life unfolds in pools of gold; Nayl / any

[Nayl]

I am not afraid... I was born to do this.

”Ardashir,” she tastes his name with a softened consideration and a tilt of her head. The long, unruly forelock that reaches down to her muzzle slides placidly to the side to frame her pretty face. ”I apologize for having met you so late,” she adds quietly to him, hating herself for the delay in recognizing those within her own home. How could she let motherhood distract her so much? A bittersweet thing it is! Nayl has treasured the family she helped establish, and she thought she could easily balance them with the success of Nerine, but it’s a greater struggle than she had anticipated. Blinking, she turns her autumn eyes to Buckthorn, his body still wet from the ocean’s tide. ”You can stay, Ardashir. It may not be entirely interesting, but you can learn a little about your Queen and her brother,” a feeble grin tries desperately to brighten the sharp edges of her face. Very few know much about her, but she grants the boy a weak opportunity to absorb any information about his stranger queen.

Somehow, amid the questioning and uncertainty, Buckthorn manages to elicit an airy chuckle that rumbles from her throat and eases any remaining tension in the air among them. ”Don’t get used to it. My nice moments are few and far between,” that warning had once been true years ago, but the ice encasing her heart has since melted. With a concentration masked behind her forelock, Nayl considers his tale, of mother and his father, of his solitary life and how little Myrina played in it. If there had been one thing Myrina was poor at, it was being a mother. Her loyalty to the Jungle was weak, never laboring for its cause but breathing its humid air. For a long minute, Nayl tries to remember the mare. The memory is so distant and just out of her reach at first, but she glances to Ardashir and kindles few childhood moments.

”Myrina was my mother,” she admits, ”and Covet was my father.” The truth of her lineage has rarely left the confines of her lips, keeping information stowed away in the secured crevices of her mind. ”I grew up in the Jungle and met father a few times. Mother was quite smitten with them. Myrina wanted me to be the successful Jungle daughter that she never was. Apparently, she was one hell of a disappointment for a Queen’s daughter.” A shrug ripples through her shoulders, unaffected by the reputation their mother once had. ”She died during childbirth. I wandered the Jungle until Beqanna ate itself practically. I was here when some of the sisters joined together to create Nerine. Naga took the throne and I didn’t trust her. I let her rule for a year… maybe two? Then I challenged for the throne and obviously won.” Again, she glances to the boy. The new generations don’t know her story or how she came to rule the black shoreline, but the truth can spread now once more. She was – is – a warrior.

”Ardashir, do you know who your parents are?”

queen of nerine
daughter of covet & myrina