[open] got a taste and got shell-shocked

[Malik]

He has kept to the same bit of forested peninsula for many weeks now, walking the coast of it often enough that he recognizes the bent spruce that grows beside a cracked red boulder, and slows his ambling walk just after he comes into sight of the narrow bridge of land that connects the western realm to the rest of the mainland.

Malik takes in a deep breath, one scented with summer and sea salt, and sighs.

Somewhere on the other side of the bridge is the thing that killed his father and wears his body. Will this be the day he confronts it, he asks himself? At first he had thought he’d be ready by the spring equinox, but now summer has begun to ripen the thick river grasses from green to gold and he still is not yet sure.

Malik found an easy rhymtym to this way of life. He wakes when he wants to and does anything he pleases all day, which is mostly wander through the same small bit of common lands and fret about what waits across the water. Malik does not understand what had happened that night in the mountains, but the scar at his neck still wakes him. Not as often as before he’d left Hyaline, and never with agony that lasts long into waking. But enough to keep it fresh, enough that he shakes his dark head fretfully, and looks north again toward the high peaks of Hyaline.

It will eventually return there, Malik knows, and if he delays too long he might miss this opportunity. If this lull is even an opportunity, and not just him deluding himself. The possibility of that occurs to him nearly as often as the fact that he has no idea what he will even do if he finds it. What he can do, even.

He can’t keep waiting, and yet he remains still, and turns one black ear back at the sound of unexpected birdsong.

Ahead of him, the morning sun touches the top of the nearest butte, turning it from shadowy brown shape to a brilliant orange-red. More of the butte turns red as the sun rises higher, and when it reaches the midpoint and Malik finds himself still there, locked in indecision, he scoffs and turns away and begins to amble toward the mouth of the River.

Not today, he thinks.
Perhaps tomorrow.

Ooc: just something to explain what he has been up to and an excuse to ramble

[Areane]

Areane understood her father’s reluctance. After Loess had sunk and she had been reunited with her family, Tarian explained that he hadn’t been much older than she or Starros when his home vanished. His younger twin brother had gone to explore the common lands near Paraiso, and being the elder of the pair, Tarian held himself responsible for Liam. So they had gone together and in the span of an afternoon, the only home that they had ever known was gone.

When she had heard the shake in her stalwart sire’s voice, she realized it hadn’t been Loess (as much as he had come to love his adopted kingdom) that he had been afraid for. It had been her and her twin brother, Starros, who had gone to the Forest to explore that fateful day. Tarian - who she had never seen bat an eye in worry, who was Champion for the South, who had fought in the Alliance - had looked afraid.

And so when they spent the next year together on the outskirts of Tephra, Areane understood.

And when another year since the calamity began to pass, she told herself that she still did.

As much as a young pegasus could, she tried to ground herself. The filly who couldn’t wait to soar kept her hooves planted on the ground, and only ventured away from her family when she received a nod from both her parents. Areane never went far, not as far as she has come today, but this morning had been different. Perhaps realizing his only daughter was on the cusp of adulthood, Tarian had asked if she might want to accompany him on a scouting mission. He often went out to the Bridge, flying over what remained of Loess, hoping for a glimpse of Queen Cheri or Lady Oceane.

They had split up to allow themselves to cover more ground. Her father had flown north towards Taiga and she had gone south, towards the sea. The smell of salt began to grow stronger, and underneath the warmth of a summer sun, Areane coasted on the warm winds. She widened her wings, admiring the span of them and the sensation of sunlight glittering off them. Her dark head had been tilted back to look at one when she caught sight of a horse on the ground. She had never met her cousin Cheri, but it had been explained to the young mare that the former Loessian leader had a dark hide, like her. But where only a few of her mother’s light blue spots glinted on her forehead, her cousin was described as snow-patterned with bright green wings that matched her mane and tail.

But before she can get another look, the horse on the ground disappears beneath the coverage of the trees. Areane lands (though not without getting a few small twigs stuck in her mane from a quick descent) and goes searching through the Forest. She gets only a few steps before spotting the iridescent black ahead, stopped by the stranger’s scowl.

Had she interrupted his morning grazing? Were these not the Common Lands or had she stumbled across a band stallion’s territory?

"Oh,” she blurts out, "I was looking for Loess.” She tries to explain quickly, and then realizing the mistake made in haste adds: "The Loessian Queen. She’s apparently black and green, which you are obviously not.” Her amethyst eyes glance up in apology and Areane lets loose a sigh. She was never going to be a diplomat; her rambling had been part of her desire to follow in her sire’s military hoofsteps. So she tries again, braving a "Good morning.”

@Malik