[private] and its harder than you think

[Nashua]

(and it's harder than you think)
telling dreams from one another

This damned darkness.

He had left Noel sleeping peacefully with their girls but Nash's mind couldn't still enough for rest. The striped pegasus had paced a well-worn Taigan trail in a futile attempt to 'patrol' (but who was traveling during this time?) As to be expected, there was nobody to intercept (or for Nashua to find), and the young pegasus had turned back towards the bower that the pale mare and their twins slept.

But halfway down the trail, the chestnut had a creeping thought.

Nash had glanced behind him and seeing nothing (but sensing something), he decided to avert his path. The winged stallion ventured south and wove through the bracken, half expecting a yellowed-eyed creature to emerge at any moment. He was tense and his muscles were taut, expectant of an attack. But other than the prickling feeling of being watching creeping up his neck, nothing happens. No monsters jump out; nothing rips his chest open and apart (this time).

The memory of that replays in his mind. The way that the thing briefly overtook his mind and flashed memories - of the Beach, of moonlit-silver bones, the bright coppery tang of blood, the way it had wailed like a banshee 'name me, give me a name' - still haunts him. Even if that thing escaped him (and he had been spared by the grace of a stranger, a sister of Noel), it still lingers in his head.

Not wanting to bring the ghost home to his family, he continues to wander until a familiar scent dawns upon the stallion. "@[Yanhua]?" he calls out, mindful of not raising his voice. Amarine or Borderline could be nearby with their children, as they were often not far from his brother. He had no wish to disturb or upset them. Nash reveals himself by allowing his stripes to glow (though it won't last for long) and hopes it is enough that the Champion could locate its source.

NASHUA

[Yanhua]

Flowers bloom even in the dark, and despite everything this world seems to throw at them, Yanhua watches his children and family adjust to the hardships. Through the neverending night he stands guard as he’s always done, contemplating his brief time spent in Nerine with the outlier goat boy and the passing weeks spent back home in Taiga, thinking over the nearly-deadly quest and what the fairy had said to him. He’s a lucky stallion, to have been so little affected by what’s happened, and in truth Yanhua seems to find luck where all other hope had fled. Borderline and Memorie are keeping them fed; the grass grows and the springtime foliage thrives because of them. Amarine is keeping them sane, attending to their fears and (Yanhua suspects) keeping them all aimable when they’re together as a unit. He and Reynard are keeping them safe, or a safe as could be managed with monsters prowling about.

As safe as could be managed with stallions coming to prowl around the young mares here.

Yan rolled his eyes in the darkness and shifted the insubstantial wings that had grown from nothing, now adding to the constantly dim illumination of his hair, and sighed. He should be happy to have another able-bodied stallion around, even if it was only for the moment and even if it was only because Cheri had gone out and enticed him back here with an invitation.
That didn’t mean he had to like it.

The one good thing about Targaryen’s presence was that it seemed to brighten up the dismal atmosphere of the future. If anything, the pegasus drifter would keep them occupied and distracted while Yan, Ama, and Borderline worked together towards a solution. Deep in thought, he traveled down a sloping pathway through the woods and then paused, hearing his name.

“Nashua by the Gods,” His twin called back, trailing off the beaten path towards the little flare of golden lights playing off his brother’s skin. He trudged through bush and bramble, wove past a tree or two and then spied his oldest friend in the foggy dark. “where’ve you been?”

@[Nashua]

[Nashua]

(and it's harder than you think)
telling dreams from one another

It had been like this when they had been young, hadn't it?

The world had been hazy and dark and without the knowledge of language, how had the brothers communicated? Nashua can only hold his glow for a matter of moments (and he focuses, forcing the light to become bright for a shining minute) but his light does what he hoped it would. It brings Yanhua to him and the striped stallion gives a beaming smile to his taller brother.

"Yan," Nash breathed; (releasing a sigh of relief that it had been his twin he had found and not one of those vile monsters lurking). "Winds," the pegasus states, "it's good to see you."

He draws his wings in, settling them comfortably against his sides when his brother finally stops. Even as the glow diminishes from his gold stripes, Yanhua supplies them with more light from his glowing mane that acts as a beacon in these dark and hazy woods. "Where haven't I been?" he banters back before explaining his most recent trek to the Isle and Leilan's wish to bring light (how they missed their aurora and the river of colors she used to bring each night) to the frozen island. Nash had been traveling between Taiga and Nerine, trying to find some solution for the Freyr (he had thought to mention Popinjay and her fires but that would have been temporary, at best) before they would travel to the Mountain.

Which leads the winged stallion to his next question.

"Mother mentioned that you and Amarine had traveled there before...," and Nashua trails off though his head tilts the swallowing darkness all around them. His green eyes glance back to his brother, apprehensively curious. "What happened?" They catch on the thin rays of light that linger by @[Yanhua]'s chestnut sides and Nash knows what his next question will be, already fighting back his hope at the answer (he is the only child of Lilliana with wings and that difference between himself and his horned twin has always been something that gnawed at him).

What were they?

NASHUA

[Yanhua]

Yanhua closed his eyes and bobbed his head.
Yes, it was fantastic to see Nash again after… everything. The Mountain and its perils had been a strange happening, a way to pass the time and occupy themselves before the deep panic set in, and Yanhua was loathe to think about reliving the experience as he must when the time came to return to its summit. He’d waylaid the journey by going north (well, not far north) in search of Popinjay and the source of her undying light, but had unexpectedly been thrown off the course of that journey by a young stallion. It felt like everywhere Yan turned there was something in the way of his goals, and he hadn’t understood how much relief he’d feel just seeing his twin right now.

He’d been worried about Nash’s health, about Icicle Isle and what Leilan had been doing during these trying times.

“Seems like there’s never time to rest when the world is thrown into chaos. Or eternal darkness.” Yan sighed, hearing everything that Nash had offered to tell. Sensibly, Yanhua wondered if the isle residents had simply vacated the Kingdom. Aside from magical intervention, the far north was hardly inhospitable when there had been sunlight, and even then a span of months came when the sky was totally dark without the Eclipse’s help. Food, water, prey… they must all be scarce or fleeing the deathly cold. Not his brother, it would seem. Not Leilan.

Yanhua felt conflicted about these thoughts, but he was neither King nor capable of any action beyond the quest he’d taken with Lilli’s blessing. All that he had which was precious seemed to be blessedly close by; he did what he could for his family, for Taiga, and outside of that the world would have to go on spinning.

“Close your eyes.” Yan asked his twin, avoiding Nash’s question and the obvious glance at his back. “Feel that?” Yan asked a second later when nothing happened. “Amarine and I became trapped at the summit. We watched the world go dark from the top of the world.” The horned stallion flicked his ears. He peered off into the black trees, studious of the dark and the way it seemed endless, trapping them on all sides. There was no escaping it anywhere. Not even from the weak glow of his hair, or his faintly substantial wings that somehow harnessed light itself.

“We were granted a quest. A little treasure hunting really, but when we’d finally made it down again I realized my echos had gone away. I don’t think I’ve lost them entirely. There was this one time…” Yan petered off, looking back at Nashua sharply before he let the words die in his mouth. “Nothing since.” He finished.

@[Nashua]

[Nashua]

(and it's harder than you think)
telling dreams from one another

Wolfbane had told him once not to worry about Yan. He might not have wings but there would be plenty that his twin brother would be good at. And while Nash worries about his brother, the second part of what their father had said had proven to be true. There had been plenty that Yan was good at - an Alliance contender, a stalwart protector of Taiga, and gifted - perhaps even more than their dam - with the Echoes. (The latter is something that Nashua can't dissociate from his brother. His brother's ability is as much of part of Yanhua as the gold star on his chest or his horns.)

When he closes his eyes, Nash doesn't expect the darkness to remain there.

His blazed head nods imperceptibly, waiting for the memories to come. An ear swivels and a northerly wind blows past them, ruffling his wings, but there is nothing else. Nashua opens his green eyes and regards his brother, waiting (hoping) for an explanation. He listens as Yanhua explains that not only had he and his spotted mate ascended the Mountain, they had done so when their world became enveloped in darkness. It's troubling what his twin says and his brow creases slightly with concern.

Lilliana had taught them (as it had been taught to her in Beyond) that Magic was a balance. What was given must be taken. The thaw couldn't come without the sun and the tide couldn't be pulled without the moon. But for the frost to happen, the sun had to grow cold, and for the tide to be drawn towards the shore, the moon had to hide. Magic, as in life, was about balance; the moment one superseded the other, chaos was unleashed. So when his brother says that his gifts - his Echoes - are gone, the winged stallion wonders if the Mountain had taken them in exchange for...

For what?

But thankfully, that hadn't been the case and the pegasus regards his twin as sharply as @[Yanhua]'s blue eyes regard him.

"What brought them back?" Nashua asks, his mind already attempting to find a way to return Yan's gift.

NASHUA

[Yanhua]

Yanhua smiled. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever admit this aloud, but being born as Nashua’s twin could sometimes make him happier than all of his magic combined. There was something about Nash… the way he seemed tempered now that he’d been spending most of his time as the Freyr’s right limb. The older they grew, the more Yan esteemed his brother’s keen ability to command any situation; every time they were together, he found himself thanking his lucky stars that they’d stayed close. Physically, too: their proximity to one another was small for a pegasus. Yan shrugged his shoulders at the thought, and took a deep breath.

“A connection.” He exhaled, fairly sure of this assessment. “A singular, uncommon connection.” He specified, unless Nash would start to wonder why the same couldn’t be said for Yanhua’s family members.

He explained about the horse he’d met on my way into Nerine - looking for the source of the light up there, but continued the story. The stranger had been alone on the sloping cliffs so Yan approached him, thinking he’d find a friendly face or directions at least, but as soon as he’d gotten close a strange echo reflected back. It was a memory, he told Nashua, but an emotionally tied one, an echo Yan often associated with horses in close relationships. The clincher though - and at this point Yan felt his skin burning - was that Yanhua knew the mare from the stranger’s memory. He’d met her once, long ago.

Frustrated, Yan pounded a hoof into the packed earth. The interaction had been brief; in short, the younger stallion hadn’t been of much help and Yanhua left with more questions than answers.

“And that was it.” His twin muttered. “I came back home. Nothing since.” Yan finished. He listened quietly afterwards, and thought of Nash absently in the back of his mind: mostly things like Noel and his nieces, wondering if they were getting enough food. When his brother had finished, Yan asked about them. “You’re all doing well though, and your family? If they need anything, feel free to tell Noel she can band with us. My own are staying put for now.” He offered freely, knowing Amarine and Borderline wouldn’t object to the extra company.

@[Nashua]

[Nashua]

(and it's harder than you think)
telling dreams from one another

Nashua will always thank the stars that he had been born alongside @[Yanhua].

It was like the Fates knew that what would come to pass would be something that any horse shouldn't endure alone and so they had come into the world as brothers. So that whatever struggle would present itself, it was met between the two. So that whatever burden might have to be carried, there were two sets of strong shoulders and sure hearts to carry the weight.

They have faced many ordeals together - much like now with this Darkness that threatens everything about their way of life, and more importantly, their families - and this one is no different. The shadows that lurk and the monsters that loom are challenged by one brother who is perhaps a touch too bold and another who is steady; Nash thinks that together, it might be just enough.

So he tilts his blazed head towards his twin and listens to Yanhua explain what made his Echoes come back.

He thinks that between them, they might be able to solve his brother's current predicament. An ear flicks in his direction as they walk as Yan explains that the memory had come from a horse that he calls a connection. A horse, that like his horned sibling, had gone North in search of Popinjay's fires. The two had found each other and Nash listened as his brother explained that memory reflected at him had been of a woman he had met once, long ago. His green eyes glimmer for a moment against Yanhua's glow but the striped pegasus says nothing. They stopped long enough for the taller stallion to scrape a cloven hoof against the packed earth and Nashua to lift his head.

Unfortunately, he has no more of an answer for his brother than what Yanhua had suspected. Finding the younger stallion doesn't seem like a viable option; and searching for the woman, well, who had time for a search?

Nash can only offer his support, and his encouragement.

"Could Mem or Rey help you with it?" he broaches carefully, wondering if one of Yanhua's children gifted with the Echoes might help. Perhaps it might jolt something, jog a memory. Anything. "Maybe we just need to find you a ghost," he says. There were plenty of haunted places within Taiga, he remembers Lilliana saying. Residual energy, she had called it. A moment where the emotion was so deep that it spread into the ground like roots, where it clung to the forest like the fog when it transformed into dew that once dripped from the ferns and leaves above.

When they resume their walk, he listens as Yanhua offers a place to his winged mate. Nash nods his head in thanks and says, "I'll mention it to her." He glances sidelong at his brother and a lopsided smile tugs on his pale lips, almost sheepish. "We're expecting again," he explains.

NASHUA

[Yanhua]

The Taigan stallions walked together like they’d done as foals, and even though their world had changed for the worse and darkness blanketed everything, always, Yanhua could still discern their little quirks. How he adjusted his step to fall in line slightly behind Nash, happy to follow another horse who knew the way as well as he did himself. For a moment he could fool himself into pretending nothing had changed at all; this was just another strangely starless night in Taiga, Nash was just coming for a surprise visit, and tomorrow the sun would rise like Yanhua remembered it: glorious and exploding with vibrant color, until every inch of the world was drenched in light.

Ah he missed the sun, but the one walking beside him will have to do in place of the one Yan wishes for.

“Maybe.” He chuckled, picking up his unique hooves as his brother led them into more thicketed territory. Mem’s echoes came to him just fine, and Ama’s empathy worked on him as well as it had before the Eclipse. That hadn’t changed, at least. “Or maybe the ghosts will come to me, and this is the universe teaching me patience.” He mused dreamily, as was his family’s way. Yan could swear they were a celestial bunch at the core, his favorite thing about the horses with golden-red copper in their lines.

If that were true, if he was having something taken away in order to appreciate what he already had, then Yan wouldn’t fight it and he certainly wouldn’t try to fix it. He would contemplate all its angles and curves, find beauty in the ugliness of his loss, and learn to walk without a crutch he’d had from birth.

“Is that so?! Well congratulations, Min Hersir.” His twin exclaimed, pulled from his reveries by the news of Nashua and Noel’s blessing. By the Gusts and Gales, Yan thought. Of his own herd he had little news; Amarine and Borderline were fond of their privacy, so Yanhua could only be sure come spring. He did, however, have a fairly positive feeling they’d be seeing some new faces this season though, and he relayed as much to Nashua with an unseen eyebrow wag.

“Seriously, congrats. It feels like so much is changing so quickly.” Yan sighed, pausing as they trudged free from the thicket and found themselves in a rare clearing of the forest. Yanhua supposed it had something to do with an outcropping of boulders piled up nearby, and he tipped his nose to sniff cautiously while the rest of him relaxed. “Speaking of—saw you looking at these bad boys earlier.” He flexed his shoulders, making the wings crossed over his back shuffle and move.

“Maybe someday when we’re not worried about the end of the world you could give me a lesson or two?”

@[Nashua]

[Nashua]

(and it's harder than you think)
telling dreams from one another

He knows it's a foolish hope - it goes against everything they are speaking of now. But Nashua hopes that it will be like this always with his brother, a shining optimism that has yet to be tarnished. Even with the sun gone so long and a million other things to worry for (Noel, the children, their mother, keeping those vile monsters out of Taiga, Illuminae?), @[Yanhua] manages to clear his mind of troubles far better than any altitude that the pegasus might distract himself with.

As his brother always had.

"I could use a dose of it myself," the winged stallion muttered honestly. If patience were a place, Nashua would have gone seeking it out already. Those broad wings of his would have already spread and propelling him to that ever-elusive place of someday. He had always respected his mother's teaching but the striped horse wasn't the type to wait for something to be taken or given; he'd go boldly looking for the thing gone missing, brazenly offer whatever was needed. Yanhua seemed to have infinite patience worthy of the galaxies while Nashua could hardly wait for the winds to change or the tides to turn.

Nash smiles and shakes his blazed head, lifting it again to better survey the shadows.

His copper ears prick at something but nothing materializes and after a moment, Nash turns his attention back to his brother. He'd wondered if Yanhua might have news of his own - more children arriving in the spring, how his quest for Taiga was going, daily life within his little herd - but the taller Taigan only offers an eyebrow raise that makes the smaller one bite back a short laugh. He grins after with a smile that still tugs back to their youth. The expression only softens when they pick up their pace again, weaving purposefully through the Redwoods. "It does," Nashua admits in only a way that he could to his brother.

All this change makes him think of something else.

"Leilan told me about the promotion," Nashua returns in reply. It would perhaps surprise no one that Yanhua - former Champion of Taiga - had been named its heir. His green eyes glance sideways to his brother, watching for any sign of unease or apprehension. The pegasus had certainly felt it when the Freyr had broached the topic of making Nashua his. "So I suppose a congratulations is in order for you as well."

It's only after the moment has passed that his eyes light up. They trace over the glowing wings and Nashua is nearly bursting with pride. A chance to share the skies with Yan? It's more than he could have ever hoped for. It curves against his pale lips in a smirk as he teases Yanhua, "We're going to find you the tallest cliffs in Nerine." He's joking but the striped pegasus can't help but tell his brother, "A good shove and you'll be gone with the wind."

NASHUA

i know I've told you this before but i love the wholesome brosome

[Yanhua]

“Oh that.” Yanhua scoffed at his brother. The ‘Promotion’ Nashua was speaking of had been something Lilli had tossed his way now and again when she felt inclined to make Yan worry for no reason at all. Every time he spoke to his mother about that topic, about who would follow in her hoofsteps come time, Yanhua felt his tongue getting heavy and his mind drawing blanks. To him, Taiga without Lilli at the helm just seemed… wrong. And besides, she’d always come back from wherever life took her. Yanhua felt like the ‘promotion’ was merely a backup plan: one he hoped might never be necessary.

“You would be the kind of horse who congratulates another for having a boulder suspended indefinitely above their head. Thanks, though.” Yan flicked one wing playfully at his twin. “At least my boulder is smaller than yours.” He breathed a mock sigh of relief into the quiet dark.

At least in Taiga he could be useful. He and Nash knew these woods, felt at home here. Icicle Isle was a place entirely out of Yanhua’s grasp, but a wild sort of Kingdom perfectly suited for the needs of his flight-prone twin. All the open tundra a pegasus could want, and it came with a pretty price tag in the shape of a royal crown. Leilan, like Lilli, was somewhat of a permanent fixture as King (at least, he was in Yanhua’s mind) who couldn’t have chosen a better successor if he’d personally made one himself, but even still the Chestnut horse with a golden beard of chin hair and twinkling blue eyes couldn’t find an iota’s worth of envy in his heart over Nashua’s good standing.

Taiga he could manage. The entire North? Yanhua could do without, respectfully.

“If you think for one second that I’m going to let you out my line of sight during those lessons, then you really must take me for a fool.” Yanhua bent his neck toward the ground and lifted a hind leg, reaching to scratch an itch behind his ears with one cloven hoof. The wings, though useful enough in this sort of oppressing darkness, managed to get in the way. “I gotta say I no longer envy you the freedom of flight as much as I once did.” He muttered and gave up, slamming the hoof back into the unseen dirt.

“They get heavier all the time, more ‘substantial’ I think. Cheri and Mem’s are the same way. Are your girls giving you heart attacks like you used to give mom? Flapping up into the trees and then swooping down like some maniac bird with hooves? Mine seem to test my limits daily.” Yan painted the memory without his echoes well enough, laughing for the first time in days before he got serious about his own two fillies. It felt good; for the sake of life teaching Nash some of those lessons in patience, Yan also hoped his brother’s eldest two children would be hellcats of the sky. For his own sake he prayed to the wind for guidance. Mem was always off wandering and Cheri… “Both Memorie and her sister managed to ‘accidentally’ wind up in the Eastern territories a few weeks ago. I could’ve tossed them head-over-tail, I was so hot about it.” Yan growled.

As if the Eclipse itself weren’t reason enough to worry.

@[Nashua] this took forever but I was finally in a Yan mood, so I hope it suffices <3