[open] someone whose eyes are on the horizon

[aestas]

The adventure comes easily to her.

Quickly.

Seamlessly.

She does not glory in leaving her sibling’s sides, but she knows that there are things that lie beyond it and that they will be there waiting for her when she returns. So she does. She peels away from the other girls and takes to the roads that stretch out before her, wild and tangled and unending as they are.

Her youthful legs eat them up quickly as she runs—her body coming upon the cusp of her first year—and she devours each and every stretch of it. She bounds and leaps, toying with the heat of the day around her so that she does not grow too warm as the sun rises further and further into the sky above her.

It is only when the path she is on spills out into the meadow that she pauses at all.

Thin sides heaving, she casts her glance upward at the blue skies that deepen into something nearly unreal. Her smile spreads wide as she closes her eyes, soaking in the joyous moment as something to be cherished—something to be savored, her teeth sinking into the core of it with relish.

If there was anything that Aestas did not enjoy, she had yet to find it, but she enjoyed nothing more than these moments. The moments on the precipice of something new and exciting.

These moments where she could feel the truth of herself just outside the stretch of her fingers.

Just a moment more, another breath, and she would find it, she knows.

And she would unfold another piece of her wild heart to see what lies beneath.

so you should get on board with someone whose course is steadier than mine
you should get on board with someone whose eyes are on the horizon, not on the skies

[Islay]

I am not made for adventure.

My family is just big enough (and thanks to Papa and his visits to the Den, we keep growing) and our island is just the right size for a girl of my stature. There are not many others my age - Bran has a whole trip around the sun ahead of me and I am still learning Narcisicus - but that is alright. There are others as well (and I particularly like our leader - I like to tell Papa that he looks like the ocean with his dark blue hide and the crest of pale hair that goes from his tail to his horns. He's a fitting leader for Islandres; he looks like the ocean and I like to pretend he is a cresting wave.)

Adventure does not come easily for me, but I  decide to go looking for it.
Mama likes to wander and I keep thinking that maybe I'll find whatever it is she enjoys so much about it. The thought even comes to the back of my mind as I tell Papa that 'I'll be back' (because he had worried the last time I wrapped myself in shadow and starlight and left our little paradise and didn't say anything).

There is also another reason for my wandering. I am looking for a piece of the sky. After chasing the fog and trying to find white feathers and attempting to collect sea foam, I decided that I will have to try something else. I decide to wander. So when the tide draws low, I take the sandbar that Mama told me of and I find Tephra. It is humid and green and vibrant; it is different from Islandres in many ways. (I even, briefly, consider climbing the volanco to see if its smoke could be a substitute for my quest from the Mountain. But there are butterflies and flowers and so much birdsong flooding the air, I leave the thought behind me and keep wandering.)

Is this why Mama's trips are so long? I wonder. The further I go inland, the more there is to see, and eventually, I am here. This plain of swaying grasses that suddenly remind me of home. The way they dance reminds of me the sea and so I think of the bird and Ocean Wave and Bran and Papa -

And, oh, suddenly I feel so very far away.

I can't even pull my stars and meteors and suns close to me, thanks to the daylight.

But then I smile. Because I am not alone. Her eyes are closed but I see the sun emblazoned on a girl about my age and I forget how far away I am because she is here. I am not alone.

Slowly, I approach and say: "You have the sun on your cheek." It intrigues me because I wonder if it is like my Magic, that her sun might be like my stars and that they can only come to play at certain times. I wonder, "does it ever set?"

[aestas]

It doesn’t take long for another to find her, to walk into her space, and she quickly brings her gaze back down so that she can look toward the girl. She is of her age and that brings a quick. easy smile to Aestas’ lips, lighting up her entire face so that the warmth is clear. From the beginning, she has always been so open with her feelings, so quick to feel them, so ready to let them light a fire in her very belly.

The smile widens into a grin when she notes the sun on her cheek.

“I do,” she admits readily, feeling a familiar warmth when she thinks about the way she carries summer with her so readily. Just like her siblings carry their own seasons—each in their own unique way. How they are all so uniquely different and yet so totally the same, threading together as piece of a whole.

The question that follows catches her slightly off guard, but she recovers quickly. “Not that I know of,” her voice is nearly sun bleached, just a touch husky and full of smoke. She considers the question seriously though, because it deserves the full weight of her attention, before she rolls her shoulders nearly carelessly. “I can’t see it though so I can’t say for certain.” A wickedness in her languid smile, easy and bright, as she shifts her weight to look at the other girl more squarely, tossing her head slightly.

“My name is Aestas,” she introduces herself as she settles, the sun beaming from her face.

so you should get on board with someone whose course is steadier than mine
you should get on board with someone whose eyes are on the horizon, not on the skies

[Islay]

The smile that spreads across the other girl's face is like the sunshine that is all around us. It is beaming and it makes me feel like the sunrays that warm my back touch the rest of my soul. Maybe I should be more cautious, maybe I should hang back like the tides sometimes do on Islandres (because a part of me is always longing for the night).

But I decide that even if she has the sun on her cheek, I will be like the moon that calls the waves to come crashing back to shore.

She is the first child my age that I have met (though I love Bran and wonder about Narcissus) and the grin I mirror her with is bright with excitement. I don't have to look up at somebody for once and this is another revelation that I find thrilling. I wonder where she comes from. I wonder if she has siblings that she has to look up to as well. I wonder if she has a mother who wanders and a father who loves the night. I wonder and wonder, just as I wonder about the sun on her cheek.

Speaking with a voice that makes me think of dusk, when the sky is still a hazy myriad of the coming midnight colors, she answers my question. My dark blue eyes sparkle at that because there is still the possibility that it could. "Well, I'll keep an eye on it," I tell my new companion and cast another curious glance at her sunmark. The other filly tosses her head and I join in the gesture, pleasantly surprising myself when my blue forelock moves to the side. (I normally have to battle with it because never it seems to settle with the sea breezes always whipping it about. Papa tries to smooth it but that is only as good for as long I can keep still - which is usually not long at all.)

"Islay," I tell her in reply and my smile turns shy. This is the first time that I have introduced myself to another - without my family or my herd around. It feels almost as monumental as the small journey I have taken. "From Islandres!" I say, because I want to share that with her too. That I am not from here and this is my first real adventure, an obvious telling since the only scents that cling to my painted coat are of salt and sunshine, of my family. It makes me curious if like me, this is her first adventure, it makes me wonder, "where are you from?"

@[aestas]

[aestas]

Aetsas thinks her parents are as constant as the very sun in the sky.

They are endless, constant. They have a love that she could never fully comprehend; could never see the beginning or the end of. Growing up in the shadow of that kind of love is an unnerving thing and an anchoring feeling. She knows in her very bones that she will always be able to find her way home and that they will always be there to shepherd her when she needs it the most. She will always be able to find her way down these paths—will always be able to follow along those roads to the core of that family.

Perhaps because of it, she feels confident in her wandering.

Perhaps especially so. 

“Islay,” she repeats with a smile, the warmth of it exploding on her face and glittering back in her eyes. “That’s a lovely name,” the sincerity is learned and innate, coming from the very core of her. Her mother had shown her the art of engaging with someone with your whole heart—giving everything into every interaction so that you could shower them with your attention, giving it away like a gift.

“I have always wanted to visit Islandres,” she remarks thoughtfully, wondering at how many other lands there are in Beqanna that she has not see yet. How many of them have her parents seen? How many would she see in her lifetime? She would be so disappointed if the answer was not all of them.

“I’m from Tephra.”

It does not occur to her that the lands are tied together.

“You should come visit!"

so you should get on board with someone whose course is steadier than mine
you should get on board with someone whose eyes are on the horizon, not on the skies

[Islay]

My mother loves to wander and it is in her hoofsteps that I attempt to follow today. I admit, I've never really understood this great pull that she felt towards the unknown places she told us tales of. My orbit has almost always consisted of my father and elder brother, Bran. I have spent the first year of my life ambling after them while bringing along my stars and constellations and my eagerness to show them everything with my moonbeam smile.

(There is also Narcisus but I've learned that there is hardly anything that makes him smile. Still, I try because he came home day trailing after my father. There must be a reason he did, I've assumed. But he has little use or time for a girl with too many stars swirling about her.)

But this stranger - (not anymore, I correct myself) - Aestas doesn't seem to mind my company and I find that I am certainly enjoying hers. She is bright and every bit as warm as the sun that gilds her face (and I admit, part of me is envious. There are star-marked horses and I find myself wishing that I had something like them; like her). "You should come someday!" I tell her in a way that only an over-enthusiastic child can. Suddenly, my mind is already thinking about the end of our adventure here in the Meadow and it ravels around itself trying to discover ways to extend our meeting.

"We have beaches, quite a few actually." None of this sounds overly exciting, I realize. "and my Dad and brother are there." That part I add almost sheepishly, inwardly noting that there is nothing particularly interesting about that either. Glancing down, I try to recall the best parts of Islandres. I enjoy the nights because they are open and wild; on the beaches, there is nothing to contest with my beloved night sky. There are no branches or domineering trees to disturb the rapture that glows beneath my sky-blue coat.

Still, I'm trying (and struggling) with other things to tell her. "There is also an Erne," I add, because he is perhaps the most fascinating thing (to me) on our island. I've never met anybody else that can boast a bond with an animal and I momentarily consider saying we have a 'Gale' as well. How many other lands can make such a claim?

"What is Tephra like?" I ask. There are some things I know - like that is where we turn our eyes because the King of the West lives there. Suddenly, I am imagining a glittering court full of diplomats and battle tacticians and magicians. Perhaps @[aestas] is even a member of it; my mind is already dreaming up a fairytale existence about her.

[aestas]

Aestas would understand her aunt’s pull toward the wild. She would understand the need to travel and explore—to roam until all corners of the wild earth have been uncovered. It was something that her own mother had not fully understand nor explored. For as rich as her mother’s story had been, she had never sought out the adventure so much as it had been thrust upon her. Aestas would prefer the opposite.

Her eyes glint though in unbridled joy as her conversation with her cousin, unbeknownst to her, continues, the ease with which they fall into comradery something that the sunburst-girl takes for granted. “I would love to come,” she says eagerly. “I love nothing more than our very own beaches in Tephra. I would love nothing more than to discover new ones.” She smiles, almost wistful, as she imagines what it would be like to simply travel her entire life from beach to beach, sunset to sunset.

Drawn back to the conversation, her eyes focus once more. “What is an Erne?”

She’s never heard of one before and, like all things that she doesn’t know, she finds that she has an immense appetite to learn and know more. The conversation pivots though and she does not bother to stop it. She merely turns to the next topic with equal enthusiasm. “It is wonderful,” her dual-colored eyes shine as she thinks of it. “Tropical and warm and bursting with the most brilliantly colored wildlife you have ever seen.” Her smile widens. “My mother was once Queen but that was long before I was ever born.”

That doesn’t stop her from daydreaming about it though—never quite believing the stories that her parents tell her, watered down as they may be, about Leliana’s reign. Of what had happened when the magic had found and transformed her. Of the wars that had happened. “She prefers to stick to her gardens these days though along with my father and all of my siblings.” So many that she can hardly count, but they do not all live within Tephra these days—although she wishes that they would stay. 

so you should get on board with someone whose course is steadier than mine
you should get on board with someone whose eyes are on the horizon, not on the skies

[Islay]

I'd let her in on a secret if she had asked, if our conversation had gone that direction: I think our world is a wonderful place.

It's not always so, I've been told. We are fortunate on Islandres in that we have enough grass to graze on, that we have months and months of warm sunshine to bask in, that we have salt-filled breezes that carry the wild scents from other places across Beqanna. The horses that call it home are (mostly) kind and drifting with the pace of island life, we don't seem to have many of the struggles that the other kingdoms have.

We have a way of life that I think is unique (if only because I still have much to learn).

When Aestas says she'd love to see Islandres, my tentative smile broadens. She brings it out of me like dawn brings the day; it's a gradual warmth that finally reaches from the edges of blue to my navy blue eyes. Do we go right now? Is that too forward? My ears flicker forward and to the side, wishing that I had paid closer attention to my Papa. He was always so good with others. It always seemed like he knew what to say. What if we meet in the middle, I wonder? "We could visit the Tephra beaches first?" I offer hesitantly because while she loves them, I'm sure she has seen them a hundred times and I know that my older brother Bran has complained before of wanting to see something different. Something new.

"You can only reach Islandres on a low tide unless your a Nereid," I try to joke but I glance sidelong at my new friend, wondering if she might be. You never knew in Beqanna what Magics were at play; not until you were the recipient of them (like Narc and his games). I decide to show her mine and I tug quietly at the shadows near the treeline, making them longer until they stop just before us. They make shadows that linger are not our own. Glancing down, I push away the desire to envelop us both in darkness, knowing that not everyone finds it as inviting as I do. They'll remain there until she asks and I'm mindful already that she might ask me to pull them away.

"Erne is a bird that lives on Islandres." The explanation doesn't feel quite right as many birds live everywhere. "Gale, our leader, is kind of like his... ?" My head rounds in a little circle, searching for the right word. "Companion?" It's what I think makes the Osprey unique. How many horses can say that they have a friend who is a bird?

As Aestas starts speaking, I fall quiet and listen to the details of her life. Her mother is the former Queen of Tephra and it takes everything in me to not widen my eyes. But I remind myself to remain polite because I've never heard of royalty retiring; once you were made noble, I assumed that it remained even if the titles did not. She has brothers and sisters, a father, and a garden that I imagine to be lovely. Tephra (from what little I saw when I passed through) was filled with lovely colors.

"I've always wished for more siblings," I say somewhat wistfully. If it were night, I might have shown her the games I played with my stars to compensate for the lack of them. "But it's not so bad just having a brother." Bran was one who had taught me how to find the sandbar, after all.

And if I hadn't found the sandbar, summoned the courage to wander today, I wouldn't have met @[aestas].

---

i am SO sorry that this took forever

[aestas]

She smiles at the invitation, completely unaware that the other girl was tentative or unsure about how to broach the conversation. Aestas had never known what it was like to be truly self-conscious. She barreled through life with the protective barrier of her certainty in it and in herself. She was constantly and completely unaware of the fact that there are others who may not take kindly to her or that she may not be welcome. It was blissful, this lack of knowledge or awareness. This bubble that she lived in so carefree.

“That sounds perfect!” she smiles, head tipping to the side as she considers for a moment. “My mom could always open a portal for us if it’s not low tide.” A shrug, as careless with her mother’s magic as she was with her former title. She’d grown up her entire life with Leliana as a magician. Listening to Adna or Sabbath’s story of Leliana when she was just a healer felt as fake as the fables Vulgaris would tell.

Perhaps the cushion of that protection was part of the reason for her endless confidence.

Or perhaps it was simply who Aestas was.

Regardless, she listens with rapt attention at the story of Erne. Grinning at the idea of him. “I want a companion!” she exclaims. “That sounds so cool.” Attention sliding to the shadows that grow long by their sides, she studies them for a moment. “Are you doing that?” She steps away for a second, nose down on the ground, as if she could sniff at the darkness that stretches before them. “How neat!”

Prompted into action, and always just a little interested in showing off, she begins to toy with the heat around them. Her face grows slightly more serious as she concentrates, first making it cooler and then beginning to warm it again—being careful to not make it overly warm. Not everyone loved the humidity of the Tephran jungle as much as she. After several moments, she lets go of it with an exhale, laughing as she catches her breath. “I can’t do it for very long yet,” another grin, “but give me another year!”

She walks back from the shadows toward the other girl, ears perking again. “It’s wonderful to have such a big family. I think I have…” her voice trails off as she counts, “13 brothers and sisters?”

Her head tilts again.

“Is that a lot? I never know.”

so you should get on board with someone whose course is steadier than mine
you should get on board with someone whose eyes are on the horizon, not on the skies

[Islay]

"A portal?" I ask because I had heard about such methods of travel but those who had such abilities were highly gifted in our world... they were often Magicians and I have yet to meet one. There are rumors of the former queen of Tephra but there is so much I have yet to learn and my world has mostly been compromised of starlight and darkness up until now.

@[aestas] is bringing whole new colors into my world and my silver-blue eyes widen at these thoughts, of the things she is speaking of.

Life on Islandres is so often quiet and this cloud-colored girl is making me wonder at how much I have missed, of all the things that occur here on the mainland. Perhaps my wandering will become more common; perhaps this meeting will inspire me to interact with others because this single one has already opened my mind to a world of possibilities. Ones that seem as infinite as the galaxies in the heavens.

One that made up a world where a Magician's daughter sees magic as something that comes as easily as the tides.

It's almost breath-taking, the realization of how rich their world is. It lifts the corners of my blue lips in another small smile and I wonder what her mother must be like, if she has traces of the sky on her skin as mine does or if Magic gives her another scent entirely - one that doesn't belong to this realm.

"I've never seen anything like it," I gush as we speak of Gale and Erne. The pair has always seemed wildly exciting to me, though Aestas is showing me that there is much I still need to see. She compliments my shadows and I even manage to play with ours, making our shapes long and then short. I lengthen our legs and shorten our necks before emerging them together to make a mass of shadow that takes the shape of a cloud that floats above us.

(This feels rather impressive to me and I lift my head a little proudly because this is the most I've ever with my gift. It doesn't last long, given that it is day and the sun is blazing.)

Her heat is welcome and I watch her carefully, studying her expression as she focuses on her craft. We seem like a contradiction, I think. The girl who walks with shadows and the girl marked by the sun. But I find that I don't mind.

"Is it?" I ask her with a playful tilt of my head, "It's perhaps not quite as many as the stars but it's certainly more than one."