So much time has passed.

And yet, none at all; although different shapes have been taken, different worlds invented and different names crafted from the dark of imagination, all is the same. A comfort and a grief intermingled in a complex juxtaposition. I will not say that I’ve thought about you much – on occasion yes, I’ve compared these newfangled seedlings and their dreams to ours. We were so much grander, were we not? We built these worlds upon which they now tread. Our forgotten dreams are become their legends, our devastating failures their epic wars. I wonder if any of them would remember if I told them the tales that we’ve crafted; I wonder if they would recognize the heavy stakes of history that we’ve dug so deeply into the ground? Probably not.

But I’ve missed you, terribly so. I’ve missed the history we share; I’ve retraced the steps of our past. Hawkmeadow. Syric Hollow. Gatnamot. Phoenix Ridge.

It seems that we never die; we never stray too far from the hulking shadow of our childhood. We must be grown up now, with lives and meaningful tasks ahead of us. I know that I am – so much so that I’ve tried to forget. And yet somehow, I cannot. Whatever happened to us, and what is it that keeps us – me – returning to a past that can never be quite the same?

I daresay we invented dreaming. I daresay we created this magic – for better or worse. And now? I find myself caught in the swollen ribcage of a ghost, this gossamer world from wherein I peer out at these fledgling dreamers. I find myself ruined, embittered by the realization that things will never be the same. That I am alone and lost; that you’ve all moved on –

Perhaps that isn’t entirely true.

I’ve missed you.

Will you stay for a while, play with me? In remembrance of what we were.

Yours faithfully,

The Tide of Revolution.

Like a wound he bleeds into sight, a crack opening only to let a dark whisper pour from its mouth. He does not know what to say, who to address or where to look but he knows – instinctively and fiercely so – that he cannot leave yet. He knows neither of them (that hesitant question is polite enough to answer itself) and yet there is something in him that does. Undoubtedly and incontestably a sense of familiarity, a vague recognition of something intangible, shivers underneath taut muscle, sinew and tripe.

But he does not know why and, what is more, he does not know what to make of it all.

Softly, the voices flutter against and into his ears; he looks at the twins first with question in his eyes and then to the gossamer starglow of Irrydae’s wings. Much like one of the twins – they are like an oilspill cloven in two and he finds it hard to distinguish one from the other – his eyes linger a little too long at the pegasus before slipping to the unicorn. The mares smell of here, this place of wretched magic and implausibility; it is not they who tug impatiently at the very core of him, it is not they who demand a strange and boyish longing from him. He shrugs and a small thought is brave enough to settle between his ears – they smell of home, wherever that is.

How complicated, since Skywalker has never known home.

And yet he knows: they are from the same place. The same blood?

No. That's not it. Something else.

Kutulu them a condensation of this world that seems mostly true, albeit a little filigreed by the taint of her experiences – but who is he to judge? Irrydae presents them with the prospect of answers to whatever questions might dangle unanswered and ripe in the vast unknown that stretches beyond these sylvan shadows and whimsy, mossy dapples of half-light and mystery. Skywalker will not object and remains silent for a long while, struggling to fathom the gravity of this introduction – how, why?

Do you, Skywalker? Do you know these two?

“No,” he answers simply and rolls his shoulders into a hopeless and honest shrug, because he does not.

He just knows that they belong together, somehow. These three black figures folded neatly into the gaunt and grave shadows of epic history. “But it feels like I do,” it does not suit him, this unabashed and childish sincerity.

“A world like any other,” he adds at the end of Kutulu’s words. A pause and a flickering ear here. No smiles here, either, “and all the usual nonsense that comes with it.”

“I am Skywalker.”

"The smell," a voice calls out from the woods, a body soon following behind. The shrubbery stirs around dark legs as they pull her from behind a trunk, the left fore streaked with a red reminiscent of blood in color and pattern. Marked from birth, perhaps it was a destiny and not her just her father that had landed her in a position like this one.

A position where her gut churns with bile just looking at the unicorn and pegasus that linger so near the unmarred perfection that is the equine.

Colt puts a smile on her lips and proffers it to the brothers, even passing a glance to the shadow stallion. The other species are for the most part politely ignored. It makes it easier for her to pretend they aren't there than to knowingly be forcing actions and words out of her body for their sake. For that very reason though she can't deny they are here. If only pretending was enough, like closing your eyes and counting to ten so the monster in the dark will vanish.
They should be the one closing their eyes...

"There's copious amounts of shit out in the wild lands that I call home, but otherwise it's nice enough, so long as you watch where you walk." Colt only speaks a portion of the truth. She has not been beyond the Threshold yet, but if Helovia is anything like the places beyond it, the wilds are all the same and full of all the same crap. Hard, tough, ugly - it's a life, but it's not one she wants.

That's why there's the Empire. Brick by brick they'll lay it down, building it one equine at a time, maybe two in this case.

"I'm Colt, of no place in particular." she informs with a curt bob of her head. Formalities are not her forte, but she understands their needs and is certainly better at playing nice than Ricochet is. Knowing that she is better than him at anything is enough to fill her with a glee that escapes in the glimmer of her eyes and the upturned creases of her maw. "There are more, opportunities, to be had beyond the herds here. If one is willing to instigate a change..." Colt flicks her tail nonchalantly and lets her eyes, hard and colored like balls of steel, drift to the side. She is purposefully staying vague, but hopefully there is enough to incite their interests. To check, and to drive home the point that the invitation is extended purely to those akin to her, Colt's gaze flashes back to the three stallions, appraising them each in turn with a certain hunger in the depth of her eye contact.

I want you. All of you.