no one really knows what the ocean hides
but you and I, bird, we’re gonna find out
His name exists, but there’s not a face.
A brother, they said, but his existence has been an abysmal void. Reia has wondered, roamed, and still there is no inclination of a sibling, no scent or face or skin that she could hunt and pursue. Liars, she almost called her parents, but why would they deceive their daughter? Why else would mother have blood caked down her legs and sweat dried across her coat? He exists, this mythological Nikolaus. You will know he is kin, she was reassured, but it all seemed like a curtain over her eyes until she finally lifted her eyes and saw a boy crossing into Loess.
Her heart flutters because she easily recognizes the iridescence because it’s a trademark of mother’s that she’s not seen on anyone else. That blue is a beacon calling Reia from the shade of an overhang. Father isn’t far behind, but she doesn’t wait for him. The impulsive excitement yanks her from a standstill to a gallop across rocky hills and around towering cacti.
They told her she would recognize him and, somehow, she does.
”Nikolaus!” She shouts his name at the top of her lungs as her hooves clap like thunder across the ground. Wild, unconventional, headstrong. She is everything of a brute as she considers ramming into him before better judgment sinks down into her mind and flares her wings as brakes. She sits back, sliding with billowing dust in her wake. Sweat glistens off her skin when she straightens herself and searches his eyes that seem so much like their parents’. ”Finally,” she pants, ”You’re home!” A brusque nudge presses against his neck just as father joins them with a fiercely bright stare and broad smile. There’s no questioning they’re related. Nikolaus is a perfect combination of him and Sochi. ”My son,” Castile is almost too afraid to touch the boy, afraid that this is all a mirage and he will flicker away again.
He wonders if his heart can bear to lose a child again.
Glancing behind him, he searches for Sochi. ”Your mother…” he begins, but his gaze darts back to his son, unwilling to lose sight of him so soon. She will soon arrive, he knows. Sochi’s prowess is notable, so it’s only a matter of time until she is among them, completing their family at last.
and I'll be next to you when the lights go out
@[sochi] @[nikolaus]