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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


    The moon, the stars and all their light // Any
    #1
    Rey scraped the hard length of its horns down the rough bark of a redwood. Resinous pitch scented the air, filling his lungs with a smell he would only ever be able to describe as "home". 

    Scraping the trees felt good. It relieved the ache that growing the bony things caused, and it made him feel like he was doing something productive. Sharpening them, maybe, or marking territory with the oozing ruts he left behind. It was, unfortunately, not an activity that took an awful long time, though. He was soon over it, and looking for something else to occupy himself with. 

    There was a whole day ahead of him now, after all. They had those now. With light and warmth and color and everything. He still wasn't quite used to it. It was better, make no mistake. Anything was better than the endless dark and the violence it had contained. Now the sun was back, and things were returning to how they'd been told they should be. 

    It's just, that it was hard to trust that the light would come back again, now that it had proven capable of abandoning them. He wanted to talk about this with someone. Anyone. But their parents were still recovering from the dark themselves, and dealing with new babies on top of it all. And then there were his sisters; the ones brave enough to answer a call he'd slept through, and turned different when they'd come home. 

    Not to mention any time he tried getting his twin on her own for an attempt at a private conversation, someone always seemed to turn up. Not someone. Targaryen.  

    The slightly older stallion seemed intent on spending as much time with Cheri as he could, and Cher didn't seem to be stopping him any time soon. In what he knew was a mean-spirited way, the colt found himself occasionally wishing the monsters had gone for the other stallion instead on the night they'd met. 

    Mom would be terribly disappointed if she knew he was thinking this way, so it was lucky she was a mood reader instead of a mind reader. Small mercies, he thought grimly.
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    #2



    Reynard’s irritation (if that’s truly what it was) concerning his twin Cheri was secretly harbored by his father Yan, even though the elder stallion might be hard-pressed to admit it. Borderline had rolled her eyes and made light of the situation, and when Amarine had settled back into home for the long recuperation she deserved, the jewel-spotted mare had tried to console him with the notion that it was just what mares did. That hardly made it easier, though.

    “I’m not ready for her to grow up so quickly.” He sighed wordlessly, gliding through the bracken of the still-recouping woodlands. He’d just returned home from the flower crowning at Leilan’s midsummer festival up north, a surprise ending to the ceremony that was as unexpected as it was begrudgingly tolerated. Yan was sure Leilan and Nashua would be laughing about the expression on his face for weeks to come. At least the flower “crown” made up for him had sat nicely over his horns. “It tasted even better.” Yan distracted himself, laughing.

    Maybe… maybe things were getting better. Despite the horror of the Eclipse and the fear he quietly tried to battle every evening as the sun went down, Yanhua felt optimistic that balance would return. Lilliana was gone and her absence felt like a voidless hole inside of him, but it was manageable with Nashua’s help and open heart. He was lucky to have a twin who made time for him despite the many duties each shared, and together they distributed the weight of losing their dam a second time evenly between them, which Yan appreciated.

    He understood how Rey might feel alone, and coming across his sapling-aged son in a piney grove of marked trees Yanhua paused, intent on conversing with the young stallion to make up for lost time between them. “Reynard my boy!” He whinnied deeply, no affection lost in the brassy tenor of his voice. “How goes it?” His father asked of him, stopping alongside the charming, floppy-eared youngster to admire the deep gouges he’d made while sharpening his horns.

    YANHUA
    Image by Ani2ad


    @[Reynard]
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    #3
    His shoulder itched, loose hair moulting out to reveal dark chocolate color underneath. He rubbed on the knobbly tree trunk he'd just been battering, watching as the tufts drifted away. His father was coming. The image of his sire wreathed in golden light, an idol of strength and security from his childhood. 

    The memory faded in time to be replaced by the living entity. The itch in his shoulder was forgotten, an uneven patch of partially shed hair the only evidence remaining for the moment. They stood nearly eye to eye now. Rey was still whip-thin and leggy, but it was only a matter of time before muscle would fill him out and complete the semblance to his sire. 

    "Dad," he answered, a twang of guilt twisting his gut, even if he couldn't think of having done anything wrong. "Okay, I guess. How're you...?" He asked, turning to face the elder stallion. It was, perhaps, part of his problem. The sense of general uselessness that had been growing in him ever since he'd been old enough to be tired with childish games. 

    @[Yanhua]
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    #4



    “Okay? You guess?” Yan scrutinized the slender, elder twin of his and Amarine’s making. Reynard had a happy youth in the beginning, filled with vigor and an appreciation for learning that put his siblings to shame long before Cheri discovered her healing. But this: the mature outline of a stallion who would tower like the redwoods and turn heads wherever he went, uncertain? This was different. “I’m worried about your siblings, worried about your mother and Borderline, worried about Taiga and positively distraught over you.” He sighed, shaking his head until the golden tassels hanging down from his chin began to sway.

    A light, bemused smirk fixed itself to his lips when he stopped. “So just fine myself.”

    He strode forward, at ease in the company of a horse he’d helped raise from a colt. Yanhua’s mood was tempered and calm as ever when he reached up to grasp one of his boy’s horns between his teeth. He shook the thing softly, testing its strength and feeling its newly sharpened, honed edges when he let go. Reynard was growing them perfectly, just the way Yan had taught him. “Is everything alright Rey?” He asked the spotted hybrid, leaving the door for conversation open wide if his son wanted to talk.

    YANHUA
    Image by Ani2ad


    @[Reynard]
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