"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
She was not here because she wanted to come home, if it can even be called home anymore. Surely she cannot claim the Falls now, not after abandoning it. She can’t even bring herself to take Nairne all the way to the borders – because she doesn’t want to go home. She and Mikhael have built something else for themselves, something that makes them happy. She wants to go back to him, to that, and she knows that the thunder of water falling from great heights will call to her in a way she can’t resist. Just like she could not leave the Falls to follow him to his Deserts as a love struck, silly child, she would not be able to turn away from her Kingdom to return to him in the unknown if the siren song of the waterfall is allowed to reach her ears.
Perhaps she is weak, or perhaps it is just that the Falls runs so strongly in her veins that it is nearly a compulsion.
But Nairne wants to go back. The girl remembers the land of her birth – she has dreams of the waterfall, Natilyn knows, dreams of fields of flowers and golden fish in the crystal clear pool. And she has nothing to hold her back – Mikhael and Natilyn might have found fulfilment in traveling together, but it offers little to their daughter. So they’ve come here, to the meadow, where Natilyn plans to leave her oldest – her only! – daughter to find her own way back to the Dazzling Waterfalls. She will wait a few days, to be sure that Nairne hasn’t changed her mind, and then she will go back, to him. Already she misses him intensely, an ache that doesn’t go away. They would love to have Nairne with them, but neither of them would hold her back from her own life.
“You’re sure you remember the way?” she asks again, breaking the silence. The buckskin mare (no longer a child, as Nat frequently has to remind herself) gives her mother a patient look, but her eyes shine in a way that says she can’t wait to go. “I can feel the way. It’s like the land is telling me how to get back.” comes the reply – so matter-of-fact. But Nat knows the feeling. The Earth sings underneath her own hooves, calling her back to the Falls: she just doesn’t intend to go. And even though Nairne is eager to go, neither of them move.
They match today, because Natilyn is the natural buckskin she shares with her daughter, no colors flickering across her skin, because she often reflects her thoughts on her coat, and all of her thoughts are with her daughter. Often she thinks of the healing waters, their calming touch (and just as often, she is the beautiful complex blue of the waterfall), but she can’t afford that now. She can’t go back to the Falls, because missing Mikhael if she did would tear her apart. “I worry, is all.” she says, trying to put a lightly teasing tone into her words, but they fall worried and tense instead. “Don’t be silly, mama. It’s the Falls. No where safer.”
One day, the eternal woman might get used to seeing them leave. One day she might see their lives like the passing of seasons, each death as a brilliantly colored leaf that falls from a great tree.
Natilyn and Mikhael and Nairne are not dead, but while she was - is - grieving, the loss is keenly felt. How much easier it would be to lose herself in the joy of a granddaughter! She found that joy with Kabechet… but there is nothing like being able to spoil a little girl rotten and leave the discipline to someone else. Her firstborn and his family are never far from her heart or mind, and when she feels a familiar ping at the back of her mind that is her own little way of keeping tabs on her family, Yael cannot help but think Finally…
Mikhael’s presence, or lack thereof, makes no difference. It would be best to see all three of them, of course, but beggars can’t be choosers. Her son has a wanderlust.. and she’ll settle for two out of three. It has been several years since she’s seen the trio; long enough for a spindly-legged filly to grow into a beautiful buckskin mare, the perfect combination of her fine-boned son and the lovely colored Falls former Queen. Yael ‘poofs’ into the Meadow, knowing that they are there, but not knowing exactly where. It doesn’t take long for her to sift through the crowd and find them, and when she does, she weaves around and between clusters of horses, wings held tightly against her sides. Sure, she could poof to them again, or fly, but this somehow seems easier. Less intrusive.
While she’s held onto their presence mentally, her eyes finally catch sight of the mother-daughter pair at the other edge of the meadow. Eagerly, her accented voice hails them with “Nateelyn, Nairne!” and then continues forward.
She wonders if Nairne will remember her word for Grandmother. She wonders if she will remember her Savta at all.
Once, she had longed to have her ability to color-change freely, but refused to give up the Falls to have it. Now, she would give up her colors in a heartbeat for the Falls, but she refuses to give up Mikhael. And they are better together, truly, and better on the roam. Even when she wishes with all of her heart to bask in the sound of falling water, she knows that she and Meeka have no place in the Falls. Of course, she knows nothing either of the changing magical landscape in Beqanna…but even if she did, she could not make the decision to stay without him.
Loving him had changed her. Probably for the better.
She is about to force a smile, to let her daughter go, but a voice calls her name and she turns, startled, but already placing that distinctive accent. And she is automatically happy, warm. She may not know Yael very well personally, but she is Mikhael’s mother, and so Nat loves her naturally, wholly, and with an affection born out of losing her own mother. Somewhere beyond missing Mikhael when they are apart, missing the Falls, Nat misses her mother. Nylee was a pure soul, a good soul, and the world is worse off without the golden twins sharing it. “Yael,” she responds to the greeting with a smile.
Nairne, already facing that direction, peers in confusion for just a second, the images of her childhood flashing behind her eyes, and then it is as if a sudden dawn has come upon her, a quick enlightenment, and a smile flashes across the younger mare’s face as well, lighting it from within. “Savta!” she does remember, and by that name more than Yael’s given one. And she does not suffer from Natilyn’s long-standing reserve, where the smile and greeting are as gregarious as it will get (she offers more to a select few only; Mikhael, Nylee, Nairne). But Nairne is different – she darts forward to press her soft nose to Yael’s neck, her smile broad and bright. “I’ve missed you! But we saw so many things.”
The outside world had been enough to amuse her daughter for a while, and Nat had been glad to have her family almost entire. But the siren call of the Falls had once again summoned a child of her own back to her, and so here they were.
It seems that Yael is always smiling around Natilyn. While she is usually a happy individual, something about her firstborn’s choice of mate and his daughter always give her the good feelings. She loved Alysanne and like Nylee, so if there was ever a family she would be proud of link herself too, it would be the former Falls dynasty. They were good. She trusted that Natilyn had been raised right.
Perhaps that makes Yael the silently judging Jewish (grand)mother. But hasn’t she earned that right?
And as the Savta, it is her prerogative to lavish all sorts of affection on her one and only granddaughter.
She remembers that the last time they’d been together, Nairne had asked her what was faster - poofing or flying? Her kingdom granted wings were gone, but it was easy enough to conjure up the exact same pair and settle them into her shoulders; they were used to the weight, without them, she was naked. Maybe one day she would change her appearance. But today is not that day. She cannot remember if she’d had a silver mane and tail the last time she’d seen them - but it makes no matter, does it? Even if there were another golden horse around, she is the only one with the accent.
She is the only one. Again.
The thought is chased from her mind as Nairne darts forward, and she embraces the young (but fully grown! oh, what a lovely young lady she has become!) woman within her fluffy, metallic feathers. A warm, throaty laugh flows freely, and she is happy again. “I’ve meessed you too, dear vone! You must tell me everyt’ing you saw, yes? Leave not’ing out about your adventures.” She lifts her eyes up from her granddaughter and look to Natilyn, an almost sheepish grin on her face. They ask a silent question, but before Natilyn can (hopefully) think her impolite, Yael unwraps her wings from around Nairne and nudges her on the neck so that greet Nat too. And whether the color-changing mare wants it or not, Yael wraps her in her wings too - for when she embraces them, she can pretend she is embracing Mikhael too.
“Xow are you, my dear? Please tell me you’ll stay for awhile…”
