The sun came up as they journeyed home, peering curiously over the horizon before emerging into full strength above them. It set a fire to their bones and a blaze in their blood; they basked in its radiance, the promises it offered. They had spent the majority of their lives trapped in darkness, wrapped in the cold embrace of a starlit sky- the advent of warmth and fall of the dark was a brilliant reminder of how beautiful the world could be.

The Edge was dark, but their mother was there, ready to welcome her children home. The rush of affection was something foreign to the filly and her brother; they loved it and loathed it, confused by the kisses and yearning for more. Natraj demonstrated his skill with flame, and Tandavi was snatched under Kali's wing. The griffin braided her hair, supple talons weaving an elegant tangle of coils and knots. She cooed a song the pair did not understand, blending feline and avian tones into something eerily beautiful and hauntingly piercing, while Rishima told stories of lands far away in dark and wistful tones, painting a picture of past adventures and secrets untold.

They fled soon after, eager to find secrets and tales of their own, suddenly stifled by the woods they had grown in and the family they loved. They had spent time cast away from home, and were stronger now for their trials. The desert sand stained empty spatters on their hearts, a fragment of scattered thoughts and memories left with them for years to come. It was dismal and dark, but also vast, expansive, a world full of promise and desire and tales and strangers. Now they streaked through the land in a flurry of hooves and blackened fur, a bright young filly and her three-tailed brother with hearts newly inflamed and steel in their eyes. Next time they would not stand and watch on the distant shore. Next time they would not sit helpless as others defended their sorry corpses. Next time they would be prepared to fight, to bleed, to die for a cause they knew not but sought to defend nevertheless. For Amaris. For Mother. For family.

The bridge was an invitation, the rough waves a test; they stepped on stone and smelled the salt, let wind tear at the newly braided hair with curious fingers and smiled. Girl and her shadow, they trod lightly on a path warm with memories and soft with history, stained with desire and lust and greed. Blue fire and molten rock; Natraj ran ahead and Tandavi trailed after, black eyes wide to take in the world around her. She had seen so little and heard so much, the firechild born to a wanderer's heart; she filed it all away into the recesses of her mind, giddy with the delight of forming new memories and the anticipation of new adventure.

The ground around her grew momentarily dark. Tandavi frowned, looking up just in time to see a pegasus streak away to land atop the island, out of sight but well in mind. A sudden fierce protectiveness burned high in the child's heart, mixed with tantalizing curiosity and untempered by wariness. Who was he to invade her sacred space, steal the memories she had come to build, change her fate with his presence uninvited? And yet her steps beat faster, stride brought long with dizzying anticipation at discovering just who and what and why and how, at learning the stranger's name and scent and if she will love or loathe him. Her brother burned with the overflow of excitement, a howl let loose to the gods and the sky, gold eyes glowing in the cloudy cyan light.

They creeped above the lip of the ledge, in time to hear the colt's soft voice echo back from silent stone. The shrines sat quiet in the summer sun, tame companions for a boy so brave, but she heard them beat against her heart, a pulse of magic present here that dances with her own in a dizzying foxtrot. Green and vibrant, the plants that sprung at the boy's pluck a string of distant memories, a past before she fled her home. He reeked of familiarity and and absent name, but bigger now, a nearly-grown stallion and a half-grown mare, both alone and innocent in their own ways. Brown, blue, bronze and blonde, the stallion cast an imprint on the filly's mind, and she felt something hot ignite in her chest.

She thought about leaving, but decided that would be dull. In the space between them her voice seeped, far too deep for a girl so small, roughly melodious and unapologetically curious.

"Why are you lost?"

@[Hototo]

A creamy purr breaks into the sunlit space, round and warm and full of youthful curiosity. The shadow has abandoned his post at her side, slinking forward with spring in his step, cold nose sniffing curiously at the magical plants. Over the past year they have learned that Natraj's inquisitive nature knows no bounds, and neither decorum nor safety can hold him back when his interest is piqued; he is a force to be reckoned with, and a vocal one at that. He reaches the greenery and pauses, glancing at the boy before leaping fearlessly ahead. The fire child smiles as her kitsune drops onto his knees, rolling violently upon the grass, his voice a soft whine of happiness against the rolling surf.

Tandavi looks back as the stallion turns, but her attention is quickly torn away from the living and cast upon the inanimate. Or, really, highly animate- the strange and melodious companion of the boy that moves with a mind of its own, suspended in mid air with all the grace of a strange, awkwardly build humming bird. The crimson girl knows not what to make of it, this singing springing work of witchcraft; she tilts her head, braided forelock falling across her eyes, golden ear turned forward in pursuit of answers. What creature is this, which seems built from plants yet moves of its own accord? From his place in the grass Natraj catches her conundrum, rising onto tiny paws and turning his gaze to the instrument. The kitsune pants as he pads to the stallion's size, pawing upward in a petulant attempt to touch the harp - which is bigger than even he.

The rich yet sheepish voice of the stallion rolls into the air once more, and Tandavi's solemn gaze returns to the horns on his head, the tone of his eyes. She blinks once, frowning in an attempt to understand. She had left home, too- gone to the Throat for protection and found herself ensnared. But she had returned to find it waiting. She always would. How could home change, when home was the people and not the place, the souls of those who loved her and had surrounded her at birth and not the trees, the stones, the crash of wave and wind? Did he have nobody to call his home? Poor boy, to be so lost! The filly feels a great and unusual sense of sympathy settle on her shoulders, something heavy for one so slight.

She smiles at him then, a small offering of a small comfort, a bright thing that hides the ideas rolling inelegantly through her mind. It does not occur to offer her home- how could one offer a family to a boy, when the family is hers? But other thoughts rise and fall, considerations ebbing and flowing like the tides. She is not sure what to say, but knows that if she gives it time something will form, some idea will construct itself into a palpable reality. She does not realize, but she has gained a crusade, picked up a need to save the lost boy, unaware that it is a task unasked and invasive. The swirl of magic and the sorrow in his eyes easily close the distance between passion and withdrawal.

She wants to be his friend.

His final question break into her thoughts in a swirl of irrationality and confusing stupidity. Maybe friendship wasn't so good an idea, if the boy was this dumb. On her own? "We're not," she states in that too-deep voice, her face now puzzled and her brow a line of bemusement. "We're together." From somewhere near the tall boy's hooves, Natraj lets out a growl of agreement, his bright eyes gazing at the stallion's face. In truth, Tandavi has no concept of 'on her own' - how could she, when she had been bound to her brother a week after birth? Of course, the likelihood of the boy understanding this was slim, but the copper mare did not know that. In a way she was as ignorant as he- for what must it be, to never know loneliness, never feel absent from ones soul?

Natraj's head tilts in response to the boy's wary step, his failure to understand the stallion's discomfort evident in the lilt of long ears. The girl's shadow is more acute to emotion than the girl herself, though; Tandavi blindly continues to stare, lost in a realm of her own devise. The harp is playing in the absence of his voice, a steady dark hum she wants to decipher. Still confused as to this flying object's nature, the firedancer wonders if it is speaking to him in a language she cannot understand, just as Natraj speaks to her but nobody else listens. Sometimes she regrets this simple fact. Though none would know it, the kitsune is a more eloquent soul than she; while the girl hates her voice and finds words troubling, the boy is bright and quick to observe. Even now she wishes her brother would help her with the mystery of the singing thing, would ask the questions buzzing in her mind, would quantify them into useful creations of language, but he is distracted still by the stallion's anxious eyes, and Tandavi is left to muse on her own.

A purr emerges once more from the fennec, followed by a sharp and friendly yip. The fox's smile is unfortunately toothy, but still it stretches across his face; all three tails wave lazy arcs in the air behind him. Natraj wants to set the boy at ease, and while to him that intention is clearly stated in submissive posture and friendly eye, the stallion's wariness is not one that will easily abate. Still, the creature feels a twinge of success as the dark strong voice rings out once more, and behind him his sister answers in distracted tones. "Tandavi. Natraj." The second name is followed by a whine from the fox, an attempt to help differentiate just whose name is whose. Gold eyes gleam in the off-blue light- Friends, Natraj explains, but only the girl can hear it.

"Yes!" The girl's dark voice is bright in the air, a sudden wave of excitement catching her heart and throwing it forward. She has grown tired of watching the harp; it makes a pretty sound, but as far as she can tell does little more. A buzz of magic surrounds it, just as it surrounds the ram-horned colt, but it is impossible for her to grasp the threads and hold them in her soul. Instead she has focused on the bright, fresh earth around his hooves, black eyes voids as she puzzled through the sensations and scents. Tendrils of power woven deep; she played with them for a minute or less, before reproducing them all at once in an explosion of delighted understanding and strength. Now she beams pointedly at the ground between their feet, watching it shift as life comes to the fore, and a bed of grass springs up around the time-lapse bloom of a lone yellow rose.

She looks at him and suddenly, in an unexpected flush of emotion, wanes self-conscious. So focused had she been that she had forgotten the stallion entirely, lost in the magic that tore bright lazy circles through her eyes. Tandavi is proud of her newest strength, but for this son of the earth is it more than a trick? She suddenly wants very much to impress her new friend, to make him smile as he has not so far. "Do you like it?" she asks, and the dark voice is soft, vulnerable, momentarily free from her usual detachment. For a moment she is just a filly without her dam, wanting a word of approval. Black eyes search him for any sign of that regard, the feelings of bashfulness uncomfortable in her chest. She wants to be his hero but doesn't know that comes with the unfortunate consequence of caring. She wants to make him smile and doesn't know that to get something from another, you must give something of yourself.

But she is learning. "You can have it, if you want," and in her mind she doesn't only mean the rose.

@[Hototo] - sorry for the wait <3