Ascending to the Stars as one | The Great Accord

[Nashua]

He had been content to stand amongst the crowd, his gleaming stripes hidden by the bodies of others and the way that his wings dipped a little towards the red-clay ground. Nashua had been more prepared for a coronation than a conversation, and he basks longer in the first, trying to absorb (and hold on to) a memory that he thinks his mother and Yanhua would have been proud of.

They would have, he thinks with swelling pride. It surges to have Reave nearby, and for a moment, he envisions what a future might look like with the pair of them taking control of half of Beqanna through their respective kingdoms. What it might look like if they could forge them into one. Those thoughts occupy most of his mind, and the Northern leader almost misses the way that the gray stallion flicks his ears sharply back in a silent message of open dislike to the large black one.

Obscene, he remembered. The Pampas Prince.

His green eyes catch on his glittering scales, but Nash doesn't keep his gaze there long. The Prince seems to be assessing him as well, and so the Freyr gives a polite nod of his blazed head in polite acknowledgment. Until Cheri begins to speak again, and the older chestnut turns his attention back towards his niece. The appaloosa speaks of two possible plans: to combine both kingdoms or to create a new kingdom seat, creating an alliance that went deeper than mere words and empty promises.

(Many of the leaders here are bound by blood, but as Nashua turns to look at his relations, he wonders what it might mean to each of them.)

Taiga - both an open wound in his heart and in his kingdom - is addressed by the young Queen first. He schools his expression, and continues to listen quietly as Reave explains that Taiga was already being dealt with. Nashua had heard that was a new arrival in the Redwoods, and as he holds his brother's piercing stare, he conveys a clear message: that if the Northern forest was not being dealt with to his liking, he wouldn't hesitate to deal with it himself.

Nashua frowns slightly as Reave mentions decapitation.

"Alliances are easily broken," he finally says, speaking a truth that they all knew very well. Kingdom politics changed quicker than the seasons in Beqanna. "And while there is merit in combining the North and South, the Northerners still harbor a deep mistrust towards outsiders." Especially the South, given the history that the two kingdoms shared, but Nashua didn't think that the respected rulers here needed a history lesson on their territories. "That is something that will take time, and a continued effort from both realms." Nashua tells them all, though his gaze lingers between Cheri and Reave.

"Have you heard of a thing called a Hydra, brother?" the Freyr continues, recalling a story that had been carried by their maternal granddam, Aletta. There had been very little love lost between the famed storyteller of Beyond and her striped grandson (she had made it abudantly clear she preferred Yanhua, anyway, saying how much he reminded her of their esteemed grandsire, Valerio). But he remembered the tale easily enough, "Chop off it's head and three more grow in its place."

"So what I propose is this: North and South work together to campaign to take new territories. Many have fallen quiet across Beqanna, and we can use that to our advantage. Take one at a time, foster and develop ties that bind them to us both until eventually, we come together as one kingdom."

NASHUA

@Cheri