She lay sleeping in a corner of the room, her back to one of the stone walls and her muzzle resting on the mossy floor. It was a fitful and restless sleep that was plagued with dreams turned nightmares of her family. Her children were out in the world somewhere and she didn't know where they were. They were grown enough to take care of themselves, it had been nearly two years since Validino and she had conceived Aylin and Cyrus, she thought. Aswane and Malina were younger, but they were hardy like their fathers and had gone out on their own to forge their own paths. That knowledge didn't help the orange mare sleep any easier or feel any better about what she felt was her failure at being a mother. She blamed herself for Validino disappearing and often in her dreams she would see his face and hear his voice telling her how disappointed he was in her. If she had been a better mother to their children he wouldn't have left her.

At first knowing that he was gone had hurt immensely if only because she had thought she'd finally found someone that would be with her forever. Forever was not nearly as long as she had hoped it would be. In the end it was just another letdown in her life that she should have expected. Perhaps if she had expected it it would have hurt her a lot less. Often times she felt like she deserved it for abandoning what she had learned and experienced in her life and actually trusting someone aside from herself and Tallis.

The mare flinched as she dreamed and the dragon that was curled up by her side raised his head and looked at his bonded, concern shining in his dark eyes. She flinched again and whimpered quietly and he uncurled himself, his neck extending so his maw touched her cheek and he nudged her gently. Evangeline flinched away from his touch and Tallis nudged her again. "Wake up." He said mentally as he put his clawed hands against her shoulders and pushed against her. "Wake up!"

Emerald eyes snapped open at the barked command of her companion and she turned her head toward the dragon. "What?" She mumbled as she blinked her bleary eyes to clear them. "Bad dreams." Tallis answered and it took her a moment to realize that he had been able to see her nightmares. The orange mare frowned and reached for the dragon and pulled him against her and nuzzled him close. "I'm sorry." She whispered to him.

@[Midas]

We all fought demons, dealt with skeletons underground. Some unlucky souls were handed a rougher deck then others; I’d been dealt a rather interesting life. This one had been filled with a mixture of joy, tainted by sorrow and abandonment. I knew the song of a lonely heart, each wave link and hum. Fina knew as well. Today she choice to be a sentinel, standing near the bend of spine and toward the rear, her wary eyes keeping watch while I stared at the distant passage of trees. Watching small leaves shiver in the slight breeze that seemed ever flowing through these tunnels. In a far corner a shape took refuge beside a stone wall, the shadows of that crevice covered her frame mostly.

Fina saw something of interest and alighted from my spine, spreading plumes to fly toward the resting girl. Crown rose, turning toward where she took off. “Fina?” I called softly, shuffling from my own little nook in this strange place to follow. She stretched talons across a nearby branch, peering down at the mare who had apparently been awakened. “Apologizes,” I breathed out, halting at a short distance should she find some reason to snap. The phoenix chipped down at the orange lizard she could just barely see nestled between the tendrils of soft blond locks. Gaze slowly lowered to see what had drawn her attention, “Ah, a dragon…,” I mused and glanced toward the flaming bird with one lip twisting up, “She favors them, apologizes again for disturbing your rest. Yon child is yet young.”

Evangeline and Tallis would have had to be blind to not notice the fiery bird that flew toward them from the other side of the room. There was no fear on the mare's face or in her eyes because she had seen a bird like it before, though it had been considerably larger when it had approached her in Isilme's woodlands. She remembered very well the day she had been told by the Phoenix god that she had not been chosen to be the healer of the Mystic Woodlands. But what was it doing here? "Hello." She murmured as she lifted her head for Tallis to be free of her grasp to investigate on his own. As she looked up at the phoenix Tallis pulled himself away and looked up at her and she could feel his dislike of being on the ground while the fiery bird was up there and looking down at him. His wings spread and beat against the air and soon he was airborne and circling around the tree.

A stallion had arrived shortly before Tallis had took to the air and Evangeline turned her gaze to him. "Hello." She said again before gathering her strength and lifting herself from the ground. The chestnut mare looked to the tree and found that the dragon had settled himself on a branch above the phoenix and was looking down at her curiously. Every now and again he would shuffle himself over and stretch his neck farther out to get a closer look at her.

"I was already awake." She said when the painted stallion apologized for disturbing her. Even if he had woken her it would have been a blessing to have been awoken from the nightmares that Tallis had told her she was having. Evangeline had been having them for so long she was beginning to get used to them. There was hardly ever a night that she slept without them.

"I'm Evangeline." The flaxen mare said, then. "And his name is Tallis."

@[Midas]

When the dragon took wing Fina gasped and shifted aside, puffing up her chest with gleeful pleasure—her tail fanned wide in a flashy show. Sharp beak turned toward him with eyes aloft in an almost childlike delight. Quiet chirps and coo’s erupted from her chest; she adored his flaming burnt orange scales and for once in her short life didn’t have the sudden desire to swallow this creature whole. His curiosity was matched by her own, flaming wings spread apart then shuffled closed. Beak stretched to scent the air around them, catching his musky reptile mist and very nearly purring. Her response to the dragon was rather surprising to me, though I knew she’d always held a strange sort of fascination for them…

The soft looking mare with emerald eyes pulled my attention from the two of them when she replied to my apology gracefully. Though it was hard to not keep a glancing back at their rather humorous exchange, I held her gaze and said, “Midas, and she is called, Fina.” Words without title or addition of landname. We were all homeless by this point—so my roots really held no meaning, at least not for us right now. “He is intriguing, your Tallis.” I sniffed and turned toward the pair of them with a gracious beam, “Tell me Evangeline if ye would; do the stories we all heard as youngling still sucking upon our Ma’s milk, speak truth? Can dragons only form soul bonds with those of equine blood?” They are fascinating creatures for sure, I’d never got to spend much time around them. Even back when I was with Ophelia’s dragon on a rare occasion.

"A pleasure to meet you both." Evangeline replied, her flaxen tail slapping against her legs as she studied the rather petite stallion. Despite his size there was a quiet strength about him, one she felt that she could respect because he wasn't like many of the stallions she had met in her days, gallivanting around and showing off for the heck of it. A trill from Tallis drew her attention upwards and she watched the dragon, who had managed to turn himself so he was hanging from the branch above the phoenix. His claws dug into the wood as he kept himself from falling and his neck stretched out farther as he tried to touch his nose to the fiery bird. Whether or not he would be burned Eva was unsure of, but if he did she felt that he would learn his lesson about touching a bird that was living fire.

"I could say the same of your Fina." The mare said in regards to Tallis being intriguing. "I've only seen one other phoenix before in my life, but it was much larger. A god of my homeland that very rarely descended to speak to mortals." So how did the stallion come to call one his companion? It seemed that there were many things about Helovia that she had yet to learn about.

His question made Evangeline look at the stallion, head tilted slightly. "In Isilme it was only dragons that could form bonds and it was only with equines or those who called themselves 'hybrids'." She answered. "No other animal bonded to anything else." The mare looked up at their companions again, a quiet sigh escaping her lips. "It is very different here. How did you come to be bonded with a phoenix?"

@[Midas]

The phoenix chirped and leaned back while Evangeline and I talked; knowing full well that she couldn’t draw any closer to the amber dragon without causing pain. A quiet hiss passed between clicking jaws, the fire along her wings settled into a stance that I’d almost call pouting. Beak lowered but those vibrant aquamarine pools remained every alert on the slithery lizard she was quickly coming to favor. The soft spoken mare returned my interest with a lesson in some far off country and a question of her own.

I settled into the conversation, intrigued by the idea that only dragons could form a soul bond in this place of her previous life—and only with those of equine blood. That much was at least the same for here, “It is rumored for Helovia that only those of equine blood or their kin can call upon the soul of an ancient dragon.”

I paused a moment, thinking, remembering how we’d gathered and how it had been my aid in rescuing that tiny egg from a precarious ledge that was recognized. “I was chosen,”simple enough, but my tone was distant, thoughtful, “I among others found her still a babe not yet hatched.” Bottomless pools drifted toward the two precious children that held an important piece of our souls, “Earth sang toward the destiny of our union…it was the first and last time I’d be treated to witness such a song.”

Like the trembling of a mountain, or the rippling of a Tallsun spring swelled from the Frostfall snow dripping down. The rustling of tropical trees over a pristine lake during the hottest parts of the day, and my old Magnolia tree nestled in a wash of sand and grit. Its limbs heavy with sweet smelling flora of the purest white. Would I ever hear and see those beautiful sights again? “I just…knew.” Such a thing was hard to explain and I didn’t bother trying further.