i'm two quarters and a heart down

[Nashua]

NASHUA

The soft light smooths the pale edges of his older sister (a word he is still getting acquainted with in his mind, like he is with her). An earnest nod is what he gives @[Celina], an agreement between the siblings that yes, he will learn. He will find a way to control it. At the very least, he’d like to dim enough to admire the green-and-yellow bugs that dance around his pale companion.

Nash steals a moment to admire them yet again, his mind still trying to imagine how far her stars- her bugs. For a moment, he’s wondering if perhaps they followed her to the sky and that is how they swallowed them.

Perhaps once his own hooves leave the ground, he might try to swallow the stars too. (But wouldn’t that make him glow more?)

It might be a silly question to ask because there is something in the back of his mind that is holding him back. There is something that almost prevents him from asking, ”So it's better then, to be different?” He’s drawing out the words, recalling all those times that he’s watched his mother and Yanhua share something that he doesn’t understand. He’s been on the receiving end of their gift before but he does have an early memory of trying to do the same thing, trying to paint a picture for Yanhua.

He remembers the excitement dwindling in his blue eyes and the frustration mounting behind his own that whatever he was trying to send was never seen, never felt.

Perhaps then what he doesn’t share with Yan is something he might share with her. Sister. It’s a word, much like the flickering aura around her, that holds some Magic with Nash.

She doesn’t need to shoot lasers from her eyes. And whatever a rakeroo (he imagines large squirrels swimming through the ocean, foxes painted purple that live in trees) is, Celina is infinitely better than any of those things.

The flaxen colt doesn’t quite comprehend what she’s doing, when she stretches out a pale foreleg. It’s the startling appearance of vivid red streaking running from her knee, the ghostly shadow of bone and muscle peeking through the wound. He can smell the blood, the brightness of it taints the cool evening breeze. The low hiss confirms what she’s done.

Nashua holds a breath, watching the laceration weave itself closed.

He gives an exuberant shake of his head, the white of his blaze catching the radiance from Celina’s fireflies. (Can she see how wide his eyes have gone?)

The pegasus colt has fallen plenty of times from attempts at practicing flight and while he does get a little stronger as the seasons march on, he hasn’t yet put together that his scabs and scars are gone the following morning. It’s been that way for as long as he’s known, anyways. It never occurred to him that others might not heal that way - that faster or slower might make much of a difference.

His thoughts never even go that far because Celina has given him something else to think about. She is saying names, he realizes. Suddenly, it’s not just a sister. There’s an us, and Nashua comes closer. ”Elio?” he pipes up, ”You know Fire Wing?”

She thought they all could and much like that day with Yanhua, he feels it now - a fear that he might not belong. He could find out, though. He could belong with them.

Sucking in a breath, he raises a white leg in offering. ”My turn.”

and for every king that died
they would crown another

html © castlegraphics