Tirza charges in and her ears twist to catch the sound of Spectra behind her - the girl turning solid and there is a smile that comes to this mare’s face. Despite the darkness, despite how they all began their lives, she is happy in this moment and that does not feel like a small thing. She is glad that they came here, to where they had been born. Can they reclaim the memories they were given? Shift and change them into something shiny and new? She wants them gone, wants to erase all traces of a galaxy father and a viper mother from her life, as if it were as easy as washing away mud from her coat.
They swim and the rest of the world falls away - it is just Tirza and her siblings and the peace they’ve managed to find together.
She is angry still, somewhere in the pit of her stomach, that it had not always been like this. Their parents had no right to bring any of them into this world - no right to discard them once they had, as though it was somehow their fault for being born. It is difficult for Tirza to imagine being a mother and she knows she never will - not unless she wants it with all of her heart. Not until she is prepared to love a foal with all that she can, with what parts of her heart are not either poisoned or reserved for the brother and the sister swimming with her now in the darkness.
There’s little distraction for her thoughts out here where water is indistinguishable from the sky and she is about to ask Spectra something just so the girl can fill her head and ears with something else other than inky blackness when the world shifts.
When it brightens.
Tirza forgets to move her legs for a moment at the flash of brightness and she slips beneath the surface of the now-bright water but she is quick to emerge again. Where there had been too little to see a moment ago now there is too much. There is far too much. She cannot decide where to look first but she sees something red moving towards the shore and she follows it like it has a gravitational pull on her heart. She calls out to Spectra as she swims - knowing there is little that will harm the girl but feeling a flutter of fear in her heart all the same.
Her attention shifts and in the brightness of day, someone bright as a phoenix stands on the shore. "Gravitas?" She asks as she emerges from the shallows, shock working his full name out of her instead of the affectionate and teasing nickname. Legs that are no longer a dull brown but instead blaze with bright purple, pink, and orange carry her onto the sand and eyes that are not grey but now shining with red flame take in her brother rewewed. Her gaze drops and she sees the colours that had skated across the surface of the water with the renewed sun reflected there as well and a small, shocked laugh escapes her.
No more stars. No more viper. They are their own family and it is more perfect than she could have ever hoped. No longer identical, but matched in the colours of their new start.
She moves to her brother, touching his bright coat with her muzzle - reassuring herself that he is real and solid, that he will not burn her as he stands there painted in the colour of fire. And then she turns to look for their sister - eager to see if even the ghost has been freed from their parents.
"Spectra!"
@[spectra]
(summary for autoquest purposes - they went swimming when the sun came up and got 'stained' by the water)