up the sky! Their skin, which Pappa Yan says is ‘bark like a dog’, looks as dark red as Creature’s fur.” Cheri went into detail, clopping pleasantly alongside Anubias.
What she wouldn’t say to the gleaming emerald colt was that legend her father had told her, about the Guardians of their home. That their duty was to watch the ancient trees, protect them, and never let them fall unless the sky should come plummeting down right after. Gramma Lilli, Cheri’s relation who could’ve been the exact same age as momma Borderline (young), had the weight of the entire sky on her flaming red shoulders. She missed her; missed her family. It was going to be wonderful coming home to those evergreen boughs, and soon enough Cheri would be - thanks to Anubias and Creature.
“Are there big trees where you live?” She asked eventually, and then remembered: “Hey, where do you live?”
Anubias doesn’t mind tears or sadness - they’re a part of life and they’re always temporary. But he loves Cheri’s happiness and the way it animates even the way she walks. He’s grinning brightly as she even flares out her wings to emphasize the size of Taiga and the trees that exist with them. Anubias likes to think his imagination is pretty good but even his brain cannot accurately picture the trees she describes - except for the colour. That’s easy, because the reference is attempting to settle back into sleep as she gets used to the way his back moves with his gait.
“That sounds so cool!” He exclaims brightly, really hoping he’ll be able to see them on his own one day - especially when the sun is back so he can really see them. Right now he imagined everything in Beqanna pretty well looked the exact same. At her question, he shrugs a little as he replies “I don’t really live anywhere in particular.” But there’s no sorrow in this statement - Anubias has been given no reason to dislike his life or wish for anything other than what he’s been given. “My parents spend a lot of time in the Forest - that’s how they get lost so easily, all those trees. But they’re only like, normal sized trees. And none of them match Creature.”
He glances back at the red panda who just opens her eyes a little to blink at him before settling down again and he is still grinning when he glances at Cheri. “It’s always just been the three of us - my mom, me, and my dad. I didn’t even know there were lands beyond the common areas until recently.” A whole world beyond them, “Is Taiga the best, do you think?” Cheri might be far from an unbiased opinion but the mere fact that she knew even one more land meant the metallic colt easily assumes she's an expert on the subject.
Cheri never would’ve guessed that horses didn’t live in certain, specific homes. In her small world there was only the North and the herds banded together in the three separate places, and she naively assumed that whoever didn’t live in Taiga just lived elsewhere. Every horse had to have a home, right?
Anubias certainly didn’t match what she thought a nomadic horse would look like… he was cleanly and from the looks of it, healthy. Even in this dismal sort-of darkness, his coat had a sheen that proved someone was watching over him and showing him attentive love like Cheri’s parents showed her. He wasn’t even afraid! Creature had come up to him from out of nowhere and he’d just… accepted it. As if that was normal.
Needless to say, Cheri was kind of in awe of him.
“Oooh.” She replied with a slow nod, kind of understanding how he might think there wasn’t much else out there. Just how she’d thought no horse could really be happy and safe outside of a herd. “Umm, do I think Taiga is the best?” She asked herself aloud again, picking her way carefully along the riverbank and through the trees clustered near its water. “My gramma Lilly told me no one is ever the best, one time when she was watching me and my cousins and we were fighting over who could do better skills and stuff.” Her brain worked hard to be nice and yet truthful.
“So I don’t think any home can be the best either?” She turned her cheek to look curiously at Anubias, fearful that he might disapprove of this conclusion. Adorably, both younglings were unaware of the others' thoughts. “I just think it's great because it’s fun there. And I also think it’s cool you live in the forest and that you keep your parents from getting lost.” Cheri smiled.
“I think you’re cool, Anubias. And when I get home,” She pitched her voice with determination, “I’m gonna tell everyone how cool you are.” The leggy filly promised, stumbling over a root before catching her balance again. She tossed her forelock out from her line of sight and sighed.
“Maybe after a nap though.” She whimpered, deflated from the excitement of a busy evening. The murmuring whitecaps of the River were nearby, and Cheri was sure that Anubais wouldn’t leave her until she was ready, so she bent her forelegs and proceeded to hunker down into the dark soil. “If you need to get…” the filly yawned big, “to get home, I think I can follow the water by myself. I’m not so ‘fraid anymore.” She blinked drowsily up at her guide.
Anubias and Creature. They’d given her all the encouragement she needed, just by being helpful friends. “Take care of Creature.” Cheri giggled softly, positive that someday when the sun returned they’d see each other again, all three. Bending her head until it rested comfortably against the crook of her knee, Cheri closed her eyes and tucked her wings close by her side in the dark, listening out for any goodbyes and eventually, the sound of her new friend and his companion as they went their separate way.
