[private] I might go interstellar

[Nashua]

Nashua looks back at the sky above, a sort of half-night that always seemed to linger on the Isle. Daylight did come in the summer months but the further that the sun drifted towards the autumn, the days would grow so short on the Northern Island that come winter, it lasted only mere hours. The sky above Ciri and Nash is dark; not quite as deep as true night but his green eyes glint on the varying shades of the Aurora.

Through stories told from his relations like Ori and Elena, Nashua knows that his ancestors worshiped the elements like the horses here revered the Mountain. They listened to the wind, followed rivers, and asked the stars for guidance. And what would you say about this? asks Aletta’s grandson bitterly. His blazed head is held high but the enormity of their situation sits heavily between Nash’s winged shoulders. One brother is Cursed; his twin his missing; and Bolder…

He’d been trying to spare the boy - as he tried to spare Luminesce - the looks and stares that had followed him his entire life. The stripes, the wings, the green eyes were a testament to his parentage, but shifting? Northerners were a hardy breed, able to survive the coldest winters in Beqanna and some of the harshest weather. That same tenacity that dug in and gave them the ability to survive up here also gave them long memories and even deeper grudges.

For the Northerners that stayed, there was no forgetting the crimes that Wolfbane - whatever shape he took in the North - committed.

The stars - not surprisingly - remain silent to Nashua’s plea.

His copper ears flick back at Ciri’s backlash, but all the questions she asks are valid ones. What are they supposed to do? Wait for It to come North? Wait for It to take another child? Wait for It to inflict devastation on another unsuspecting soul?

Winds, he missed Yanhua.

”We start where we can do the most good,” Nashua says, low and distant in an attempt to detach himself from his anger. The sparks of it are on the tip of his tongue and Ciri almost sets him off. He looks away from his silent counsel of starlight and turns his flat green eyes on the onyx pegasus pacing nearby. We start with what we can control, he thinks, because there is no saying what Gale will do or where he and Mazikeen will go next. ”If Loess knows about him, then Ga..-,” Nash corrects himself and pushes away the dull ache beating inside his scarred chest, ”then It loses the element of surprise. Perhaps there could even be some kind of discussion between Tephra and the North and the South on what to do.”

Hyaline currently has several entities. He’s had a few sleepless nights thinking that perhaps they could fuse the Curse to one of them. All of them had been horses at one point and then like Gale, had been turned into something else. Perhaps through some kind of Magic, they could turn Cursed Gale into something different. The Curse could be trapped and bound to something instead of someone.

”I plan on speaking to Leilan,” Nashua continues. ”He placed portals through the North during Yanhua’s coronation; if he can do the same again, it should make traveling between the Isle and Mainland easier in the meantime.” Quicker, as well. It would allow Nash to be more present in Taiga while his twin is still missing and allow him to do whatever Noel and their remaining children need of him.

Though he’d like Ciri to come, if she wanted to remain behind, Nash wouldn’t push her.

The copper stallion’s thoughts seem to refuse to settle but they pause when Ciri finally glances back at him. When she asks him a question that he had asked himself a hundred times. His stoic demeanor falters for just a moment. ”Maybe.” His voice catches on the word. ”I don’t know, Ciri. Maybe I remember it differently because I was so young, but it seems… not like before.” Nashua doesn’t mean to unburden himself so much to the Thane; but the overwhelming guilt he feels for her attack and his failure at keeping her - and Bolder - safe gnaws at him. ”Worse,” he states and then blinks - fighting another rush of emotion before he succumbs to his rage, ”But don't do that." Nash warns her suddenly, "Thinking like that will get you killed again."

@Ciri