[mature] bro, i'm straight up not having a good time

[Tarian]

Tarian had been fortunate. He had been born alongside a brother and they had come into this world with parents who had adored each other and by extension, them. They had been created out of love, one of those impossible bonds that transcends everything. A brother had followed and then in familial tradition, another set of twins: two girls, Maren and Mina. The silver stallion had been the firstborn of his father, also a firstborn.

And with that came the expectation that Tarian would be the one to lead the next generation.

Since the loss of his ancestral home and the gradual disappearance of his family, Tarian has learned that expectations mean little against the grand scheme of fate. Better to expect this, the dark and monsters to cut them down to size. Better to be slashed and torn apart and then fight for the right to survive than to expect that tomorrow is a guarantee. The gray pegasus knows that the sun will come back again but a part of him knows that there will be many who won't survive this endless night to see it.

He had wondered how the monsters had come into existence. Some part of him had figured that it had been due to the eclipse and the shattering magic that followed after the Alliance. But there was something more terrifying to them, something more than the sharp teeth and claws that they could manifest from the shadows. The pegasus has never remained around them long enough to discover what it is but what the other stallion confirms tells him more than enough.

Turning his head towards the direction of Loess, his nostrils flare and inhale the sickness all around them. He should be getting back and yet the copper smell of blood from the fresh wound stops him. (And the mention that an angel saved him once; if Tarian knew this fighting comrade better, he might have said that a star had saved him. That he imagines her shining up there, dancing between starlight and the glow of innumerable galaxies.)

"We should get that looked at," he says tersely, wondering briefly where the angel is now. It's as close as Tarian can bring himself to offering to bring the other back to Loess.

No angels but no monsters, either.

@[Ashhal]