Her stars, like her, looked like such tender little things. Gentle soft, but unlike her the stars could burn and destroy; her greatest beauty was their light and her greatest terror their fire. Now, one by one, they flickered through the darkness and called to her brother, her protector, her friend.

At the sound of approaching wings she felt and resolutely ignores an urge to run. In the inly black of the night she could not see if the approaching guardian was her brother. Perhaps she should have been able to recognize the sound of his wings but she had never heard them in flight and so for long moments there mystery of the approaching figure shivered it’s way through the slim little mare. There was a thud, a movement in the shadows, a shape as her last star blinked out an for a breath of time was not replaced by another.

"Asavvi!"

Her name, her true name, seemed to echo in the darkness and though she knew in her heart who spoke it, the voice was a strange one. Perhaps there were traces in it of the colt he’d been but is was deeper now, molded by the time they could never get back. She could follow the memories—with her magic—she could trace his life through the months they’d been apart but the memory walker could never make herself part of those memories.

But he was here.

He’d come at her call.

For the slow span of several heartbeats, the girl steeled herself. She let air fall between her lips in a long studying stream and then she reached for her stars again. They winked into life in the space between them, casting soft light to fight the moonless night and her skyclad eyes fell opon a handsome face and eyes that burned ling her stars.

”Nizho.” Her gentle whisper did not betray that pounding of her heart, the riot of emotions she did not want but could not prevent. Her brother stood before her, his coloring and manner matching her memories but stretched over a frame that was too tall now, too strong. They had taken all that time from her, from them. On the inside she was torn asunder but in the warm starlight the form of the young mare gave no sign of distress. 

"Shieraki attihat yeri akka tat anna, ven mori zhorre hatif.” Her voice was trained, restrained, controlled, but she had less power over her own eyes and a tear spilled from them. "Hash yer dothrae chek, gaezo?"

- - - - - -

“Shieraki attihat yeri akka tat anna, ven mori zhorre hatif.” - The stars show you the way to me, as they have before.

Hash yer dothrae chek, gaezo? - How are you, brother?

Does the secret fade—

            or is it everlasting?

Asavvi