[private] you can't hold back time

[Nashua]

Nashua isn't entirely sure how the years had passed so fast, only that they had.

Cheri nestles against his side, and out of habit, Nash lifts a speckled wing to allow his niece to huddle a little closer. He'd done this often with her and her siblings - as well as his own children - dozens of times over the year, but the familiarity of having her suddenly so close is reassuring. These moments had been common in the North, until suddenly they hadn't been.

Until it felt like the only thing that remained in the Redwoods was echoes of what had once been.

Stop, Nashua tells himself. These thoughts did nothing; they didn't bring back Bolder. They did nothing to bring him closer to Noel or their remaining children. It did nothing to abate Ciri's need for revenge and it did nothing to cure Cursed Gale. And it certainly did nothing to bring the ones they had lost back.

It seems, though, that when Nash is struggling against Fate, that the Winds will guide him in another direction.

He turns his blazed head, gazing down at his Loessian niece as she speaks of how two heads might be better than one. If these were happier times, Nash might have smiled with her. They might have even laughed together. But there is the weight of worries of a kingdom and his family dragging the Northern leader down. And Cheri is mourning the loss of her parents, and perhaps the last vestiges of her childhood as well.

The North will always need a Guardian. And so long as Nash breathes, he will be here to answer that call. But being a member of the Northern tribes was more than just dwelling in Taiga or Nerine or the Isle. It was about the very bonds of the horses who lived within those lands, much like the bond between the striped pegasus and the crystalline one nestled lovingly beside him.

That would always go above and beyond borders and boundaries, kingdoms and crowns, for Nashua.
It isn't something that he even has to think about.

She steps away from him and he lifts his head to peer down at Yanhua's daughter as winter suddenly gleams brightly against the icy terrain that surrounds them.

"What can I do, Cheri?"

@Cheri