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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    New gods, we are young Volcanoes
    #1
    It was warm, and still the cold lingered. The ice and snow they had endured etched themselves into the dragon youth's very being. Veins of frost wove a net across his skin, even after his gifts returned. He'd missed his fire even for the short duration of its absence. Once more, he felt closer to whole, and satisfied that he had aided in something bigger than himself. 

    When the fairies had taken their prizes and left them to their lives, Tana hadn't hesitated to plunge from the mountain side, newly affixed wingspan stretched out to cup the chill mountain air. The shimmering boy dropped through the air, plummeting like a thrown stone. Exhaling into the wind, change overtook him, mostly on purpose. Bands of ice cut into his muscles, fire battling inside to overtake it, to melt the invading ropes of ice. It burned like hell, and then he was free.

    A stallion fell. 

    A dragon rose. 

    Scales of pearly cream shone in the light, blue fire reflecting back from each ivory plate. He wound through the air for a while, relishing the power in his wings and muscles. In this form, he could do anything. A victorious roar drove from his chest, echoing from the mountains. His father didn't want him to be afraid of himself. This was his true self. A being of fire and air, with teeth to rip and claws to snare with. A little larger than his horse form now, he flew in winding loops until his wings grew sore. Eyes made better by dragon sight, a flicker of gold attracted his gaze. 

    Golden hair, pale coat, the dragon mind was intrigued by the glimmer of treasure while the horse recognized the far off figure. Valdis, his associate in the recent quest, and a girl he'd wanted to speak with more. The semblance she bore to his twin could not be coincidental. Curiosity burned through him as it had on the mountain, and this time he could act on it. It was easy to glide in her direction, tracking her until the trees thickened between them. Still, traces of her body heat filtered through, pulling him in with inexorable fascination. 

    The ground rose up to meet him between the pines. Like a huge cat dropping from its perch, he landed with feline grace close behind the shiny mystery girl. Thrumming a greeting deep in his throat, the ice and white drakeling waited to be noticed, tail tip twitching mildly. Not hungry, not yet. Just curious. If he got hungry, well this was the woods. There were deer. This girl was too important to be food. 

    "You look like my brother." He observed, voice unwieldy in this shape. It felt wrong, difficult, but he managed the words. The dragon form would stay for now, he wasn't willing to shift back just yet. 

    @[Valdis]
    Reply
    #2
    And in the darkened underpass I thought,
    "Oh Satan, my chance has come at last!"


    Another cough. Another feverish chill.

    The sickness is eating away at her, biting off pieces as she eludes a healer’s embrace. There’s Velk, mother suggested, but the idea of searching for her brother for that single task before leaving again is unsettling. Their relationship is rocky as of recent with so much time and distance separating them on a daily basis. Truthfully, there are days Valdis forgets she has a twin. Her agenda guides her in opposite directions of her family, pushing her into uncharted lands and learning what turmoil lies beyond Hyaline’s walls. Having seemed to outgrown her homeland, Valdis is eager to still explore despite how exhausted her body is from the traveling. Soon, she tells herself, she will have no choice but to find a way to heal herself.

    In the meantime, and during her trek to Sylva, Valdis finds herself tucked away in the forest. A slow meander weaves her through the trunks, her hooves thoughtlessly kicking around the fallen leaves until the sound of wings causes her to take pause. The buffeting isn’t that of another Pegasus, but something larger. It blocks out the sunlight for a heartbeat before alighting in a narrow space between the trees. Instinctively, Valdis reels backward with her azure eyes widened apprehensively. Fire kindles to life around her defensively and her wings open in anticipation of flight, but there’s nothing hostile about the beast in front of her. Lifting a brow, she scrutinizes the opalescent scales, now frosted by an eternal ice. Her suspicion rises, but is solidly confirmed by a voice vaguely familiar.

    ”Santana?” Valdis edges closer, never letting her fire waver as it crackles just off the surface of her skin. Quietly, she drinks in the sight of him in this body. It’s formidable, fearsome, but also strangely beautiful with how he glimmers like a gemstone. It takes a moment for it all to register and for her to grasp his accusation. Blinking, Valdis peers first at herself – newly renovated with blue and white frost – then up to the dragon. ”Yeah? And you can shift into a dragon like my dad.” Although she has never witnessed her sire take such form, she has heard mother’s stories and has grabbed onto that ‘dragonborne’ detail.

    (Valdis may have inherited a little of your Dragonfire, mother told father)

    Shuffling her wings thoughtfully, she tries to piece together possibilities. There are a few options, but she sifts through what may be more feasible. ”Who is your brother?” It would be interesting if she knew of him, but she doubts. With a tad more hope and curiosity, she asks, ”Who are your parents?” Mother wouldn’t keep a secret such as children, not when she loves them and has so many. Father, she suspects, may have roamed because he is, after all, nomadic.


    VALDIS
    But then a strange fear gripped me and I just couldn't ask.



    @[Santana]
    Reply
    #3
    A twisting smirk stretches his lips over jagged teeth, less charming in his reptilian guise. Still, it's funny to him, how similar and how different they are. Valdis looks less like Raul now, mottled blue and white and gold. Maybe a little more like himself, frost touched as they both were now. 

    The fire that danced on her skin was undeniable, beautifully illuminating the warmth of her hair and the chill of her skin. Answering tongues of flame lapped at the corners of his mouth as she responded. Twin sparks in a bonfire, he grew ever more certain as she spoke of her sire who sounded so very like his own. But as impressed as he felt in his lizard skin, it wouldn't do for this civil discussion. One clawed foot lifted in supplication, eyes shut with intense focus as he willed against the always-hungry beast within. 

    Fire on fire, he breathed sparks into the air for a moment, remembering solid feet and soft hair, how it felt to be a horse. A gasp at the expected pain of change, and then buttermilk hair replaced hard scales. Smaller, more fragile, but able to smile at the glacier girl in front of him warmly. One blue eye, one vivid orange, he dipped his elegant head a moment as he felt the situation build. 

    "My brother's name is Raul. A buckskin, like used to be, but not so fiery. My mother is a mare named Sabra. A bit like you in your new colors, actually, but unless you're counting her hair, no fire. My sire is a stallion named Castile. I've only met him a couple times, but he's the one who gave me my dragon blood. A shifter." Anticipation filled his chest at his admission, sensing the truth before it was heard. It had only been him and Raul for so long. Just the two of them, looking out for each other when they had no one else. Could that be changing?

    More than anything, he wanted to reach forward to embrace her. Even without a blood connection, he would be her friend. But with that link, his family grew. A family he hadn't known existed. It was a wonderful thing to a boy who'd grown up not knowing what lay beyond the small circle he'd grown up with. 

    @[Valdis]
    Reply
    #4
    And in the darkened underpass I thought,
    "Oh Satan, my chance has come at last!"


    ”You’re much easier to speak with like this,” she quips after having waited and watched his body shift and contort until a horse stood in front of her, and not a hulking beast. Although her face reads of nonchalance, Valdis is actually fascinated by the changes his body endures to regulate itself and change into another species entirely. ”Fancy trick,” and it’s with this taste of humor that she finally grins, lopsided and amused. Her fire flickers away, removing her defensive shield as Santana edges closer, eagerly tossing information at her.

    There is no time to speak, no opportunity to say his brother is just a name to her. Sabra? No, yet another name without a face in her memory. Valdis is prepared to shrug, to admit that his accusations are in fault, but then he mentions his father, and her brows lift in surprise. Hidden beneath her forelock, the change in her expression is masked for a moment before she inclines her head to reposition her metallic locks. They fall into place, framing the soft edges of her face. ”Bingo.” A flurry of emotions swirls inside her as she mentally places a hand on having family outside of Hyaline. Even more of an outcast, she muses.

    Father has another family entirely, as does mother. She and Velk are two of a kind, the only of their blood. Mother and father will not give them anymore full siblings; they’ve since parted and found happiness elsewhere, leaving her and Velk in a world of memories.

    Even as a knife twists in her heart, somehow Valdis manages to still smile and bridge together Santana’s ponderings. ”We’re half siblings, then. Both a set of twins,” she supposes dad was rather fertile, ”Castile is my father as well, but my mom is Solace of Hyaline and my twin is Velk.” She was raised as a kingdom princess, but she has since veered off the path of expectation and placed herself in the hands of an unknown fate. Father doesn’t even know where she is, a choice she may one day regret.


    VALDIS
    But then a strange fear gripped me and I just couldn't ask.



    @[Santana]
    Reply
    #5
    The pale skin of his nose wrinkled gently at her comment, grinning ruefully once he'd settled back into ther skin he'd been born in. "Painful trick." He corrected mildly, feeling his joints pop back into place, his skin return to its accustomed shape. Already the transition was easier, but he had to wonder if it would always hurt. 

    As he speaks he worries that perhaps he had it all wrong, that he'd be making a fool of himself for no reason. He can see it though, when the last words leave his lips, the recognition in her face. With a jubilant laugh, the blue sheened youth threw his head back and flared his wings partway open. "I knew it! I knew it. You're my sister! I have a sister! Wait 'til Raul finds out, he's going to lose his shit!" He crowed like an anxious rooster, elated with the news. 

    Still giddy, he reeled himself in enough to listen as she elaborated on her own branch of the family tree. The parallels were fascinating, even more so the thrill at discovering a new brother as well. His family had doubled in the course of a five minute conversation. He snorted in amusement at their commonalities, and with a vague inkling of how they'd come to be. The dawning sobered him somewhat, draping Valdis in a different light. 

    "I don't think my mama knows about you and your brother. Or any other kids he's probably had... I dunno how she'll take it." For a brief second he considered not telling his mother, but it was a notion quickly dismissed. He'd never felt a need to lie to his mother, that wasn't changing now. "She'll probably like you though, once she gets over the shock. She's nice. What's your mom like?" 

    His easy smile returned, waiting to see if she'd be as happy to have him as a brother as he felt to have her as a sister. It was still incredible to him. He'd gone his whole life not knowing he'd had a sister somewhere in the world. It was a gift he hadn't been expecting to find on the mountain. 

    @[Valdis]
    Reply
    #6
    And in the darkened underpass I thought,
    "Oh Satan, my chance has come at last!"


    It’s painful, he admits, and Valdis stares coolly wondering the extent of it. Much to her dismay, she hasn’t witnessed Castile as a dragon; she hasn’t watched a body rip apart and grow, changing in a way she never before imagined. How is it possible, she wants to ask, but her lips are pursed tightly shut until deciding to offer a small reassurance. ”Maybe it will get easier with time,” of course she wouldn’t know the truthfulness of it, but she hopes for the best because watching his joints and bones pop sends a chill down her spine. ”I don’t have that problem,” and for a fleeting moment, Valdis is envious of her brother and the power he possesses.

    A smile spreads across her lips, surprised but relieved toward Santana’s excitement. She wants to mirror him, to jump and flare her wings jubilantly, but her hesitation mars the possibility. Admittedly, Santana says exactly what caused her pause: their mothers. ”I don’t think my mother knows either,” she murmurs somberly, ”but I don’t think she would care, either. She has a lot of other children with Kagerus.” She doesn’t mention two mothers, of her siblings borne between two women. The magic of Beqanna is complicated, and she doesn’t try to fathom it or elaborate.

    There’s a knife twisting in her heart when she reminisces how mother looked at father, how her body became rigid beneath his touch. Admittedly, it hurt. It hurts because she doesn’t come from a perfect family with love between her parents. The friction, and father’s absence, burrowed a hole in her heart that can never be filled. It altered how she perceives her world, and it pushed her off the path of expectation.

    ”Mother is nice,” her tone is nonchalant as a shrug ripples through her shoulders, ”devoted and strong. A good role model,” she loves Solace but her thoughts are on the past, on how father possessed an entirely separate life. How many other siblings does she have? ”What a small world it is. To meet on a quest and later find out we are related!” There is an increased exuberance in her voice as she pieces it all together.



    VALDIS
    But then a strange fear gripped me and I just couldn't ask.



    @[Santana]
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