[private] you know i never forgot

[Nashua]

Nashua has always been afraid of his own darkness.

He's the son of a monster and every time he felt the shadows in his soul stirring, he often wondered if that was the tainted blood in his veins. The old saying went that the sins of the father were visited on the son and though he considers Leilan that, Nashua feared that the darkness in him was some kind of penance for the crimes that Wolfbane committed.

It's what had Nash been taught. All magic has a price. There had been so many atrocities committed in these woods and yet, what price had been paid for them?

Noel presses herself into him and the winged stallion tightens his jaw but he lowers his blazed head into her embrace. This isn't even the whole story - he can't even show it to her like some of his kin could. He only has these broken words and the story he tells her still feels too fragmented; Nashua thinks there are too many things slipping between the cracks but he doesn't know how to explain as something as terrible as the Curse.

The thing that has stolen their son, that has buried Gale somewhere (there is no time for Nash to mourn the loss of his brother).

Their other children are with the shadow-dwellers. He knows that she is right. Nobody will find them. The safest place for them to right now is wrapped in the embrace of those distant cousins. There is no Magic that he knows that could pierce the veil of darkness that they wrapped themselves in.

She is just adamant to go with him as he is determined that she stay. His face breaks and the fire burning in his green eyes momentarily fades as he watches Noel shake her head. She hadn't understood. He wants so badly for her to understand how this evil wrecks everything it comes into contact with and Nashua would sacrifice his soul to keep her away from it. He knows that she won't hide (and he loves her for that) but it doesn't mean that Nash isn't afraid for her. The striped pegasus steps forward to her and lowers his head, pressing it against her once he's accepted that there will be no gainsaying her.

"It nearly ruined my family," he whispers, thinking of Lilliana and Yanhua. Thinking of scarred Neverwhere and her angry son, Wherewolf. Thinking of the sadness that he had seen reflected at him so many times from behind the eyes of his half-siblings. He closes his eyes. "I can't let it ruin this one."

Taking a deep breath, he steps away from his pale mate and opens his speckled wings. Nashua is already looking to the sky, towards Hyaline. The need to protect his family fuels him but before they leave, he glances back and wants Noel to know: "I love you."

And then takes off towards the kingdom that was once rumored to be a sanctuary, the one that had now become the stuff of Nashua's nightmares.

@Noel

NASHUA