there's a devil in my brain with a pitchfork and a flame

[Nashua]

NASHUA

He’s listened (as well as he can anyways). Nashua keeps the adventuring to a minimum - though he tells himself that when he can, once he finally figures his wings out, there isn’t an inch of Beqanna that he plans to miss. There is a whole world out there waiting for him. He can feel it.

But at this age, he is all awkward angles and at only a few months old, his adventuring days are still far ahead of him.

Nashua likes to come out by the coastline. The wind that blows in from the ocean is often erratic, strong - not yet broken by the might of Taiga’s guarded woods. He likes to spread his wings out and let the air flow over and under them, to imagine (if only for a moment), what it must truly feel to fly.

This morning had been somewhat of a useless effort. The air was moist - too chilly for his fledgling wings - and the damp had made it almost impossible for him to practice in a small clearing he had claimed as his own. It didn’t mean that he couldn’t try - his white stockings stained with mud and pine needles clung to the edges of his wings, in his flaxen tail, told a story of a boy trying very hard.

There had been more falling than flying and he is returning home to his mother and twin brother, very much a tired child with scraped knees.

Tomorrow, he tells himself. He will try again tomorrow.

But when he passes a tetrad of Redwoods, instead of there simply being trees, there is a stranger. (Normally, he has to travel outside of Taiga to find them. Imagine his delight when he spies one here!) The winged colt stops and peers curiously at him - at the red and the gold and most importantly, the wings.

There is a look of admiration as they trace the burning edges of them.

Nashua looks up, impressed. "Your wings look like fire.”

A pegasus could light up the skies with wings like that.

and for every king that died
they would crown another

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@[elio]