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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


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    take a bullet to the heart just to keep you safe; noah, any
    #1

    For a while, Leander had stubbornly remained on Icicle Isle with his sister. In a cavern at the island’s furthest reaches, his health had continued to deteriorate; and yet his overarching care and concern for Kora kept him rooted in place. His wintry sibling came and went as haphazardly as a cold wind, disappearing on mysterious forays which she never spoke about. But it wasn’t just that. For some reason, Leander had a feeling that if he were to set out on his own to seek the help he so desperately needed, he might never see his sister again. Kora didn’t seem all that attached to the idea of him, but he refused to believe that she wouldn’t come around eventually. He wouldn’t give up on her – not when he’d finally found her. Not when they were the last two children of Riagan and Rayelle left on this earth.
     
    They needed to stick together, didn’t they?

    Toward the end of fall, however, the winged stallion had sensed a change in her. Even in his bleary state, he could see a strange expression often breaking past her coolly veiled features. He refrained from asking her about it, since Leander had quickly come to realize she was a rather private person. At least, that’s how she seemed. Despite what one might call heroic efforts on his part considering how unwell he was, it had been next to impossible to get to know Kora at all. What he did know was that she hadn’t intended to  leave the Isle. That is, until late autumn came. Then, after a few days of seeing that odd look skate across her face, she had abruptly left – and this time, he hadn’t been able to count the number of days she had been gone.
     
    That absence had been her longest yet. He’d almost started to think she’d abandoned him to his fate when she had returned just as abruptly, only to announce that they would be leaving. She told him that she had gone to the mainland; she had plied information from strangers; she had news of a healer. Despite his surprise at her sudden change of heart, Leander had little energy left to prod at the why. Especially the why now.
     
    What energy he did have was soon spent trudging along in Kora’s wake, day after day after day. They traveled through the winter-season as it came upon Beqanna in full force. He was glad for it – for Kora’s sake, anyhow. He knew she preferred the cold, though she begrudgingly quelled her own winter around him. Perhaps this would make the journey easier on her. A laughable consideration, in light of his own sorry state; but sickness hadn’t changed the fact that a noble heart still beats within Leander’s chest.
     
    For now, at least.
     
    It was slow going. His strength waned alarmingly quickly as they went, and his mind dipped further and further into a feverish fog. He could hardly register his surroundings anymore, let alone Kora’s ever-swelling belly. He found he often thought of stars. Were his parents really up there, brightly lit among the skies? He remembered shimmering waters, and Eilidh’s reflection in them, and he wondered whether their mothers might be sister constellations after all. Perhaps they were shining side by side? When his time came, Leander hoped that he, too, might become a star. It seemed a rather good end, didn’t it?
     
    Once again the landscape changed, though Lee took no notice. He didn’t realize they’d finally arrived at Kora’s intended destination – and he wasn’t all that bothered when she left him lying among the Pampas’ winter-sodden grasses to drift in and out of his feverdreams. She had gone off to ask where she might find the healer called Noah, and when someone said they would send for her, Kora returned to the brother who was now surely dying and waited.
     
    For all her coldness, she stayed close by his side.




    leander
    take a bullet to the heart just to keep you safe; like a dream in my arms but i’m wide awake

    @[Noah], also anyone who wants to join in! this is a leander/kora combo post in case that was confusing.
    #2

    that's all there is

    She didn’t know the person who had come to tell her she was needed; she supposes it was probably someone simply seeking refuge, perhaps one of the newest Loessians. Noah wanted to ask, but she’d been even more worried about the one who needed healing; the girl had said he’d looked ‘really pretty bad’ and after getting directions Noah had hurried away, simply making a mental note to seek out the stranger later. Winter has made most of her beloved flowers dormant, and she sends a regretful mental apology for not stopping to revive the plants she damages in her rush, but it had seemed urgent.


    Noah sees the mare first – she’s standing tall over something in the grass and doesn’t look the least bit sick. She hesitates, momentarily suspicious, her dark wings flaring out as she is already half-primed to flee. The little pegasus still has nightmares about her father’s murder, and she sees shadows in the grass at every turn. There is supposed to be someone sick here, no healthy! Before she can actually take flight to flee, her green eyes drift down to the figure in the grass and when it resolves as a stallion lying nearly motionless on the ground, she supposes he’s the one who is ill. Taking a deep breath, and then another, Noah creeps forward.


    “Hello,” she nearly whispers, trying to push past the last strangling remnants of fear. “I’m Noah,” briefly she stares at the mare but then she lowers herself to the ground beside him, and lets herself fade into the nearly trance-like state she has found allows her to access the strange power inside her the best. She hums a little to herself and to him, and it’s an old song her father used to sing. Rhonen had always said he’d learned it from his mother, and it was the song of their family home, the Dazzling Waterfalls. She’d never gotten to see the place of all the stories, but she’d learned the song by heart.


    When she’s done all she can, the little roan is exhausted, and she can’t even begin to think about rising. She can barely raise her head to glance at the mare, trying to summon the energy for a smile. “I’ve done what I can. It was really advanced, in him. We’ll have…we’ll have to see,”. She feels like crying at the thought of being unsuccessful, in this case, because he doesn’t feel like he had much time left.

    noah



    @[Officials] Noah trying to heal Leander with her Disease Manipulation!

    @[Leander] <3 So Leander and Kora are actually her great-uncle and great-aunt so I threw that bit about the Falls and a family lullaby in in case we want to pursue that relationship they could recognize it but if you don't want to that's fine too. Smile
    #3
    @[Leander] has been fully healed (rolled a 6).
    [Image: Leah.png]
    #4

    Someone soon crested the small hill and came towards them. The mare seemed to fit the description the stranger in the meadow had provided – rosy and winged, with distinctive green eyes and a star that marked her youthful features. Seeing the way she hesitated, Kora tossed her delicate head to indicate Leander’s inert form and called out, “Over here. Hurry.” The stallion’s breath was coming in shallow heaves, rattling past ribs that protruded awkwardly beneath heavy wings. An old fear shot through the ice in Kora’s veins as she looked upon this brother of hers – the one who possessed their mother’s sunny optimism, their sister’s stubbornness, their father’s kind eyes. It was true that the sea had turned Kora into someone else entirely, but Leander?
     
    Leander was their family’s legacy.
     
    He was the last of their flesh and blood – at least, the last of flesh that hadn’t been remade, of blood that hadn’t frozen over. Despite the pretense of her indifference, that still meant something. He meant something. And now she was left to wait and see if he would die, too. So when the strawberry roan approached the pair with a quiet introduction, Kora found she could only manage a tight-lipped nod in return. A familiar melody began to drift toward her, and her eyes widened with recognition. Though she beheld Noah in a whole new light because of it, and though the warm weight in her belly twisted a little at the lilting sound, still the ice-armored mare remained silent.

    Until it was over.
     
    From her place beside Leander, the girl raised her head, her lips curving a little as though to reassure her. Had she looked worried enough to warrant such reassurance? Noah’s voice is gentle, though it carried a subtle warning. Kora’s glowing blue gaze darted toward her too-thin brother to watch the rise and fall of his ribs. Long minutes pass – she doesn’t count them. She could only count each rise and fall as it came and went, and when it did, she could only wait for it to come again. Perhaps that is why it seemed quite sudden when the winged overo began to stir, his brown eyes opening. When he looked up at her, Kora felt the tension in her own ribs ease. “Lee,” she whispered gratefully – a reaction which seemed to draw a smile from his tired lips.

    “Hey, Kora,” he managed weakly, though after he’d spoken he felt mildly surprised. Why hadn’t he succumbed to the raking cough that had consumed his every breath for the past few weeks? Feeling a faraway curiosity, he blinked – slow and thoughtful, as though clearing cobwebs from a distant dream. “Were you… singing?” When she gestured to the space behind him, he looked around and saw Noah at his side.
     
    “Leander, this is Noah,” his sister said provisionally, “She…” Expectant, he glanced back at Kora. Still somewhat foggy, he could only wonder at her momentary hesitation before she changed her mind and said instead, “It would seem she’s healed you.” And now that he was no longer knocking at death’s door, it also seemed that the wintry mare’s thaw was at an end. However, though hers was a mask of frost, she briefly lowered her face to Noah’s and murmured, “You have my thanks.”
     
    And then she turned and was gone.
     
    So accustomed was he to her abrupt departures that Leander only sighed. “Don’t mind my sister,” he started, his gaze coming to rest upon his rescuer. “You and I may have wings, but it turns out Kora’s the flighty one.” Even as he spoke, the wire-thin stallion could feel the life returning to him. As he took another deep breath of the cool, crisp air, he marvelled at the absence of the sickness that had been gripping him in death’s very fist. “Thank you, Noah. I believe I owe you a great debt. Whatever it is that you did – whatever you took from me – I can’t tell you how grateful I am to be free of it.” He chuckled, a bit delirious with how good it felt to breathe easy. “It was a close one, wasn’t it?”
     
    He paused then, noticing the exhaustion on her and kicking himself for missing it. “Are you all right?” he asked with genuine concern, propping himself up as best he could so as to see her better. From this angle, her rosy figure struck a sudden recollection. “I know you from somewhere.” It took him some moments to place her, but when he did his face fell a little. In all the chaos, he distinctly remembered glimpsing her beneath the Mountain at the scene of a man’s murder – and she had been screaming. “Rhonen…” he ventured gently, his renewed voice not unkind. “Who was he to you?”



    leander
    take a bullet to the heart just to keep you safe; like a dream in my arms but i’m wide awake

    @[Noah] omg I'm sorry this became such a friggin' novel :|
    #5

    that's all there is

    The mare counts breaths, if not seconds; Noah doesn’t count them. She can’t count them, she doesn’t have the focus left. The strange ice-covered mare hadn’t responded verbally to anything, barely responding at all, and the little roan mare doesn’t have the energy to try and actually strike up a conversation. She just lets her nose drop to the ground and listens, each one of his continued breaths reassuring even if she isn’t tracking them. What Noah can hear, this close to him, is that each breath comes easier. Which means that with each breath she relaxes, not quite asleep but not with them either.


    Kora’s voice when she greets him is faint and far away, the single syllable making little to no sense. But his reply is closer, and some time in their mutual unconsciousness, she’d collapsed a little against the stallion and so it rumbles through her, drawing her back towards the surface. It enables her to hear the mare’s next words much more clearly, and she’s just blinking green eyes open when the golden face is suddenly much closer to her own. Noah is simply too tired and strangely peaceful to be startled and she blinks again, the words of acknowledgement dying half-formed on her tongue because she’s already gone. It’s abrupt, but almost comforting; Rhonen had done his best to be a good father, but there had been many times when he was a silent and brooding presence more than anything else.


    Noah feels the rumble milliseconds before she hears him speak again, and she forces herself to roll back fully upright, not wanting to burden him with supporting a stranger as well as his own healing body. “You don’t owe me,” she is whispering now, not even almost-whispering, drawing each word from the dark depths of her brain. It comes easier, as she wakes, but her voice only rises a few decibels to it’s ‘normal’ quiet. “It’s just nice to be able to do something to help.” She doesn’t comment on the last bit; they both felt how close it was, and she’s not entirely comfortable with it.


    He asks if she’s alright; she summons a smile for him. “Just tired. I’ll be okay,” she puts as much confidence into the words as she can; she doesn’t want him to worry when he should be focused on getting better. In truth, she doesn’t know how long it will take her to recover; she’s only driven the plague for a few who were much less ill, and she’s never felt like this before. She’s ready to brush off his next assertion, because she’s not surprised at this point that she feels familiar to him – it was necessarily an invasive thing, chasing the illness around inside of him, and she feels strongly that brushing a part of her being against a part of him will leave an impression.


    But when he utters her father’s name, Noah freezes completely. She doesn’t even breath for several moments too long, caught in what she remembers. Which isn’t much; individual faces are mostly a blur, with a few notable exceptions. She doesn’t pick Leander’s face out of her blurred memories, but she knows she wouldn’t, not for sure; she doesn’t recognize most of them. She was shy beforehand, but never quite knowing whether someone was a stranger or might have helped murder the only person that had mattered to her made her even more cautious.


    One can only hold their breath for so long; when she runs out of air she gasps in new oxygen, but even that is quiet, restrained. The little mare lifts her gaze to his again, searching, but she doesn’t see anything threatening. He still feels safe to her, and they’ve spent a profound time together, even if it was short. Perhaps he was one of the ones who was trying to stand against the mob, though she’s still chewing on the faint confusion that the name seems to mean something to him, beyond just some person who’d been murdered to start the plague. “He’s my father,” she mumbles at last, and then a painful, “was my father.”

    noah



    @[Leander] No, I love it <3 <3 <3
    #6

    While they had started out as strangers, the rosy mare didn’t feel strange to Leander. Noah had saved him from the throes of a plague that would’ve otherwise killed him. Her involvement in his healing had indeed left an impression – a sense that they were somehow linked – and yet the pair were about to discover that they were bound in more ways than just the one. Just as Noah had been struck by the mere mention of his name, so, too, was Leander as she admitted that Rhonen had been her father. Thus, the truth of their blood relation was revealed.

    As he looked upon his healer and beheld her in a whole new light, sudden emotion began welling in his brown eyes. “It was you,” he realized, recalling the soft melody he’d heard from beyond the fog of his illness – a tune which his own father had taught him, passed from generation to generation. “Noah, I believe you and I are kin.” He cleared his throat and hummed a few notes of the lullaby himself before letting the sound fade with his breath. “My dad taught me that when I was little – he told me it was his family’s song.” He flashed a rueful smile. “Although your voice definitely does it more justice than mine.”

    Then Leander shifted, bringing his gaze about to gently hold hers with his own. “You see, my parents had me outside of Beqanna. It’s been less than a year since I came here, but they told me so much about this place and about the family they’d left behind that I was hopeful of finding relatives. And that day… that day by the Mountain – I recognized your dad’s name. I remember my dad telling me of a great-nephew of his named Rhonen, who’d gone missing when he was quite young. He was the reason I went to Pangea. I only went to try and stop what happened, but…” He trailed off, lowering his eyes as his head sagged a little. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

    Glimpsing her sorrow, Leander was reminded him of his own parents’ passing. While it had been long ago, it had cost him a piece of his heart, and he could see that Rhonen’s death had also cost a piece of Noah’s – pieces they’d never get back. Instinctively, the thin stallion reached out and pressed his muzzle to her withers in a quiet show of empathy before he withdrew, gathering himself to speak again. “I don’t know whether you’ll recognize their names, but my father was Riagan, and my mother was Rayelle.” Though the years gone by had made it a little easier for Lee to use the past tense as Noah had, it never failed to send a small pang through his chest – through the hole where their piece of his heart used to be.



    leander
    take a bullet to the heart just to keep you safe; like a dream in my arms but i’m wide awake

    @[Noah]
    #7

    that's all there is

    Noah is shocked into complete silence, held rigidly apart from him though they are lying quite close on the ground, at his shocking revelation. For her entire life, her distant family has been nothing more than stories her father would tell her as she fell asleep at his side every night. There had never been anyone else real in her life – it had always been Noah and Rhonen, Rhonen and Noah, wandering by themselves. There had always been the faint suspicion that Rhonen had made them all up, this magical and myriad family, to give her the illusion of a family and make her dreams and imagination sweeter.


    He hums a faint bar of the same lullaby she had been singing, the rise and fall of notes that somehow means everything even though neither of them have ever seen the land that inspired and wrote it. She looks up at him and smiles through her shock, a tentative but so very honest expression. For the first time in over a year, there’s something in the back of her hazel eyes: hope. A real, concrete hold on reality and not just bumbling around the Brilliant Pampas growing flowers that only she even looks at. “I’m sure when you feel better, so will your voice,” she murmurs, but quickly falls silent to listen to his continued words.


    The thought of her father is often still a raw wound, but somehow thinking of it through his lens, of family out there really looking for Rhonen, is easier. “I do recognize their names,” she says dreamily. “Papa used to tell me stories. About them, about everyone. I thought he made them up because he didn’t want me to grow up thinking it was just the two of us. I thought…I thought I was alone now.” It’s so, so beautiful to realize she’s not, and she can’t put it into words but there is a prick of joyful tears in her eyes.


    “Will you stay?” It’s almost desperate, and she hates that. It’s the sort of weakness her father had always pretended he didn’t have, the emotional needs. “At least for a while?” She never saw the Dazzling Waterfalls either, but she has heard the echoes of the Brilliant Pampas in the undertones of the lullaby. She recognizes that echo in her soul, knows somehow that this place was tied into their family too, somewhere. She wonders if he will hear it too, if he stays.

    noah



    I'm sorrrrrryyyyy I'm so slow!!!! @[Leander]
    #8

    He could see the way her eyes welled with emotion, and he shifted so that they could be a little nearer to one another. “Well, you’re not alone anymore.” Leander had to smile a bit ruefully at her admonishment. “Although when I was young, I used to think the same thing.” A family that was large enough to span both leagues and lifetimes had often seemed like a fantasy when he was a child. And yet here he was – and here they were. It was somewhat ironic that Lee had spent so many years searching fruitlessly for his parents’ homeland only to have relations cropping up here, there, and everywhere once he’d finally found it. Especially when he least expected it.

    “For a while,” he agreed then, smiling reassuringly so as to soothe the note of worry he’d heard in Noah’s voice. “I don’t really know where I belong yet – but I’m sure I won’t be going anywhere fast in this condition.” He paused to draw breath. Though he would feel tired and weak for quite some time, he was still amazed at how easily the fresh air flowed through his newly healed lungs. “And even then, once I’ve found people to call family, it’s nearly impossible to get rid of me. Just ask Kora.” Flashing her a wry grin, there was a warmth to his brown eyes as he added more seriously, “You’re one of those people now, Noah.”

    Afterward, he looked briefly about himself and came to the slow realization that he had no idea where they actually were. Leander had probably flown over the Pampas in earlier explorations, but that would have been before he had fallen ill – and he had been in too much of a stupor to notice his surroundings when Kora had initially brought him here. “So where are we, exactly?” he asked amiably, appreciating the openness of the place. Already the clear skies were calling to him, though Lee sensed it would be a good long while before he felt strong enough to fly again.  



    leander
    take a bullet to the heart just to keep you safe; like a dream in my arms but i’m wide awake

    @[Noah] um I'm the slowest poster alive so I do not mind in the slightest.
    plus these two are giving me all the warm fuzzies <333
    #9

    that's all there is

    They will both be a road to recovery, though she suspects his will be longer; Noah needs rest to replenish the energy expended in driving out the plague, but Leander’s body needs to recover from days or months of abuse of the disease. She’s listening to his breathing with half an ear, the strange quality of it, and she wishes she were a regular healer instead of just carrying her father’s curse inside her. She can drive out the plague, but she can’t totally repair the damage it did to his body long-term, and that makes her feel somewhat helpless. He will recover, but it won’t be the instant recovery a regular healer might induce.


    Warmed, though, by his assertions that he will not disappear out of her life, she leans a little into his warmth and smiles back, thinking of Kora and the way she had disappeared quite quickly. “If you have been able to keep up with Kora, I think you’ll find me quite easy to keep track of,” she murmurs wryly, inviting him to share the humor with a laugh in her eyes. “Mostly I’m a homebody, here, and I got the distinct impression she’s anything but.”


    Leander asks where they are, and Noah turns to gaze at the flower-heavy fields growing around them, and looks at them through his fresh lens with another warm smile. Home. Her home. “It’s called the Brilliant Pampas. The fae brought it back as a safe place when the plague hit, from somewhere in the past I think. Those who stay here are safe from getting the disease, as long as they do not leave. I rule it as a herdland, and currently we fall under the rule of the Kingdom Loess.” She touches her nose gently to the ground, summons up a bit of stray energy, and draws a few new blooms from the grasses in front of them. “I fell in love with the peacefulness, and the feeling of ‘home’ it gives me. I’d never had a real home before, and it reminded me of what the Falls might have been, from my father’s stories.”


    She shifts a little stretching the wing not caught between them and resettling it into a more comfortable position. “I can show you around, if you’re feeling up to it.”

    noah



    @[Leander] (uh, well, it wasn't a FULL month....)




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