life unfolds in pools of gold; Nayl / any

[Nayl]

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

He had washed upon her shoreline, drenched and exhausted, but rather than discard him she allowed him to stay. He is your brother, that voice said at her side just as it does not from the crevices of her mind.

Nayl blinks slowly while standing on the beach, watching him idly before he is approached by a young boy. She doesn’t join them, not yet. It is still almost startling that she even has a brother. For years – decades? – she assumed all her siblings dead. Often she wondered if they inherited their father’s immortality like her. Then again, she never made a great effort to find any of them. Bloodlines are so muddled nowadays anyhow.

Nonetheless, he is her brother and he is here now. Their lives have been forcibly intertwined and she feels almost obligated to hold onto that familial thread no matter how uncomfortable and unfamiliar it may be. The muscles in her jaws clench as she glances back to them, then to the sea, then to them again. Even as a foreboding storm looms overhead, Nayl exhibits no need for rushing. When she takes her place among between them it is at her own leisurely pace, her eyes gleaming with curiosity. ”I haven’t really seen you since you washed ashore.” Surely he hasn’t taken advantage of assuming he escapes all scorn and consequences because he is the Queen’s brother?

No, he can’t be so foolish as that.

”And what’s your name?” She regards the young boy now, genuinely curious as to who he is and where he came from. It’s in her nature to be familiar and to know those among her. That’s when she looks at Buckthorn again. ”I want to know more about you. I have but a name and a vague knowledge that we’re related. That’s it.” There is an underlying hope that she can trust him, but the probability of it still lies just outside her reach.

queen of nerine
daughter of covet & myrina