When word had finally reached Nashua that there was another family member within the Taiga, he promised himself that he would seek her out as soon as he could.
(Because his mother had smiled - really smiled - at the mention of her name and it had gladdened Nashua's heart. It had brought a lightness to it, like the newly returned sunlight to their world.)
But his duties as Hersir demand his presence on the Isle and much of his time. His responsibilities as a father to two adolescent daughters take up more of it. The daylight returns and while Nashua will never get enough of it again, night always come too soon and there is always more left for the young pegasus to do.
There is something to look forward to. While Nash's mother has yet to return from the Mountain (he's heard the rumors and he battles daily with the knot in his gut that there is truth to what his nieces have claimed, that his mother had been swallowed by the darkness), others had and one of them had been the Dragon King. And with Leilan's return as well as the return of the light, he had decreed that there should be a festival to celebrate it and the winged stallion had heartily agreed.
It could be the thing to bring them together after the darkness had separated them.
She is easy to find. He has grown up in Taiga - this has been the only home he had known when his father left and his mother was stolen - and Nashua knows almost every face that dwells beneath the Redwoods. (It helps that most of them are related to him, somehow.) Hers is an unfamiliar one but as soon as his lopsided grin (so like Malachi, his mother had once told him, and yet it is a wilder version of his uncle's smile) emerges, he knows that the champagne mare the moment he spies her. It's just like what Lilliana had told all her children - about the family that came before and dwelled in Paraiso. "There are so many shades of gold there," she had said with a gentle laugh (and Nash remembers this with a memory so vivid that Yan could have seen the echo from it). "It was said that that they were descended from the sun," she had murmured after one of her stories.
Now that he sees this relation in broad daylight, Nash thinks he can see why that legend might have emerged. She is as gold as any summer day that he can recall. Almost as gold as the stripes that adorn his legs.
Coming to a respectful stop, the pegasus stops and dips his blazed head in greeting.
"@[Ori]?" he asks. His green eyes - the color of spring - brighten and the smile warms his gaze. "I thought I might accompany you to the Isle for the Solstice." Nash says with that same grin before hastily adding, "so long as you don't mind the company." Lifting his head, the chestnut stallion introduces himself. "I am Nashua."
![[Image: jCdBK6.png]](https://img.nickpic.host/jCdBK6.png)
And if you're homesick, give me your hand and I'll hold it.
Nashua and Yanhua had both been reared on the old stories.
When he and his twin had been small and dusk gave way to darkness, Lilliana would murmur the tales about Paraiso. She used her magic - many times - to show them her favorite places in Murmuring Rivers, her favorite memories of the faces that she had loved so much. Elena, Malachi, Jay and Brielle, Marcelo and Ori, Ruth, even Aletta (that was how Nashua would come to recognize the silver wanderer when she eventually passed through Taiga again) and Valerio - they had all been faces that their mother had been keen on them knowing.
That they understood that while they might be a small band in Beqanna (or at least, they had been then), they were part of something much bigger.
It's still a little unsettling for Nash to see one of them here. Those tales that his mother had told had always seemed so surreal - whimsical in their setting - and the Hersir had always focused on his family here. He has plenty of half-siblings on both sides and Nashua has never made a secret of wishing to meet them. That had seemed like something reminiscent of Lilliana's stories - tales of a valley where the Legacies resided, where the roots of the family went even deeper.
He's glad that his traveling companion is so friendly. She has a shining personality and whatever shadows of doubt that Nash had of this meeting, they evaporate like Taigan fog when it rises to meet the sun. His grin tugs towards one side of his pale lips as she nearly bursts with laughter. The Hersir reciprocated the feeling - the Darkness had ended and the sun had returned. His mate and children were safe. And today, Yanhua would take on their mother's mantle. A bittersweet day, but one that Nash had found himself eagerly awaiting.
The Hersir starts to move, leaving enough space that the champagne mare to walk alongside him.
Nash smiles at Ori again, "I wouldn't mind meeting you twice." Nashua jokes with his cousin. His expression warms towards her when he turns to look at her from over his winged shoulder. "But I'll settle for leading the way to the Festival." The pegasus tosses his head, moving his flaxen forelock to the side of his face. Leilan had placed multiple portals around Taiga and Nerine for those journeying to the Isle; it wouldn't take them long to reach one. Noel had gone ahead - with help from Elegance and Luminesce - with the younger three and the Hersir would join them as soon as he was able.
But he doesn't mind spending a few moments with Ori and the striped pegasus purposefully takes a longer route in hopes to get to know her a little better.
"My mother spoke of you," Nashua offers as an explanation, his voice softening at the mention of the former Guardian. There was little that Lilliana missed within Taiga and Ori's arrival was anything but little. It had stirred something in his dam and while she had answered Nash's questions as best he could, Lilliana's son sensed that she was still hiding something. Could it have something to do with her death?
"So how what do you think about our corner of the world?" Nashua asks good-naturedly.