"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
11-30-2015, 11:09 PM (This post was last modified: 11-30-2015, 11:09 PM by Vanquish.)
Selfish, a bully, an adulterer–a deceiver even. Vanquish had been many things and there were many crimes bound to his name, but perhaps the worst of these was that of being a harsh and resentful father. Genuine love had been doled out exclusively to his children that had been born of promise. Although he had never shunned any of his brood (no, his lineage too precious), few ever truly felt the dragon-king’s sincere affections. Caius; his firstborn, a true mistake (a harsh, but real reality) of a young stallion’s lustful and pliable will. Chantale had been a deliciously wicked being, a lover of both he and the young Queen Yael. The child was nothing more to his mother than an instrument to wrench at Yael’s heartstrings, something that was expendable and that was thrown away once her efforts bore no fruit. Vanquish had done his best with the boy but perhaps, he had always thought, Caius had suckled at his mother’s sour breast for too long. The boy had always been peculiar and cold and the Nightwalker had never been quite sure if his son actually loved him back or if Chantale’s strangeblood filled his veins just too thickly.
But Dorne had come next and she was everything the king had asked of the gods, huge like her father with her mother’s stock obvious in both the princess’ size and dizzy array of spots. With a mouthful of fire and telekinesis like her warrior-queen mother, she had always given her giant younger brothers hell. He had asked Lyric for a son and the royal pair’s prayers had been answered twice over when the twins had come. Vanquish had been ecstatic at the sight of Kratos and Kreios; their little spotted giants. He had indeed plowed through sky and earth alike just to make it to their worldly arrival – chest threatening to burst with the thunderous joy of his consecrations came true. Kratos and his brother were his heirs and aspirations born anew, a quivering promise of his bloodline exulted were just taking their first breath’s at the king’s feet, how sweet a joy? But the poignancy of his pleasure was brought crashing back down to a more humbling height when Kreios’ condition became apparent. The bigger of the twins was born slow, speech and verbalizations altogether were a struggle for the scarlet spotted colt and Vanquish felt shamed because of it and resented the foal. Even after Morphine had cured his son’s ailment the draft’s visits with the chestnut twin were abrupt and curt, nothing like the warmth and regard that was thrust upon his full-blooded siblings – even the bastard Caius received more of a prideful glint in the king’s eye than he had.
Before the numbness had taken its grey, this was one of the regrets that haunted him the most. It was one of the hungriest of questions that hunted him in his death, how selfish a soul was that of a parent too shamed to love his own child? But that was just one of many sins born out of his avarice and lust and greed. The Nightwalker and the dragon-queen Nocturnal had plotted for an heir, one born of Jungle and Desert blood that would secure the two kingdoms as allies for generations to come. Tarnished was, at first breath, a scorching coal in the king’s heart - the colt was special to the him in an indefinable way. Perhaps it was the knowledge of his son’s newborn and burning mind (had he not been filled with his mother’s death and memories at his birth?) or perhaps it was the acknowledgment that he not fosters the colt the way queen Quark would in the Jungle could – he had let him go with Quark to the Jungle. There was no doubt that he had flourished better there amongst the rainforest and his horde of step-siblings than he would have with him in his Deserts and squabbling queens– but Vanquish had forever regretted his decision of letting him go. But still, that is not the greatest of the haunts that had come for him.
But how undeserving is a soul of that of a disloyal lover? One that greedily builds two families and wields the fates of two hearts without any true care but to fulfill his own desires? Vanquish, with his gluttony and with his selfish absence, had been the cause of Lyric and his unborn daughter with Yael’s life to be taken. Lyric had passed while birthing his fire-spitting daughter Isadore, alone, in the Dale while he lay with Yael. Vanquish had warmed the throne of the Deserts for many years before he warmed Yael’s figurative bed – but that was years after Lyric had forsaken her Valley to take the Daleian throne to birth his children. Years after he had pledged his fidelity to her, years after he had built was supposed to be theirs. Vanquish had burned away years of devotion and ripped away the tether of their family in a single decision and he hadn’t even fucking bothered to check on her. He deserved a forever sepulcher of regret heavy and black as tar for that alone, he didn’t deserve to be standing in the Deserts – living and breathing and sorrowing over a pain that was now within his grasp to touch, to mold, to fix.
But he is sorrowing and that is why the dragon-winged black stands beneath the huge boughs of his unearthly Desert oak, waiting for his children and grandchildren (if any) to come. He has asked Yael(forever his crutch, right Osiris?) to send a message to his lineage, to come see their father – their grandfather, twice the king of the Deserts, still as proud and ornery as the day the Valley’s pits were writhing with bodies and his crown was new and fit poorly on his head. He would make it up to them – those he had hurt; Caius, Tarnished, Dorne, Kreios and he would sew back the time torn apart in the absence of his death of those he had been taken too early from; Kitra, Etro, Gaza, Akbar.
The Percheron idles beneath his tree, dragon-wings curled lazily about his sides as he picks at the few patches of weed that have oddly sprouted. His heart beat with a hurried eagerness that matched the tumult of disquiet that rolled in his belly but despite these things, a slight smile turned the corners of his black lips. The old-heart that beat in the young king’s body hoped that there were at least one or two grandfoals that for him to lay eyes upon.
.
vanquish
black king of the deserts
OOC - Pretty sure I got the timeline wrong with alot of that so, whoops. But basically (if you allow it, of course) if you are a descendant of Vanquish i.e. child or grandchild, you just got a telepathic message to come to the Deserts to see him cuz...he's back from the dead so why not and he wants to play with babiesssss....
in the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon, I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom
There are few places she would prefer to avoid more than the Deserts.
It is the home of her heart, but it is also the birthplace of all of her fears. It is the place where they came to rear their ugly heads—the truth of her own powers taking shape into something dark and cruel and destructive. She was not all-powerful, but she smothered out the flame of magic in a way that she would never understand and never appreciate. She would never experience the full-fledged beauty of her mother amongst the sand—and now she was finding she could not even enjoy small pleasures, such as an easy conversation with the mute girl whose only way of communication had been her own telepathy. A gift from the heavens that Etro had broken in their time together. Admittedly, the bay girl was learning how to rein in the effects of her negation, but it did not come without effort, not without cost. Nothing ever did.
But her mother’s voice had reached her, the message muffled but clear enough to decipher, and Etro knew she could not deny her father’s request. Not when she had abandoned her parents in what had become their time of need. So she made her way to the desert, doing her best to ignore the memories of sickness that replayed again and again in her mind with each new step that she took. Such illness had crept up on her slowly. With each passing day in her desert home, she had felt it more—the way her muscles would ache with more than just soreness when she rose. The way that her lungs constricted painfully in her chest. The way that her pulse became lethargic and sluggish in her chest, struggling to beat properly.
Finally, it had been too much. Finally, she had broken. Finally, she had fled.
Swallowing her fear, Etro came upon the border of the desert and felt a strange mixture of excitement and anxiety constrict her throat. The sand shifted beneath her hooves like a memory should, and she moved through it more gracefully than her large, plainly-built body would have suggested. It did not take her long to reach the gathering, but she purposefully hung back several feet from the thick of it. Several of her siblings had gifts of their own, and she did not desire for them to know of her own curse. She concentrated carefully on pulling back the edges of negation, hoping to ease the symptoms of it for the traited family members. When she was confident that she had a grip on it (tenuous as it may be), she lifted her muddy brown eyes to Vanquish and gave him a strained, already-fatigued smile. “Dad.”
-- vanquish and yael's forgotten trait-negating princess --
the wolves will chase you by the pale moonlight {drunk and driven by the devil's hunger}
Few things of this world interest Woolf, but family is one of them. Of course, familial ties do not interest him in the way that they interest most—he does not grow soft with fondness or nostalgic with memories. Instead, his interest grows a keen edge when he considers his own personal ties to each family member—and, more pointedly, the power untapped in each branching arm of his bloodline. So while he does not necessarily appreciate the intrusion from the golden, magic woman—she bore no relation to him and thus was not useful, at least not currently—he could not deny the desire to sate his curiosity. Vanquish was one piece of the puzzle that composed the mystery surrounding Woolf and Bright.
He had to at least meet him.
After conferring with his twin, he had decided that teleportation was an easier method of travel than by foot, especially considering that they were barely breaching their first year and had never seen the deserts before. Woolf had no desire to spend days traipsing from the foggy plains of the Chamber mountains to the searing sands of the Desert. Instead, he had simply tapped into the collective mind of his bloodline, the same collective power that fed into his and Bright’s magic, and pulled out the dusty memories of the kingdom. It was not perfect, but it was enough, and with a small sacrifice (the pain a pinch, the blood splattering the floor of the Chamber), he had been successful in traveling close enough.
Standing along the edges of a dune, he glanced down at the small group consisting only of his grandfather and his half-aunt, young mouth twisting into a frown. Sending a small warning to Bright, he swung a wide circle around Etro and came up to Vanquish from the other side, coming to a stop several feet away. For a moment, he remained quiet, green eyes too serious for a colt of his age, expression contemplative. When he finally spoke, it was a voice that rung in his throat, echoing in his mouth. “The nightwalker.”
As close to a greeting as he was able. The nightwalker. The rogue. The panther. The diseased. All pieces of the puzzle; all individual components that had called upon the need for the anchors to be created. He shifted his gaze briefly to Etro, frowning again and shifting to the side, uncomfortable with the heaviness in the air she created.
Finally, he looked back to his grandfather and conceded his own name: “Woolf.”
12-04-2015, 03:07 PM (This post was last modified: 12-04-2015, 11:27 PM by Lexa.)
the dead are gone, and the living are hungry.
She is asleep when the voice calls to her.
She jumps to her feet, startled, straining her ears to catch the sound.
“Lexa … come to ze Deserts …”
The voice is soft and lilting, seemingly coming from everywhere at once. It’s unnatural - it should scare her - but there’s also something oddly familiar about it too. It feels connected to … something. Something far back in her memory that she can’t quite grasp.
Curious, Lexa reaches out with her power, feeling through the earth to search out nearby creatures. A couple of tamarin, a sloth, two capybara, a macaw … but no horse. She is alone.
It’s magic then. Magic is at work.
She pulls carbon from the ground, strapping little disks of the black material to her feet, and thrusting them upwards into the air. Her feet rise a few inches off the ground. It’s a trick her mother has been forcing her to practice lately, in her few motherly moments. “Never know when it’ll come in handy,” the mare parrots at her every time. She’s not very good at it yet, but she’s grateful now for the prodding - her trip to the Deserts will be much shorter and easier than it would have been otherwise. And, without another thought, she zooms off.
____________________________________
She reaches the Desert in what she thinks must be record time, with only a few undignified falls along the way. When she reaches the border she releases the carbon back into the earth, and steps across. She will not bother with kingdom niceties now. She has been called here after all.
Something continues to pull her forward across the sands, and she walks and walks, until she comes across a massive oak, that simply should not be. Under its spreading bows lounges a massive, winged pitch black stallion, attended by a bay mare, and a brightly coloured young colt.
She approaches cautiously, keeping her power in her grasp, in case this is some sort of weird ambush (though she doubts it - in the world of Beqanna she is a no one). When she is close enough to call out, but far enough away to make an escape if necessary, she raises her voice. “Who is the one that called me here?”
Is it her father? She hopes so - that hope is the main reason she actually answered the voice. She knows little of her father, except that he is very dark and very large, that his name is Gaza and that, once upon a time, he called the Deserts home. Mother had said he had left the Deserts … but maybe he could have returned.
kreios don't you tame your demons, but always keep them on a leash
I have not thought of Beqanna in months.
There has been neither time nor reason to reminisce on the past; some things are better left alone.
My days are full and my nights are restful, and while there were memories that pulled at my heartstrings, none were strong enough to draw me away. As time has passed their strength has waned, and for nearly a year my mind has been elsewhere, occupied by the new life that I have chosen.
So when the call roused me in the dead of the night, I ignored it.
I settled back against the warmth of the mare beside me and closed my eyes against the bright moonlight; it was not long before sleep took me.
But in the morning, I reconsidered.
I looked out over my herd, at the familiar striped backs of the mares as they graze among the yellow grasses of our plain. The children that have not left for their own herds are small still, a handful of fillies that bear my red spots and their mothers’ stripes in a dizzying array of patterns on their mostly-white coats. I have lived here for years; this was the first place I had felt my heart settle since I had left the Orange Country behind.
There are no canyons here, only miles of uninterrupted grassland, dotted here and there with herds of antelope and wildebeest, and less frequently by equine herds like my own. The horses here are not horses, but I knew the instinctive language of whickers and whinneys and found that words are not always important. The stallion of this herd had been old, and I had stumbled across lions feeding on his bones before even seeing the mares. Herding them away from danger was familiar, comforting even, and by nightfall I knew that I would not leave them.
So I had stayed, happy and at peace, until the call came in the night.
As I watch my family in the dawn, I catch sight of my eldest son, leading the local herd of bachelors. If I let him he’d take the herd, caring for his mother and leading the herd as well as I have. The only foals are fillies, girls that’ll readily be swept away by the younger males of my son’s herd when they are old enough. I could leave this family like I’d left the last one and they’d not miss me, I realize.
And so I leave because I have always been obedient, even when it pains me.
---
It takes me days, but I arrive only moments after the spotted mare. I do not have time for her though; my attention is drawn to the oak at the center of the kingdom. It must be Gaza, my mind tells me, grown up to look even more like our father than Kratos, but my heart knows that it is not.
Though I no longer walk on hooves it does not take long to re-adjust to the sliding sand beneath my padded feet. This is not a thing I’ll ever forget, I realize, and I wonder if I’ll have to remember again or if this time I will stay for good.
I come closer, oblivious to the other relatives that gather around my Father. I am his height, I realize as I stand before him, and while I resemble neither parent with my red and white splotched coat there has never been any chance of denying that I am the Nightwalker’s son. The sand grates beneath my wildcat claws but I remain still, watching Vanquish with catlike eyes that he will not remember, but have nonetheless been a part of my life for years.
He’s in the meadow when the voice calls out to him.
He freezes at the first sound, instantly filled with revulsion. His skin crawls as the voice speaks, telling him to come to the Desert kingdom. Magic. Magic is at work.
His first instinct is to not obey, to stay as far away from the Deserts as he possibly can. He knows well the dangers associated with traits and magic - he’d heard the stories of the great war between the Deserts and the Valley from his mother growing up. Power of that kind tends to corrupt.
And yet … his curiosity gets the better of him. Partially because he can’t help but wonder why a magician would be interested in him at all. He is completely insignificant. A simple boy, born in a quiet herd, to a loving mother and adoptive father. A no-one.
So what would a magician want with him?
He makes short work of the journey to the Desert kingdom, and slips over the border without a second thought. Again, he is a no one. Why would anyone care about his presence here?
He walks until he reaches a big old oak, sprouting out of the sands like a mirage. Yet another sign of the presence of magic. A tree like that should not be possible here.
A massive black winged stallion stands beneath the boughs of the tree, accompanied by a bay mare, a brightly coloured colt, a young appaloosa mare, and a chestnut appaloosa stallion. The spotted chestnut catches his attention momentarily. There’s something … familiar about him. He can’t quite put his hoof on it.
Then he spots the fearsome claws and paws where horses hooves should be, and he shudders. More traited ones. More magic. He’s definitely not going to stick around here for very long.
But, he might as well find out what they want from him first. “Who called me? What do you want?”
The wraith-king knows his Etro nears the moment the tethers of magic that bind his flesh to bone begin to quiver. She had been there – when he was brought him back, when the afternoon was filled with the impossibility of his rebirth and the promise of facing the regrets that had hunted for him so long. Etro was still a fuzz-furred child when the king had died his first death and even in adulthood it is obvious that she is the progeny of the Nightwalker and the Golden Rose. The bay of her mother but heavily influenced by the heavier build of her Percheron father, perhaps with time (or her mother's help) she would develop that Akhal-teke sheen her mother’s genetics gifted. A smile tugs at his lips as the sand around his hooves quiver wildly as she approaches and yet he frowns when she keeps her distance, “by gods! At least come greet your father,” he says, tufted raven-black ears twisting towards her. His tone does not suggest this is a request. The leviathan stiffens his forelegs and tucks his trembling wings against his sides, holding his lofty head high. An old warriors-soul in a new body could take the pressure of her negation for the sake of feeling his daughter’s so missed touch.
Next comes the mulberry marbled boy who calls for him by a familial name and his ears slip back against his skull for a breath, turning to regard the colt. At once he can see the hints of Nocturnal in him but, despite his lavish color, he resembled Tarnished the most. The king wonders what kind of dam his son had chosen for his son, a decision that was weighed heavily in his own choices as to who mothered his own children. The Nightwalker was a lover of powerful women, after all.
Vanquish could feel the echo of darkness that had only begin to resound within the boy but the titan smiled anyway, “Woolf,”he repeats, closing the gap of space between grandfather and grandson in a couple of large, feathered strides. “A fitting name,” the black says, dipping a long-maned neck down so that he could fill his nostrils with the faraway scent of his sameness that lay within the skin of the purple colt, “My Tarnished’s boy.” It is a statement, not a question and the same smile sits comfortably across his gothic face as he looks down at the boy, his dark magic vibrating in his nostrils.
The draft thinks to ask the boy where it was that he called home, even though he carried the Chamber’s scent – but an appaloosa girl, Lexa, comes next. She is cautious and he cannot fault her, was it not a peculiar situation? A huge winged stallion, with sand quivering at his feet standing beneath a massive, thriving oak in the middle of the Desert. He was prideful in those that had answered the strange call with boldness, they must had gotten that from him, the Nightwalker feared naught but his woman’s wrath. He had beat death and come back, what could quake him? She wears the spots of his brood with Lyric but her build is much too small – Lyric and Vanquish had bred giants and nothing less. This mare, his granddaughter, was fit yet svelte and his Percheron blood clearly diluted down – so he wonders who she belongs to. “Come dear, I promise no harm will come to you here in the Deserts,” he says, spreading a massive black wing invitingly, “the king assures it it.”He says, with a dip of his head – Vanquish had never been short on formal presentation, what was left in this world of sin if not a little bit of fucking proper royal etiquette?
A large stallion wrests his attention away from the girl and his ears prick forward, the talons on his wings slipping forward instinctually. But Kreios was unmistakable (despite his lack of horns and addition of claws), equal in size to his immense father, with a wild splash of chestnut. An immense heaviness gripped his soul as the flashes of his past indifference and his wrongness put upon his son slid before his hooded gaze. A qualm of apprehension seized him, not out of fear but out of shame. He had mistreated Kreios and the years of nothingness had given him an aching reflection that had made that a blaring fact for him to chew on, over and over. “Kreios,” he says softly, between them, reached a dark nose out to his son’s, “my heart is glad that you have come, there is much to discuss between us.” That is, if the spotted stallion allowed his dark-winged father the opportunity.
Another boy comes, another appaloosa except this time he carries more of a resemblance to his grandfather’s build than the others – a child belonging to his lineage with Lyric, no doubt. “I have called you here,” he says, his dark face turning to all of them. "Because I am Vanquish,”he says meeting the gazes of each the those that had gathered beneath the shade of his crown, “I am your grandfather and you are of my blood and flesh.” He says, to Lexa and to Woolf and to Szeth – it was clear that Etro and Kreios were already quite acquainted with her father. “To offer you home, patronage, care – whatever it is that you desire,” he says, this time meeting the gazes of both Etro and Kreios, “or nothing at all, if that is what you wish.”
And for those that had not come yet? The dragon-king's heart is still hopeful.
in the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon, I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom
More come—of course they do. She had not expected to be the only one summoned. None of them are familiar though, none the siblings she had encountered, and so she says nothing, just nodding at each of them in turn as they come with their demands and their questions. (The fact that some seemed angry about her mother’s request was beyond her, and she frowns at the steel in their voices.)
But her face opens up, blossoms, when his attention moves toward her, and her smile becomes slightly less fatigued. “If you insist.” She is by his side before she even realizes that she is moving, curling into him and sighing with relief. It seemed like so long ago that she had met her mother in the meadow—so long ago when Yael had been breaking down with her grief, so long ago since Etro had found out about her father’s murder. But he was here now, whole and alive and stronger than ever. Tangible.
“I missed you,” she whispers quietly into his neck, a secret the she shared between them although there was nothing secretive about it. Her sorrow had been well-documented. “I can’t stay long though,” and her eyes grow sad, gaze slipping away to linger on his wings before finding his eyes again. “I’m sorry.” I am sorry for what I am; I am sorry that I cannot live with you; I am sorry that I disappoint those I love.
She steps back again, feeling her hold slipping slightly on her negation, the exertion of it heavy. Others are there—others who deserve his time, and she frees him from her selfish hold, moving back to her spot outside the immediate circle. There were those who had come who clearly had their own powers, and she had no desire to strip that from them. Instead, she just watches him greet those who had come and then address them all. He was the same as she had remembered, and her expression softens in affection.
“Thank you,” she breathes out in response. “But all I ever desired was you home again.”
-- vanquish and yael's forgotten trait-negating princess --
the wolves will chase you by the pale moonlight {drunk and driven by the devil's hunger}
There is darkness in Woolf, but there is also light—a tenuous balance playing an ever-shifting game within him. He is not overly cruel, but he is apathetic to the plight of those around him; they were beneath him and his sister. He watched without interest, studying but never feeling for them. If he needed to draw blood to further his own purpose, he would not hesitate. Blood, after all, was what fed him his power in the first place. He would spill his own, if need be. He had no qualms about doing the same to others.
He does not enjoy the closeness of his grandfather as he nears him, and his muscles tense slightly beneath his coat, his mulberry head lifting toward the giant stallion. Someday, I will have that height, he thinks to himself, although the thought is more scientific than wishful. Height could always be faked if he truly wanted to be physically impressive.
“Indeed,” is all that he responds to the statement of his name. He briefly shifts into the body of the wild dog, larger than the average wolf, his coat bristling with the wind. But the shifting does not last for long, the form bleeding from him, and he merely shrugs at the King. “I am no one’s boy.” Not a kingdom or his mother’s or his father’s who he had never met—certainly not this large, dragon-winged King’s. The only one who could potentially lay claim to him was his sister, and while she had a possessive hold on him, it was different than the worldly desires of most around him.
Her claim was elemental; it was genetic; it was infinite.
(He did not mind this claim—he had the same on her.)
Finally, Woolf has enough of the nearness, and he teleports several feet away, his young face not breaking from its somber nature. Vanquish, however, does not stay with him long, and Woolf is grateful that the other is shifting toward the others who gather—more ties to his family, although their ties dissolve with distance in many cases. When Vanquish finally answers both unspoken and loud demands, Woolf cracks a smile—the result eerily removed from his face. “Thank you, Vanquish, but I desire nothing.”
Even though he heard Ima’s voice loud and clear, it still took Gaza a long time to turn his head towards his first home. Without saying exactly what it was that she needed him for, he found it hard to stop everything he was doing (which was nothing, to be perfectly honest) and hightail it back to the place of his birth. He is loathe to admit any weakness, but the sands hold too much of his father for him to ever be happy there. If Yael had said Gaza, I need you, or had asked for help, or had had even the slightest hit of urgency in her mind-voice, he would have been there as fast as his legs could carry him.
This time, however, Ima is coy and will only go so far as to say that he will like what is in the Desert.
Never in a million years would he have dreamed that it was his Abba. He does not turn his senses to search for familiar scents until he is halfway between the Gates and the Desert, and when he does, he finds he must turn everything towards the kingdom, just to verify what he thinks is impossible. He forgets that with Yael, nothing is truly impossible.
One he has the sound and the scent and hears the thudding of a large heart, Gaza churns his heavy hooves, throwing up clods of earth behind him in a sweat-breaking gallop. Damn the sun and the almost summer heat that intensifies as he passes through the empty Rapids and Orange Country (where his own half-brother’s smell is still strong in his super sensitive nose). Pushing through muscle fatigue and a foamy lather that has worked itself up on his black coat, he finally allows himself to slow down to a brisk canter when he reaches the Desert’s border. And now he turns his ears back on, listening to the whole conversation, even though he is easily more than a few dunes away. Like a true son of the Desert, he readjusts quickly to his sand legs but wishes secretly that he had wings to more easily clear the distance.
Smells come next - some of which he can easily identify; Kreios, whom he grew up with, and a mare he’s never met, but because she calls Vanquish ‘Dad’ and smells like their Ima, he can only conclude that she is Etro. When he crests a dune, Gaza can see the oak only a little ways away and as he pauses to catch his breath, hawk-like eyes narrow in on the assembled. Kreios, again, is easily identifiable, and Etro has the same weird in-betweeness that can only come from such a massive size difference like their parents. But then there is a girl that looks lik Lyris - but he knows it isn’t. Lyris would not be summoned here, but her - no, their - daughter would be. A mulberry colt that he will shortly figure out, and another spotted boy.
Gaza can’t help but chuckle out loud. His daughter could easily be one of Kreios or Kratos’ children. Wouldn’t Vanquish be surprised to hear that she’s his? Ah, but that gold coronet should be a clue that she is one of Yael’s. From his own golden gaze to the metallic strands in Rucker’s mane and the girl’s little ankle bracelet. His Ima had certainly been busy marking her own. Damn! If he had known, he would have brough Rucker. The boy had probably heard the voice too, but… he doesn’t want his son to think he’d left him behind. Oh well, nothing he could do about it now.
But back to the strangers… the black and white pintaloosa is a complete mystery, carrying neither familiar smells nor a coloring to indicate whose he might be. Van had answered the question as to who the mulberry boy was (his nephew - and he can smell the Chamber in his pores, the mystery that lays in his veins in the same way that magic is in every cell of his Ima’s - and yet it is different). And yet, noticeably absent are the rest of his wombmates. No sign of Akbar and Kitra yet. Just as it always was. He shouldn’t even be surprised any more.
Unfortunately, as he draws closer he finds his abilities are fading, each smell harder to decipher and words seem mumbled. Lexa’s golden anklet disappears. Finally, he tops the final dune and it is as if a smaller, non-winged version of Vanquish has appeared. He’s a bit shinier (even with a dark blanket of perspiration), and there is only light feathering at his hocks, but there can be no mistaking him for one of Vanquish’s brood. Etiquette and self-consciousness be damned, Gaza calls out to his father with a deep and joyful voice. Unlike Kreios, he’s only ever known their father’s love. Unlike Etro, he’s never felt sickness from being here. And unlike the youngsters, he recognized the voice and the figure beneath the tree. “Abba!” he hails him as, using the name that only Yael’s children do. “What…?” he says in between heavy breaths (damn that Gates sweetgrass… he’s just a little out of shape). “How…?”
And then he turns his gaze to Lexa, and that elated expression widens in the way that only a father’s can. “You… you look so much like your mother. I’m Gaza. Your dad.” Obviously. She need only look at his eyes and recognize the same color that decorates her ankle.
