"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
09-25-2020, 12:41 PM (This post was last modified: 09-25-2020, 12:43 PM by Nashua.)
stars when you shine, you know how i feel oh freedom is mine
He wonders if the devastation of the Isle never bothered him because he wasn’t born there. Nashua had talked about it with others, had mentioned it and offered what news he had to the casual passer-by. (That always seemed so important to Nash, that when he talked about what happened to the land he swore his allegiance to, that whoever he speaks to knows that it is rebuilding and that it is regrowing. That it not only be known for the devastation it suffered.)
But coming back to Taiga had been… surreal.
They were fortunate, his mother had said (but she always has said that). Only part of the Redwoods had been burnt and the trees that had been felled were weak or sickly. He had been reminded that the Northern Forest had been burnt before and it had been struck down by the ocean. Taiga was not razed to the ground nor was it drowned. It still stood.
But there had been no words to describe the way he had felt upon seeing the trees he had raced around as a child blackened to char. There had been no words for the part of the Forest that been lost. The closest his mind could even fathom had been dream-like.
Nashua had wished his return home had been a dream.
The only thing that had prevented it from turning into a nightmare had been that his mother, Leilan, and Yanhua were safe.
When Nash takes to the sky again, when he tries to resume his wandering, he doesn’t get very far. There is the pull to the Common Lands but he doesn’t think he is ready to venture in that direction yet. Almost all directions feel too close to South and the young pegasus isn’t sure if he will be able to venture that way for some time. Not without thinking of Celina.
He doesn’t have the heart to fly over Loess. Not yet.
So the wind he takes soars him towards the sea. It takes him past the Tephran volcano that most horses in Beqanna use a landmark and the ocean beckons Nash in white-capped, foaming greeting. He almost makes it past the beach but decides against that, too. (When had he suddenly become so indecisive?)
Knowing that kingdom protocols demand he stay at the border, Nashua remains on this beach that is wide and open and wild. The scent of brine fills his nostrils and though Nash knows he’s in Tephra, knows exactly where he is and where he could go, he stays on this beach and wonders if this is what lost feels like.
Each day, Olena feels like she’s stronger than the day before.
At least, that’s what she tells her Oberyn. It’s what she tells her mothers and her other siblings. Better than yesterday, she tells them gently (for she knows nothing else but that; gentleness and frailty, stumbling feet and an aching chest) with a sparkle in those deep, cerulean eyes. The mantra sings faintly in her own mind, commanding her to rise each morning and to mull her way around Tephra; otherwise, she thinks, she would have died long ago - succumbed to the rattle in her breast and the atrophying of her muscles.
Fortunately, despite her ailments, the young girl had begun to grow. She is taller and more refined but oh so thin; slender dark legs carry the sleekness of her rich gold and white body. It is hard to remember to eat when it is difficult to even remember to breathe. But she is fortunate to have those that watch over, care for her, ensure her wellbeing. Olena knows nothing but love amidst her circumstance, fortunately.
The deep black of her feathered wings is neatly tucked into the gold and white of her sides. They rustle briefly with the sea wind’s playfulness, tugging most forcefully at the obsidian and cobalt tassels of her forelock and mane. Those unique leopard print markings of noticeable blue along her spine are hidden beneath the folds of her wings, only seen perhaps from above. She often finds herself here, staring into the ocean and its wrinkled waves that crash incessantly against the blackened shoreline. They’re continuous and without fail; Olena decides this is why she is so fond of the ocean - there are no surprises.
She had heard whisperings of the fate of the North. Her weak heart had broken for them as the smell of ash was brought to their shores. The scent wasn’t much different from the bittersweet twinge of the hearty volcano that sits at Tephra’s epicenter, but the knowledge of the fires made it all the more like dust in her mouth. Olena’s thoughtful gaze captures that glimmer of burnt gold in the near distance, a flurry of wings, and the sound of something rather solid thudding into the sand. A familiar sound, one that accompanies her mother or brother often, and does not raise any alarm as her slender head rises to catch a better look.
The girl is so curious; she always has been. But her sickness keeps her from most things and as she watches the young stallion pace with a somewhat disheveled and far-off look on his face, fear and uncertainty creep into her mind. She wouldn't be able to outrun him (or fly from him) if he would intend her harm.
Her dark legs bring her closer to him - slow and steady and methodical, each step thoughtful and deliberate as if deciding exactly how much energy it would take to get nearer to him. She’s nearly there and she’s sure that he’s spotted her (those dark and unuseful wings did her no favors as camouflage), but she stops lengths away - for not only had her nervousness gotten the better of her, but she finds her lungs aching for oxygen.
So she says nothing, not yet, as her dark nostrils flare wildly to catch her breath and those large eyes on a too skinny face watch him silently.
OLENA & all the stars go dark i turn the light on in my soul
10-02-2020, 01:41 PM (This post was last modified: 10-02-2020, 01:48 PM by Nashua.)
stars when you shine, you know how i feel oh freedom is mine
If this is where wild things go, they find themselves at this edge of Earth. Two creatures of the sky (or so Nashua assumes; he doesn't know that the delicate girl can't fly) find themselves with a volcano sleeping at their backs and the ocean cresting before them. His green eyes are there, focusing on the pale seafoam that rises and falls with each wave. That with each stroke of wind, comes closer to him and the exquisite way it catches the light makes it appear almost iridescent.
(It reminds him of Celina and Nashua has to bury his emotions beneath a deep sigh. Maybe this was a mistake, he thinks. Maybe he shouldn't have left the Isle.)
There is a battle being fought in his chest just as the golden filly fights to come forward. His chestnut ears flick back and Nash looks away from the ocean. His emerald gaze follows the sound of hooves subtly tracking over the sandy beach. She is slim and small and slight; she looks as if Beqanna could swallow her whole and not leave a trace behind. Her trail could come to a stop before him - she could blast into a gust of air, become a pebble on this rocky shore, turn into a bird and never touch the ground again - and she could be gone. Maybe it is the fires of Loess still blazing in his mind. Maybe it was cinders and charred earth that greeted him when he returned to Taiga. Maybe it because he is thinking of his brothers (because Nash has always been fortunate in them) but the presence of the filly rouses something in the young pegasus.
He watches her for a moment. The stallion makes no motion that he will approach her. The wind, carrying the scents of salt and sulfur, gusts past him and then the buckskin. It's her eyes - a deep sky blue - that commands his attention while she flares her nostrils, appearing that the trek here had taken more from her than his flight from the Isle had taken from him. Where he appears hale, she looks frail. The other pegasus remains yards away from him and Nashua looks behind her briefly. That emotion stirs again - that want to protect - and he has to remind himself that she may not need or want it.
But she is on this beach alone.
She is here and Nash is here and so he contends with the biting desire to ask why the girl was out here alone (because his sister had been so much stronger than this one - Celina had been a predator and even she had become prey to something in the end). The young stallion settles his dark brown wings against his back and waits. Silence says what he does not; an invitation waiting in the green eyes that seek hers. She could come closer, if she wished.
These were her steps.
Nashua was just a temporary caretaker along her way.
In her closeness (or what she determines as close), Olena can smell the sky on his skin - fresh and unkempt - and she imagines this is what the tops of clouds smell like. The dreamy idea draws her closer to him, slowly, with gentle and unhurried steps on her slender, obsidian legs. There is the scent of smoke and ash, but the young girl equates it to the familiar volcano that looms behind them like a sleeping giant, constantly spewing its breathy plume into Tephra’s bold, blue skies.
It is not often that she is met with an unfamiliar face and though his appears kind (almost distraught?), the hesitation is clear on the sharp angles of her face, those bright eyes clouded by uncertainty. He must be able to sense her anxiousness, for when he turns away to watch the ocean once more, he steps aside as if giving her space. Olena inhales a quick breath, those dark raven wings fluttering gently. If he had asked her why she was here alone (and maybe he will, eventually), she would tell him that she never wants to be alone. That feeling of loneliness wraps around her heart each chance that it gets, suffocating her more than the sickness that wracks her thin body.
Hello, she practices in her mind, hating that her own consciousness sounds feeble and unsure. She swallows hard, lifting her head with slight determination, snorting softly. She’s still not close enough, she decides, and somehow he finds the patience to wait for her until she draws parallel to him a few lengths away.
“Hello,” she finally says. Her blue eyes quickly fall downcast; her voice is breathy and soft, perhaps even barely audible above the roar of the ocean waves before them. She’s tired, she can already feel it, but she refuses to let it keep her from something new like this. Her body aches in protest but she only coughs instead, masking the wet and ailing sound by acting as if she is clearing her throat. “I’ve never seen you before.” She turns away from him, suddenly embarrassed. Of course she’s never seen him, why would she say that? Olena can feel the darkness of her hooves beginning to turn into nothing, threatening to stretch across her whole body until she would be able to pass completely through the volcano behind them.
With a soft snort, she wills the feeling away, her dark hooves becoming solid once again.
“I’m Olena.” She finally turns her eyes to him, meeting those green irises from beneath the thickness of her onyx forelock.
OLENA & all the stars go dark i turn the light on in my soul
stars when you shine, you know how i feel oh freedom is mine
If she had left, Nashua wouldn’t have begrudged her for it.
He’s a stranger. There is no scent clinging to his skin that claims him as a Tephran. He has no blood ties to the volcanic kingdom. The only horses who may potentially vouch for the young pegasus probably only have hazy memories of him by now and he doubts that either filly recalls the twin brothers from Taiga.
And aside from all this, he has been poor company of late. He thinks of the scars that had lined Elio’s red-and-gold hide, marring what should have been a happy reunion. He thinks of the sadness he had seen behind Gale’s eyes the last time they spoke. And because he thinks of his brothers, he thinks of the crumpled body of Celina at the bottom of the canyon in Loess.
Damnit.
It makes his green eyes mournful and his wings drop slightly, no longer held so tightly against his copper sides. Nash decides to look away from the buckskin and back to the sea. Better to let her approach be her own decision. Given his current train of thoughts, the striped pegasus wouldn’t blame her for disappearing back into the jungle fauna that Tephra was famous for.
She surprises him. Instead of vanishing, she accepts his silent invitation. If he had been in a better mood, he might have even joked about it. A dark ear flicks towards the sound of her soft greeting before he turns his blazed face towards her. Nashua has never met a stranger and despite the melancholy that he feels weighing him down, he smiles. He's determined not to meet a stranger today.
"I’m afraid I don’t come to Tephra often,” the wanderer admits. "I used to travel more and I had planned to...” His words trail off (or they become so quiet that they drown out against the sound of the surf before them). The buckskin coughs and though Nashua tries to keep his concern mostly hidden. Olena has turned her gold-and-blue marked face away from him and Nash watches her carefully, unsure of what he’d do if a coughing fit ensued but still at the ready to do something if it did.
Nash was good at diving head-long into things with no plan. If Olena needed some kind of healing assistance, it would be no different.
The silence comes drifting between them like the crashing waves before them and then finally, the other pegasus speaks. "Nashua,” he offers to the girl. Because he is so intent on studying her face, the secret of her vanishing hooves remains a kept one. He smiles, lopsided and boyish for his companion, as he steadily meets her blue eyes. "Do you mind some company?”
She can’t leave, even if the anxiousness in her chest is nearly choking her.
Her life, though so full of love and adoration, has been so very small. She hasn’t been able to travel into the far reaches beyond Tephra, let alone explore each corner of her own homeland. Parts of it are dangerous for such a thin and frail girl, as she has learned from her birth, and she knows to stay in the open areas and to keep her legs from feeling the roguish pull of the sea.
Just looking at him - this winged stranger - brings her closer to those things than she ever could have imagined. He smells of other places, exciting and new scents and even that terrible sadness in his eyes draws Olena even closer. Perhaps that is the consequence of leaving the safety of home; there are risks in making yourself vulnerable, but even so, the buckskin girl finds herself longing for it.
At least he is feeling something.
Her dark tail swishes gently at her obsidian legs, the deep cerulean markings across her face making her appear expressive and curious. Her heart palpitates in her chest like a frightened bird against a cage, however, and it causes her to tremble slightly. He smiles at her though (and it is warm, inviting, and gentle, despite the sadness in those beautiful green eyes) and it stills her at that moment.
“Please,” she replies softly, lowering her head slightly so that her pleading yet bold-colored gaze peers up at him from beneath her black forelock. She has worked so hard to get here to join him that she couldn’t imagine turning him away. The deep raven of her wings shuffles slightly, catching the burning Tephra sun and casting a deep blue iridescence across the feathers. “I may be wrong, but you look like you’ve experienced a thing or two in your wanderings,” Olena mentions this gently, afraid that her assumption would be incorrect. “I - I would love to hear about them, Nashua.” She says his name back to him, a tiny smile quirking onto her onyx lips. Her gold ears twitch nervously, praying that he’d be more than willing to share a few stories with a stranger who will not admit that she lives through others' experiences.
OLENA & all the stars go dark i turn the light on in my soul
10-29-2020, 02:07 PM (This post was last modified: 10-29-2020, 02:14 PM by Nashua.)
stars when you shine, you know how i feel oh freedom is mine
He doesn't know what she has struggled with but Nashua has traveled enough to know when someone has taken a journey; the girl has all the shine of adventure radiating from her when she peers up at him. He can't help but smile back at her, tempered as it is. Nashua is harboring storms inside his chest but sometimes feeling the winds cut through a soul is the best way to lighten it.
Nashua won't share all of his travails - he'll keep the worst of it to himself (a trait that he shares with his mother and grandmother) - but when he smiles at Olena, secrets are lingering in the corners of his upturned mouth. "A thing or two," he murmurs back to the winged girl. He tries not to think of the way he found Celina. He tries not to remember the way life looks when it has flown from the eyes of a pegasus; he glances into the stormy blue of Olena instead and focuses on the way that a life can fill them. Her eyes are deep and blue and Nash thinks they are full of things yet to come.
"I was told that I'm the grandson of a great storyteller," Nashua tells his companion rather gallantly. He looks at Olena instead of the sweeping sea and smiles charmingly, hoping that he looks the part. It's a bright emergence of the Nashua who had earned smiles from strangers and he hopes to put @[Olena] more at ease with it. There is the start of a smile on the buckskin's face and the pegasus takes a moment to appreciate it. There are glimmers here, he thinks. It's a shimmer of who this not stranger might become. It's easy to see a bolder mare glancing up at him. Give her time and a few experiences of her own and he thinks that Olena could be a fearless flyer. The dark wings that she holds against her sides deserve the skies and for a moment, Nash finds himself wondering about how to coax her to the clouds.
Another day, he tells himself. Another time when the wind is more favorable and he isn't such a thundercloud.
The chestnut cast his green eyes to the sea again, not sweeping them up to where he imagined them both moments earlier. "I was in Loess," he admits. "It...," and the admission struggles within him, chokes his throat as the soot and smoke had. "It was burning," he explains and Nash can't bring himself to look at Olena. He keeps looking away because he realizes that he can't bring himself to tell her that there are far worse things than places burning. He can't bare to share that with anyone (except perhaps Yanhua, the better half of him. But even then, what would he say? 'Our half-sister is dead.' And they never speak of their father. What good would it do?)
There are squalls building behind Nashua's green eyes and he shuts them, breathing deeply and denying them a chance to gain momentum. Olena wanted a story, not a confession. He finally turns to look at her and his gaze is rueful with an unspoken apology, "I can tell you a better story than that. Do you know why the trees of Taiga are so tall? Or why the thunder bellows so loud when storms are overhead?"
There is a thoughtful glint in his eyes as they take in the feathered appendages pressed against her. Nashua lifts his wings, "do you know the story of why we have these?"
He smiles at her and she finds that it suits him quite handsomely. The stark flaxen of his forelock against the emerald of his eyes and his tawny skin marked with shining, golden light - she wonders who he is, where he’s from, who his family is, and how it happened that she had come across him so unexpectedly. Can he sense the fear that riddles her bones, the sickness that tremors her muscles and fatigues her heart? Olena swallows hard, caught up in the moment of meeting a true stranger and realizing that he knows nothing of her ailments - there is no reason for him to be cautious with her or overbearing - and the idea of it sends her reeling. A few seconds of clarity, of imagining what her life would be like if she was not brought to her knees by her weakness.
Nashua looks away from her and the gentle smile on her face fades into something like concern; her jaw slackens slightly and her brow crosses, trying to find his gaze once again with the soft pleading of her stormy eyes. In his seconds of finding composure and that grief-filled silence, Olena realizes that she has taken multiple steps towards him without even a thought. And now that she was here, close enough for her to touch him, she finds it surprising when she does not hesitate to bring her dark muzzle to his shoulder. She fights the urge to bring her whole self alongside him, far too nervous to do anything more than the gentle gesture of empathy that she has already done. But does he know how terribly she needed to feel his eyes on hers again?
The slender girl does not comment on the fact that he had left Tephra for a moment. He had flown through the clouds to somewhere far away from here - to some time in the past when Loess had burned. She waits patiently for him to return to her and when he does, turning his face towards her, there is a soft gasp that passes through her lips - as if she forgot she had pressed them to his skin and that she was not, in fact, invisible. Olena pulls her chin to her chest quickly, her gaze flickering down for a moment before slowly finding him again.
Her nervousness is forgotten then as he gestures to the slick raven-colored wings at her sides. Her dark lips pout confusedly, moving the iridescent black of her feathers in the same way as Nashua had. She thinks she’d rather hear a story with him as the main character, but the darkness that had clouded his bright gaze made her so sad, she didn’t dare ask him in fear that it would show up again. Olena snorts softly, tilting her head. “Please tell me, Nashua,” she replies softly, the gentlest smile on her dark lips.
The young girl shifts her weight, leaning closer to him as she settles in to hear what he knows.
OLENA & all the stars go dark i turn the light on in my soul
11-13-2020, 09:51 PM (This post was last modified: 11-13-2020, 09:53 PM by Nashua.)
stars when you shine, you know how i feel oh freedom is mine
"Have you ever been?" the copper pegasus asks his companion. Nashua thinks that there is an innocence in Olena that speaks of a family that has kept her safely within Tephra's borders (and there is nothing wrong with that). His childhood had been different because his mother had vanished before his first birthday and his biological father had shed himself of Taiga like he traded skins.
"The trees are so tall in Taiga that it's said it makes the old Gods jealous," Nash tells her and smiles at her like it is a secret to keep between them. He hopes that maybe it would inspire her to make the journey North and make a conclusion for herself.
"And the thunder bellows because," he says with his voice catching in his throat. He hadn't realized how much he had needed this, how much he had just needed to speak with someone who didn't make him think of everything that has passed. "Well because there are four brothers," he tells her and Nash turns his handsome face away from the turbulent sea. "They seldom get along," the pegasus adds. "And when they do come together, it often comes to blows. The sound of thunder are just the brothers trying to settle a dispute as they strike their hooves." His grin quirks to one-side, charming and lopsided.
These are the stories of his youth, the ones that had been murmured into his and Yanhua's delicate ears. There is probably very little truth to them or it has probably been lost to time. But he likes sharing them with Olena and he lifts the wing closest to her here so that she might come closer and keep warm against him despite the temperature that keeps dropping around them.
"There was once a horse who dreamed," Nashua starts as he settles the wing near the buckskin girl. "And this horse dreamed so high that it reached the stars." He looked out at the ocean again and he remembered this part of the story clearly. It had been a favorite of his. "The stars took the dream and from it, they crafted a feather from the clouds." He had snorted at that as a boy; now he recalls this memory fondly and it makes Nashua look thoughtful. The story took twists and turns as tales so often do; he mentioned that the Gods delivered the feather and proclaimed that whatever horse could run the swiftest would be gifted with the ability of flight.
He talked about the battles that ensued, of how the horses quarreled and raced and kicked up their heels to prove themselves worthy of this trait from the stars. Fleeter than the winds, faster than the rapids, surer than any galloping stride should be. Horses battled for a privilege that they deemed their right and in the end, his mouth tugs in that wayward grin again. "While the others argued amongst themselves, they say that the Gods went looking for the dreamer and gave them the Feather instead."
Nash wonders what his new companion will make of the striped stranger who told her theatrical tales about magical feathers and stars and horses that fought above the clouds.
"Why don't you tell me one," he teases. "A story for a story." His emerald eyes gleam playfully against the gray, winter light as he looks down at her. "How did you earn your spots?" Nash tilts his head to one side, hoping to encourage her to play along. If only for today. He's learned that reality was always there, always waiting. Nash doesn't mind creating something all their own for a little while.
11-14-2020, 01:16 PM (This post was last modified: 11-14-2020, 01:17 PM by Olena.)
She snorts softly in reply to his question, her brows rising with slight incredulity. “Oh no,” comes the gentle sound of her voice, a semblance of a laugh interlaced with the sound of regret (something Nashua may or may not recognize). “I haven’t been anywhere much at all, actually.” She frowns, turning her thin and slender face away from him almost bashfully. “I guess that’s why I love stories so much.” She’s done nothing with her life - not even seen the other side of the clouds - while it seems her new companion is riddled with fascinating stories from his own experiences. That difference between them does not provide any lackluster to her dark eyes when she turns back to him, all wide-eyed and curious as each explanation falls from his lips.
Olena knows that the tales he weaves are those passed down from his own family - much like the dreams she had experienced in her quiet childhood thanks to her mother, Kagerus. She had been sent on many adventures in their dream world, but it did not change the fact that when they awoke, the dream had only been a dream. And maybe that is why her heart aches so much - she had a taste of what is out there but has yet to see it in reality. Here, with Nashua, she could taste a little more and her dreams seem all the more real. She smiles when he smiles, especially when he tells her about the brothers. She thinks of Oberyn and her cousins, all brute strength and energy, and she could easily see how fights would break out in the clouds.
When he begins the tale of the pegasi, her shyness has begun to melt away. It’s the story she had been wanting to hear the most and as he offers her space beneath his wing, she eagerly takes it. She looks up at him with the largeness of her dark eyes framed by those expressive indigo markings. He has her full attention, enraptured her in the weavings of his tales, each word burning into her memory. She’d tell Oberyn this story, she thinks to herself, so she must remember each part.
A dreamer.
I’m a dreamer, she doesn’t say, but the thought is accompanied by the touch of her dark muzzle against his neck, wishing she could tell him how meaningful his story is to her. She’ll fly one day - she was meant to.
She smiles into his skin, unashamed of her gesture now that she has grown more comfortable. “We must never stop being dreamers, then.” There is a hint of laughter in her voice as she turns her head to glance up at him, wrinkling her nose slightly. When he asks her for a story, she is quick to duck her head with a soft snort. “Oh, I don’t know,” she muses at him quietly, casting her gaze towards him from beneath a furrowed brow, “I’m not sure any of mine will sound as nice as yours did, coming from me.”
When he asks her about her spots there is hesitation, but that tiny smile never fades from her obsidian lips. She remembers her mother’s dream world, where leopards prowled between them with such prowess and strength, and how she longed to be like them. They were fierce and brave, Kagerus had told her - warriors that faced everything head-on but also knew the importance of patience in the hunt. “Their spots on our bodies show our true courage and that, even if we don’t feel like it, we have a lion-strength in our hearts. Our spots are on the outside so that we remember what’s on the inside.” Olena hadn’t realized she had begun speaking and as her voice fades out, she glances up at Nashua in surprise. She smiles at him faintly, slightly embarrassed but feeling a bit more alive now that she had shared her own story.
“See,” she says with a shrug of one of her gold and blue-spotted shoulders, “not as good as yours.” There is a playfulness in her voice that is new and wistful as she lips gingerly at the flaxen tips of his mane.
OLENA & all the stars go dark i turn the light on in my soul
![[Image: jCdBK6.png]](https://img.nickpic.host/jCdBK6.png)
