[open] and i'm falling to pieces, fiadh/any

[sylvanas]

sylvanas

As if the clay you were made of, was kneaded with rose water

It is dark when she slips past the borders of the Pampas and off to the common lands. Her parents normally kept a careful eye on her and her sister, but she is too clever to be restrained for long – or so she thinks. It’s fairly obvious just who is sneaking about when her markings glow like a lantern in the depths of night. Sylvanas feels a smug grin overcome her face as she makes her way through Loess, keeping her head down in case her grandfather is still patrolling the kingdom. After that, she’s home free in the forest.
 
She is a yearling now and she thinks herself fully grown despite her short mane and tail. Sylvanas eagerly sniffs at the foreign flowers or lips the berries off bushes she doesn’t recognize. Her father always hovers over her and scolds her for trying to eat each new thing she finds, reminding her that some things are poisonous. But he isn’t here now and so she runs wild with all the things she’s been told not to do.
 
Vana peeks around a few trees as a flood of strange thoughts fill her head. She knows all the minds of the Pampas – Noah, Revelrie, Malone, and Nikkai – but each of these is brand new to her. Her bright blue eyes blink in wonder as she spies on the strangers. Their thoughts might have been boring to anyone else more acquainted with this gift but she is thrilled to hear their opinions on the weather or the gossip of their respective homes. Something about kelpies, another thought about all the annoying dragons, and then some monster in the north.
 
But then the glowing trails down her face draw their attention and she ducks quickly back behind the tree. They call out, asking her just what she’s doing, and she feels her cheeks grow hot with shame. Sylvanas takes off running from the group and finds herself leaping over fallen branches to escape them. It doesn’t occur to her that she’ll have to find her way home when all of this is said and done. The young girl doesn’t stop until her legs burn and her chest heaves with gasping breaths, and by then her short forelock is stuck to her face with sweat.

@[Fiadh]

[Indius]

I KNOW I NEED US MORE THAN I NEED ME

"Please, please, please, please, please, momma please, please take more for a walk." Momma's sleep-heavy gaze befalls me with reluctance as I whisper to her, careful not to wake mother as she sleeps nearby. The clear twilight sky above us promises to illuminate me in the coming hours, though for now my figure appears plain save for the translucent outline of my wings. Momma groans and mumbles something I don't hear, though my ears swivel to catch the words; upon her rising, however, I forget of them and jump about. The coconut trees ruffle their leaves in agreement with my excitation.

"Baby, be quiet," momma whispers, placing a firm kiss atop my ruffled poll to soothe me. Eager to please (or rather, not eager to dissuade momma after all that), I still. If I could hear momma's thoughts, I might even have laid down with her just now, reminded again of how much Iri's dreamlost-state exhausts and distresses my parents. But I do not hear momma's thoughts and am instead left to the thrill of being taken away from home for an adventure, one of the few I've had thus far.

The strangeness of being a twin with a dreamlost sister waxes and wanes in my small body. Tonight, I feel it like a pressure in my legs which I misinterpret as a need for movement; and although I discern by momma's frown that she'd prefer to stay and watch over mother and Iri as they sleep, I also recognize a compassion in her nutmeg gaze.

"Let's go," she murmurs, and with that, we depart.

We get to the forest some time later, just as the last streaks of the Beqannan sunset bid their farewell. Already my wings become brighter, the starlight above seeming to fall down into my feathers until, as we thread our bodies through the tall birch trees surrounding us, I glow with the power of all the stars above. My shrill, boyish laughter leaks across the land with a simple confidence, followed by my light. Momma plays along with me as we go, a genuine smile making her scarred face the most beautiful I've ever seen. Besides Iri's of course.

Iri. The thought of my sister brings me to a dead stop in the middle of the forest as my eyes, one blue and one black, peer through the blackness with the intention of memorizing every single detail of my surroundings. "To show to Iri when I fall asleep tonight," I explain when momma asks if I'm all right. Subdued now, I pick my way across a log-strewn section of forest and am about to reach back and preen my wings when, all at once, a filly pulls up just before me. She, too, glows. I wish Iridian could see this.

"Hi there, are you okay?" I ask, the youth of my voice making me sound more like a girl than a boy, though I do not mind that. With my wings clutched to my sides in an attempt to dim their brightness (which could be perceived as alarming I'm sure!!), I step closer to the girl as sweat drips from her forelock straight to her nostrils as they flare and unflare with gusto. "I'm Indius, that's my momma back there, can we help you? I promise you can trust me..."

Momma, some steps away, lowers her head in agreeance with what I've said but otherwise remains uninvolved. I'd been the one who wanted an adventure, after all.

Indius

""

[Fiadh]

Mama, Papa, Aunt Tick, and her brother-cousin are all fast asleep when Fiadh slips away. Normally Ryan would awaken, cat-ears quite keen, but he’d fallen asleep with her mama and aunt in horse form, and Fiadh in cat-form was getting very sneaky. She wanders a ways away to practice her pouncing and catching – on birds and rabbits, since she is currently alone. Mama and Papa don’t mind her hunting, but she knows that Mikhael and Noma and Aunt Tick and Aunt Noah are a little squeamish about her eating other animals, so she tries to keep it out of their sight.

She’s patient, waiting, stalking; but suddenly the long-legged hare she has so carefully selected and tracked takes off, spooked by something galloping past. Startled herself she has a moment of indecision, but then in curiosity she takes off after the other young mare, nearly silent on huge paws. Fiadh is finally tiring, lungs burning and legs feeling like concrete, when the other girl comes to a full stop. The large cat drops flat to the ground, locks green eyes on the trio, and watches.

The pair does not immediately attack the filly Fiadh had been pursuing, so she considers only a moment before closing her eyes and sliding back into her equine skin. When she opens her eyes again she is lying on the ground and has to scramble upwards onto bright blue-purple legs, stepping forward out of the ground cover and smiling a little at everyone. “Hi! I’m Fiadh.” Her gaze slides towards her quarry and she says in a slightly admiring tone, “You’ve been running forever. Were you running from something?”

@[sylvanas]