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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    [private]  and its harder than you think
    #11

    (and it's harder than you think)
    telling dreams from one another

    Nashua tilts his pale face towards his brother and fights back a grin. He doesn't fight the way his body takes a side-step away from Yanhua, half expecting those horns of his to come swiping at Nash like they had done when they had been young. A glowing wing comes swiping at him instead and then the copper pegasus does grin. The topic they speak of is a heavier one - successions and thrones, kingdoms and territories - and the striped stallion is glad that they can jest about it as they do over who is the more handsome brother.

    Life isn't all fun and games, though. They had grown up faster than others because of circumstances beyond their control. They had lost their mother to Pangea at a young age. Their father had been such a fleeting thing that if it weren't for their half-siblings, Nashua might have thought that the cursed shifter had merely been an idea instead of a flesh-and-blood horse.

    He does become uncharacteristically serious, stopping their patrol to peer at his brother.

    "If the boulder becomes too heavy," he murmurs, "tell me." And then remembering that this isn't a command or something that to even tell @[Yanhua], he is merely saying. "Please." Nash doesn't speak the next words but hopes that his green eyes convey the message clear enough. That whatever Yanhua's weight might be, Nashua would gladly carry it with him. That for Nash, there was nothing he wouldn't do for the horse beside him. That his weight would gladly be Nashua's weight.

    The moment lasts only a moment before it is broken by a lopsided smile.

    "That all depends on if you can keep up, dear brother."

    Nash unfurls his brown wings, spreading them out if he really might take to the sky. It's tempting and if the stars had been up there calling him, if there weren't monsters and a million responsibilities to keep him grounded, he would gladly answer it and dragged his twin up there if he wished or not. Soon, he thinks. Soon the sun will return and I will show Yanhua a million ways to soar. The smile broadens to a grin despite the winged stallion drawing his wings back to copper sides.

    There's a moment where he thinks about feigning indifference; him give their mother a heart attack? Many memories come flooding back to Nash, specifically the ones that involved using the stallion beside him as a landing beacon.

    Groaning good-naturedly, he says, "If Ellie isn't testing Lumi, then it's me or Noel." Adolescent daughters, one of life's many joys (and they are; but they are also one of life's many frustrations). "Mine traipsed over the border to Tephra," he grumbles, remembering how angry he had been. It's the only exploring (that he is aware of) that his daughters have done outside the Taiga. "I promised Elegance we'd take a trip as soon as the sun returns," Nash explains confidently. Like he has little doubt that the sun won't return. "Maybe Islandres," he adds quietly, speaking of the nearest Tephran territory. An ear flicks towards Yanhua as he says that his daughters not only went further than their neighbors but to the East.

    Monsters. Pangea.

    Could it get much worse?

    It does spark an idea in the pegasus' mind.

    "You and I could always take a trip," he murmurs in return, tilting his head back to his brother. Nashua returns to his earlier thoughts. The sun had to return at some point. (It had to; this is not living. This is barely surviving and Nash clings to the belief that this has to get better. The dark can only last so long.) If Yan's girls were old enough to go exploring, his son could possibly maintain his post and patrols for a day or two.

    The sun had to return and with it, normalcy. It was comforting to speak of a future filled with light.

    "Give you a flight lesson and try to hammer out some kind of peace with the East?" he elaborates. "Or if you'd rather stay nearby, Leilan's been meaning to send me to Tephra."



    NASHUA


    apologies for the novel, but yours are always worth the wait <3
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    #12
    The boulder would always be heavy. In the months to come its weight will increase in manifold ways, and Yan will reject it internally even if he accepts it externally. He will struggle to accept its importance and yet, the gold-winged horse will bear it all for the sake of family. Only then could Yanhua begin to scratch the surface of understanding what his mother and her predecessors have done, stretching back millennia to a time where magic itself was only a fabled whisper.

    Lucky horse he is, then, to have a twin like Nashua.

    The two slip into conversation about more serious things as easily as they would’ve talked about the changing weather, or the time of night, but there’s no escaping the way Nashua’s voice drops and how that change in tone alters the light mood surrounding the brothers. Yanhua, prone to bouts of seriousness now and then, listens intently and with a happy grin. “I will. I always will.” His eyes flash. Unthinkingly, there comes a moment of silence where he reaches toward the more handsome twin with a gray nose and there he leaves it: nestled among the silver-gold strands of Nashua’s mane where Yan’s breath creates a warm spot before he collects himself again.

    In all the worlds there was no better brother to be found. Dimensions could stretch and alter, he and Nashua might be torn apart from one another someday by the will of beings far greater than them, but this moment will never change for Yan. He can feel it becoming a part of something greater than himself, a part of this world. “An eternal memory.” He thought with a smile, hoping that someday after he’s gone it’ll bring another horse comfort.

    For now, it brings a much-needed sense of peace to Yanhua’s troubled heart.

    “There’s a thought.” Yan chuffed. The hammer necessary to smooth out dents between the Northern and the Eastern territories would have to be a large one, but Yan knows Nash is capable enough to spearhead that project. Reynard could serve as backup here in Taiga if Yan decided to join. The idea wasn’t a pleasant one, at least not as pleasant as a trip to Tephra was. “But it would serve us better in the long run, I think.” Yan considered aloud with a sigh.

    The right path to take wasn’t always the smoothest.

    “If we see the other side of this endless night, consider me your right-hand stallion. I’ll go with you to the East; Tephra is probably our closest friend in these dark times. Our mother saw to that, blessed be the winds that guide her.” He commented.

    The thought of traveling to the isles interested Yan, though. He’d always wanted to visit… perhaps after he and Borderline returned, which reminded him:

    “Borderline and I are heading out to finish the mountain’s quest soon.” The leggy chestnut tossed his head, dispersing the dimly-lit forelock that’d covered his eyes. “With any luck we’ll be back before the spring season ends, and Taiga will be host to new organisms.” He breathed the wish aloud, putting faith into each word so that it might manifest into reality. “Give us luck?” Yan asked of his brother, ears forward and expecting.


    @[Nashua]
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    #13

    (and it's harder than you think)
    telling dreams from one another

    Two brothers wander the Taigan woods and one decides that when the sun returns, someday both will see what their birthland looks like from above.

    The thought makes Nashua smile. It's just one more thing that he can share with his brother and it gladdens his weighted heart - one carrying the worries of a father, duties as the Hersir of Leilan's Isle, hopes for a future that may or may not come.

    And at this moment, Nashua hopes for so much.

    "Can you imagine it?" he asks his twin wistfully. The East and the North had been at odds since before they had been born. Nash knew that politics in Beqanna could change quicker than a tide but the idea brewing inside his mind bright despite the dark times that they find themselves in. Yanhua was right in that they had friends in the West - (the Watcher was what their mother had called him, the Tephran leader) and Nash had been to both island territories of the volcano kingdom. There was no strife between the Northerners and their neighbors. Not any for Nashua (or his daughters) to find, anyway.

    Peace with the East seems like a rather large dream. One that will take time and more than a single discussion between the two. It will take many and the Freyr will need to be included.

    But it's something else to hope for.

    Nash starts to think on plans for the future - ones that don't seem so shadowed or hazy now that Yanhua walks beside him - and the striped pegasus looks to the taller one. "A journey to Tephra seems practical," the Hersir muses to his brother. "A starting point," Nash explains rhetorically. He still wants the long run - peace with Hyaline and the East is his eventual goal when this eclipse finally ends. "And if you come along, well, -" he laughs softly, remembering the last trip they took to Tephra together. How cross the overo filly Laia had been with him, how unbothered Locheed had seemed with either of them. "The Tephrans seemed to take to you better than me."

    Their conversation drifts towards the journey that Yan and Borderline will be taking come spring; one that will bring more variety to Taiga and make the mysterious wood even more fantastic. "You don't need luck, Yan." Nash tells his brother and his voice quiets again. The chestnut thinks his twin carries (and shares) it with each step he takes - a Guardian, a loving family that is safe and protected during these dark times, a light that he can share with others - but there is very little that Nash would deny his sibling.

    "But good luck and swift winds, brother."

    NASHUA
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