The beast wades through hock-deep snow, each powerful limb tingling with the icy sensation pressing against it. His lips are twisted into a determined grimace as he fights against the heavy frozen liquid sucking his massive hooves back into its midst, straining every thick muscle and pulsing sinew as he dominates the snow beneath him. He will not let it win. Deep snow is an ideal training resource and the giant colt uses it wisely, testing the limits of his strength by wading through the deepest he can find. Every iota of his power is forced into trotting through it, ears slicked back and frozen sweat beading liberally across his black body.

Finally, the snow ends. He breaks from it and feels like he's walking on air, his legs suddenly light and easily moveable. He finds himself on the beach, where the sand keeps away the snowfall and the sea air prevents any frost settling; the winter wind churns the waves and crashes them down, hard, against the shore. The thunder rings in the colt's ears as he strides forth, white turning to brown as snow turns to sand.

High above, his dragon bellows his delight. Volterra's massive head tilts upwards at the scarlet speck in the heavens, their mental bond sizzling with the force of the blood-dragon's pleasure. The sea is a vast playground for him, and he folds his wings and dives from hundreds of feet above the surface, crashing down into the waves with an almighty splash. Pushing tendrils of thought deeper into his bonded's mind, Volterra feels the icy caress of the freezing water against his scales, sees startled fish darting away from his powerful clawed paws as his tail propels him through the tide. The marvels of their bond never cease, and a throaty rumble shakes the colt's jaws as he chortles to himself and drags his consciousness back into his own head.

Finally Vérzés breaks through the last wave and emerges on the beach, his ruby scales gleaming with moisture and his proud, vicious horned head tilted towards the weak morning sunlight. He shakes himself like a cat then bounds towards the black monolith, nostrils glowing blue as he coughs out a blast of icy air. In recent weeks Volterra has noticed his dragon show signs of breathing something - he assumes it will be fire, but for some reason only a cold blast seems to leave the red's jaws rather than the burning torrent he expects. He is mildly concerned, but is fairly certain the fire will come soon enough.

With a grunt, the giant goes towards his dragon and they touch noses, Volterra's front hooves touching the frigid waves as his heaving sides slow and he allows himself to relax, the icy sea breeze tickling his taut skin.

She was hollow.

It grew inside her, a dark emptiness, a void which couldn't be filled—like something was missing, she would think, before realizing she already knew what was gone. She wondered if she would ever feel full; if she could ever fix what was irreparably gone, if she could ever understand her mother's choice in leaving her in the storm and ash, the desolation of Gaucho's destruction. Somehow, she doubted it. And so instead, she seethed; she stormed, and raged, against the clouded uncertainty of past and future, and dreamed of a better world, one with her mother and brother, Argen and her fabled father—a wolf pack, reunited.

For now, it was all nightmares and black daydreams. And she—privately—thought that would be never cured.

Lilómiel tilted his wings, banking left above the ocean currents. More and more often they had taken to residing on the coastlines. It was never as cold on the shores, and the snow rarely found a sizable foothold on the temperate weather—or the snow-absorbing sand. Surprisingly enough, this restriction on her roaming range hadn't bothered her as much as she would've expected it to; the water had become more a home than even the Ancient Rotunda now, with her magic abilities improving and growing every day. The water—the churn of water against the shoreline, the crescent waves pounding against sand and rock—had become a mother's hymn in Confutatis' absence. It felt natural to be here, like she belonged among the steely water and gray sand.

Her shore, she had begun to think of it. Her world.

The yearling shivers, goosebumps springing up beneath her winter skin. The wind off the ocean was biting, snapping and whipping around her ankles vociferously; Lilómiel, black scales soaking up the slightest bit of heat and periodically setting himself on fire, seemed cozy enough. Occasionally he would swoop downwards, flame licking off his ebony sails, and his warmth would crackle and curl her hairs, frizz her mane and tail. Were she not connected to his mind in an intricate mess of imaginary wires, she would've thought him to be attempting to set her on fire. A courteous thought, perhaps, coming from something that couldn't be burnt, but unnerving nevertheless.

They turn south, moving along the shoreline at a stately pace. Although she had never been ingrained with the same sense of rigorous training Volterra had, she still needed to move, still needed for her muscles to work and slide in adjacent pairings against bone.

And this was how she saw him—Volterra.

"Brother!" Nymeria cries, leaping into a high-kneed canter, each step an conceived effort. The sand breaks and crumbles beneath her, sucking at her legs, but she fights on anyways, ignoring the precarious footing beneath her. It has been so long; how could she deny her brother her full and giddy presence? And was that—that red she saw gleaming like blood a dragon?

Her heart pounds, blood rushing through her arteries faster and faster. Nostrils flex wide, her smile curved and barbaric and full of youthful antics, and she runs to him like she might die otherwise.

Maybe I would.

Steps slow and steady beneath her as she draws herself back to a collected trot, then walk, head lowering and ears flicking forwards hopefully. Above, Lilómiel sways and surges in the testy breeze, following her in only the most general direction; and then he flickers out to sea like an arrow shot from a bow, black ash and sinew swirling into new patterns, hard and feisty patterns deigning aggression. The taste of his bitterness is on her palate, but she ignores his queer antics.

"How are you?!" Nymeria inquires, grin wolfish. "Where have you been?!"

Black brother.

That is the image his red sends him; the familiar figure of Lilómiel, the only dragon he has ever got along with save for Argen's bronze, the only dragon he likes. Colour hierarchy might make him honour-bound to assert his dominance over the black, but he loves the older reptile dearly, as Volterra loves his sister. But whilst Volterra's adoration of his twin borders on obsession, Vérzés is quite capable of living for long periods of time without his brother. His greeting towards the black is muted, a simple huff of frosty air in the vague direction of the soaring plain, compared to his bonded's utter and obvious elation at the sight of his sister.

The beast's ears prick forwards, dancing into a stallion's proud trot as he kicks up the sand and lopes towards her, head swung high to blast frigid mist from his nostrils. Sand flows like the tide away from his massive hooves as he grinds to a perfect square halt in front of her, face moving towards hers, velvet muzzle seeking to touch her own and nostrils flaring to blow a gentle wisp of breath-heated air into her own. Damn, she's beautiful. Like him, age has dragged her from fuzzy foal into sculpted yearling, and his crmson gaze roves freely across every vuluptuous curve of her body, every aching muscle beneath her grullo pelt. Sweet sister.

There's that little part of him, the part that boosts him from boy to man, that first blossom of testosterone that has driven his muscles into thickening and into weight descending between his thighs; a part of him that lusts for her far above and beyond what a brother should feel for his sister. But, after all, has their relationship ever been conventional? It's always bordered on the creepy, from Volterra's side at least. Seeing her now in all her glory, growing and beautiful and his, brings out every dirty little emotion he tries so hard to smother. He is a cocktail of new hormones, and with a small grunt he withdraws from her before his thoughts descend further into places they should never go.

She's your sister.

Her question drags him from his reverie. "I am well," he says, in that thick baritone that has replaced the child's high-pitched squeak. "I've been wandering. Training. Where have you been, sister?" I've been preparing myself to take Mother back, he wants to say, but doesn't.

They meet in a flurry of sand and heaving sinew, together as if they have never been apart. He's not breathing near as hard as her, to her chastisement; he's all hot muscle and collected bone, ripening out to a broad form. She has little of her father in her head, but from Mongrel's occasional images and Confutatis' rare descriptions, Volterra has indeed taken after their sire's bloodline. Beside him, she feels tediously small—weak and fragile—her robust curves so womanly in comparison to Volt's broad chest and thick cannons.

The wolf smiles anyways, eyes flickering up to meet his vermilion gaze. His scent fills her up, swells her breast, a heavier, richer reek of a boy made into stallion, child into adult. Have I changed so much? Nymeria hardly felt it if she had; she mostly felt smaller, less, especially beside her brother. Where Volterra took the spotlight, she faded into the shadows, marked only by her gristly skull.

It doesn't matter.

They were together. She brushes her muzzle against his, dizzy and drunk on his smoky breath, and she hides a shiver coiling down her spine, a quiver in her bones—only for him to pull away anyways. For a stretched-out second, she longs to go after him (why did he retreat?) before reining in her petty desires. It's not anything personal, she tells herself; Volterra is just...

The wolf swallows, and lets her smile soften into seriousness, stepping back to better (albeit subtly) study the curve of his haunches and the swell of his ribcage.

"I have been doing much the same," Nymeria says quietly, letting her gaze flicker out towards Lilómiel. I've been growing up, brother. Letting her bones thicken, finding her stride, dealing with all the ugliness of adolescence on her own, maintaining a pretty face, finding the best way to lie, discovering manipulation—and learning to dominate her own companion, quash his needs beneath her iron fist. And learning to love that. The feeling of control over something else, over something alive, was a more satisfactory sensation than she had ever experienced before. "... and waiting for mother." She avoided saying the obvious. They both knew if Confutatis was coming back, she would be here by now.

It wouldn't change things, not saying it outloud. Their mother, World Eater, was still trapped wherever she was; or, perhaps, even dead. Bile rises in her throat—she swallows it back. Weakness has no place in her heart.

They would have to take Confutatis' place. That had been beaten into them [literally]. This was their mission. She had warned them this might happen; she had prepared them for the inevitable.

But... we never should have left her.

Their touch burns, and the colt hungers to slam his chest against her own and press his strength against her in the night. His warmth against the cold, his protection against any and every threat she may ever face, his weight on her as he takes what should be his and nobody else's, ever - no, not that, never that.

Another snort leaves him and he flicks his gaze to his dragon instead of his sibling. With a resigned sigh, the red takes to the wing and lands heavily on Volterra's broad shoulders, taking a lock of mane in his jaws and tugging it whenever the monolith's thoughts wander down this errant path, just as he'd done when Isopia was the object of his teenage desires. He doesn't understand these unfamiliar needs that are so closely associated with men, not boys. They, more than anything else, even his hardened muscles and growing frame, convince him that he is a child no longer. At least his feelings towards the Earth God's daughter were understandable, natural even. To feel something similar geared towards the girl he'd shared a womb with...he should burn where he stands for his sins, for inciting the Gods' ire.

He doesn't notice her studying him, because he's too busy doing the same to her. She has more of their mother in her - he takes after their father with his bulk and his white-dipped forelegs, his skull-like blaze and limbs that are marginally less feathered than his sire's the only proof of his dam's influence. Nymeria, meanwhile, is the perfect blend of both parents; the strength of their father, the curves and womanly attraction of their mother. Volterra is sure any stallion who claps eyes on her will want her, and the thought fills him with such bubbling rage that his scarlet eyes flash. She is mine.

He follows her gaze towards her black. "How is he doing?" he questions, gesturing with his nose to the plain. He's always been fond of his sister's bonded, despite the fact he still bears the scars on his nose from the dragon's teeth - he has no idea his sister has had to crush unwanted things out of her companion. His own relationship with Vérzés varies from day to day. He, too, sometimes has to dominate the unruly red, to bend the dragon's contained strength to his will and ensure he uses it in the correct ways. He pushes his bonded to ensure he trains as hard as Volterra does, as hard as their mother would want them to.

And waiting for mother. He shifts awkwardly, hooves pressing into chilled sand as he paws the ground. As the brother, as the man of the family, he should have taken responsibility for getting Confutatis back. Instead he left her to rot in order to focus on his training and strengthen himself enough so he can get her back - but by now, it may be too late. "There is another option," he rumbles, fixing his bloody gaze on her. "We could go to her. Go to the herd she's been taken to and offer to join with her. Protect her." Not that their esteemed mother needs protecting, but as her children they should.

Else she burns them both to ash the second she escapes her chains.

The rustle of wings and spines in Nymeria's binocular blind spot makes her flinch, and she jostles her head to the side so that her scarlet eyes might better see the perpetrator of those shaded movements. Ah. Her brother's dragon, all garnet and ruby, ridged with bone and savagery; a most fitting monster. Jealousy surges through her arteries, envy and greed haunting her thoughts—Lilómiel, while older, did not compare to this glistening beast. Even their scales spoke of voluminous differences in hierarchy. Whereas Lil was dull shadow (which, admittedly, had its own advantages) the red gleamed predatorily, like a poison dart frog—all venom.

Indignation snaps through her bonded's tethers, his apathy stirred into scorn. The black wheels back towards his family, feathered crest ascending in a territorial display. Wings flare and cusp at the wind as he lowers, sailing in for a well-mustered and temperamentally graceful landing. Lilómiel's scaled lips curl back from his ivory fangs; he balances forwards on Nymeria's withers, tail whipping sinuously back and forth. Red eyes seek to meet his superior's.

Down, Lil.

"He is stubborn," the sister says, a hind hoof unconsciously raising in warning of a kick. She fumbles for her keywords, gropes for her training mechanism—and finds it. Upon Lilómiel she thrusts the memories of his pain (all caused by her), his dignity's shreds and his former agony; her benevolence, and mercy.

The dragon's lips slide back over his fangs, feathers smoothing and flexing against the curve of his neck. As he does so, Nymeria visibly eases, lowering her hind hoof and softening the arc of her head, allowing Lilómiel to nestle more comfortably upon her withers. With his irascible temper's pulsations subdued by the cool clench of her hand, it is easier to focus upon her brother, and the changes to his body as he aged. Her gaze roams back towards Volterra's red drake, perched upon a stallion's neck, jaws clasped around a clump of ebony hair. Features fade and shift into neutral expression, the joy draining from her face as abruptly as blood from a broken artery. Ears flex forwards, clasping attentively onto the dark tenors of Volterra's voice; Lilómiel croons, hums, kneads his claws against her spine.

Why is he doing that? She should be focused, but she can't help but notice the red's periodic tug on Volterra's mane. Perhaps he finds it harder to dominate his companion than when he tried to school me on companion training.

Lips twitch and slide into a brief smirk. How hypocritical of my brother.

"Your dragon..." and here she lets her words trickle into cautious pause in effort to soften the blow of her ignorance. "What is his name?"

Lilómiel chirped, his laughter an echoing travesty drumming against her cranium. Her heart squeezes, arteries constricting; her smooth features twitch, ripple, broken momentarily by bitterness. Be polite. Nymeria would not take his disobedience, especially not around her brother.

A shadow crosses her face, a prevailing blackness like the gathering of storm clouds on a distant horizon. How could he? Ruby eyes—mirror to Volterra's—harden against his suggestion, and clipped features, pinned and tied into submission by her control, break and wither against the burn of her anger. And it is then, in her wrath, that she looks truly fearsome; and in her eyes glows the very spirit of Confutatis herself, monstrous. "Remember what mother told us? Madarat tolláról, embert barátjáról. And you want us to join the horses who took from us our mother?"

Back she steps, repulsed by the very thought. "Annyit ér, mint halottnak a csók."

The black's crest erects, and sensing the challenge the red draws himself up to his own impressive height. He has none of the svelteness of many dragons; like his bonded, he is all bulk. He has no feathers, no elegant frills nor delightful adornments. He is simple, functional, all pointed horns and glistening blood-scales, and his forked tail swishes side to side across Volterra's broad withers to balance him as he holds onto the lock of mane.

Stubborn, says Nymeria. The monolith's lips twitch into a smirk. "I think being stubborn is part of being a dragon." Try as he might to crush Vérzés' spirit, it never succeeds. Any dominance is met with an equal force; the dragon bows to no one. The giant's crimson gaze darts between the black's peeled lips, his sister's cocked hoof, and he wonders if all is not well between girl and dragon. His eyes narrow, fixing upon the plain. He is blessed enough to be inside Nymeria, nestled within her mind. Oh, what Volterra would give to have that privilege! To caress her senses with his touch, to invade and feel anything he wants to feel...

Vérzés gives his mane a solemn tug, jerking his thoughts away from the dark, salacious place they'd been threatening to go. As Nymeria asks his name, the ruby titan arches his neck and releases a small blast of frost from between his clenched jaws. Why does he keep doing that? "His name is Vérzés," he rumbles, lips still inclined in a smirk - he knows Nymeria will grasp the Hungarian meaning of the name. Dipping his head, the colt gestures to the black. "Can Lilómiel breathe fire yet?" he questions, heart thudding with concern at why his own red has not yet blessed the air with his heat.

Suddenly, the soft lines of his sister harden. Tense. Volterra stiffens too, sensing he's done something wrong, his ears flapping backwards as an icy snort leaves him. Mounting a corpse, she said. And what's wrong with that? "But we would be with her. Together we could get her out, and protect her while we're there. Has it crossed your mind what they may be doing to her there, sister? Verte, kínozta őt, kibaszott." Black lips peel from yellowed teeth at the very thought. The World Eater could corrode any who mounted her without her consent, he's sure of that, but what if the whole herd tried it? If they ripped her flesh with their teeth, bruised her with their hooves, crushed her and flogged her and ruined her...

He'd burn the lot of them.

The other, red as blood and spines dull as bone, straightens and lengthens, quarrelsome sinew unraveling and reknitting into a pose of simultaneous power and fortitude. Lilómiel's skittering mind snaps into focus upon Vérzés' erect posture, the tangled thickets of his irritable thoughts traveling towards places of battle and establishing dominance. His companion's lips pucker, ears flicking backwards uncertainly; no, she reprimands, letting the refusal swing and cut through the squamation's wily planning—but even in her scolding, she wonders if it might be better to simply let them have at it, as predators sometimes must. Without order and rulers, the world may as well be a place of anarchy; a place where each and every man was on his or her own.

Unbidden, Nymeria's gaze strays thoughtfully to Volterra, crimson-hued irises calculating and curious. If it came down to a fight between them, who would win? They were each as balanced to one another as could be; he in the ways of earth and their ancestor, Terrador, and she in water and ocean, no doubt a strange throwback to the peculiar magics of her mother's lineage. Oh! What that would be! It was a divine thought, a lovely one that flushed her right from head to toes to dream of: imagine, their bodies heaving on the sand and the smack and hit and crack of their immortal flesh, the scrape of teeth over black hide and their dragons warring in fire and ash above.

"Perhaps," Nymeria proclaims, dipping her head in acquaintance of Volterra's point. "And yet on the other hand, it is also a trademark of fools and tragic heroes." A hint of an unruly smile twitches up her lips as she studies her brother, head beginning to lilt off to the side.

Are you still as pigheaded as I remember you to be?

Their companions seem to steady, easing off one another (much to Nymeria's approval.) Lilómiel chirps, fluting his mild disappointment, and settles back on her withers, weight curling over the girl's body comfortably. His silver-sheathed talons nestle and knead in the curly locks of her growing mane—don't you dare rip that out, you bastard—and he lets trickle a puff of smoke from his nostrils, his body immediately beginning to warm against her. A handy trick, that; sometimes she thought without his accompanying, fire-borne warmth, her ears might've fallen off by now.

It is her dragon, not her, that notices the cold billowing from Vérzés' nostrils at mention of his name.

Surprise undulates through their bond, and Nym recoils, jerking abruptly upright to stare once again at the red dragon. A good name, she thinks, absent-mindedly; she should compliment her brother on his typically boorish little-boy well-thought decision. Instead, this sense of shock (really, Lilómiel, is it that astonishing?) prevails. Does Volterra know? Once more her attention turns towards her readily maturing brother. "Yes," and here she trickles off, musing—"Lil sees your bonded, Vérzés, doesn't breathe fire. That's rather peculiar, isn't it?"

Together they draw up tall, indignant, and she arches her neck, lifting her brows waspishly, lips pressing and needling together. Once again, rather forcibly, she is reminded of her brother's size, the burgeoning muscle stretching his black skin and the thickness of his bones; she is too small beside him, and even with her growing curves and lengthening mane and proud lines she feels to be a miginard mare, something to be protected rather than feared.

And she abhors Volterra for his good fucking genes.

"They would never dare—" The arachnid's eyes sweep close, and she swallows, nares flexing wide in rage and terror—"to do those things to her." Those repulsive, dreadful things; "... that is... she is a god, Volterra. They wouldn't."

Would they?

Black and red rear and thrash, hundreds of years of colour hierarchy pushing itself to the fore. The fans at the side of the crimson's face erect and ram forwards to increase his size, and his full and formidable weight leans onto his hindpaws as he lifts himself high with a beat of his leathery wings. Stop it, scolds Volterra, his bonded's emotions a potent soup of male dominance. He's your brother. Vérzés' tail sweeps low and hard to balance him, every tense muscle in his blood-clad frame screaming at his black brother to submit!

Submit, thinks Volterra; oh, the thought of his sister submitting to him as her dragon knelt to his own! Bending to his strength, her flesh sweaty from the clash of their bodies, ears pinned and icy breath misting the air as male superiority folds the knee of his beloved twin and lifts his weight onto her, to take as the heat between his thighs demands he take...

The red's savage snarl drags his thoughts away, and the fork at the end of his tail slaps the monolith's heated flanks hard. Volterra's head swings upwards and he reverses a step, breathing hard. He misses his sister's first comment, only coming down to earth at her shattering revelation; Lil sees your bonded, Vérzés, doesn't breathe fire. "What?! Surely not. Surely the Gods have not given him a dud. Feeling disgust pouring in waves from the black leviathan, the red gives a somewhat anguished snort, curling his wings to lift himself high into the air. Volterra feels his concentration, his hunger to prove himself and to show he isn't a draconic reject; that he doesn't need fire to bring his bonded the glory he craves...

Vérzés' jaws open wide and from them comes a torrent of ice, a deadly blast of freezing air that seems to condemn the air itself to a frigid grave. Even a good few feet below his soaring bonded, Volterra can feel the unearthy chill emenating from the scarlet beast, waves of arctic air billowing from the breath between his jaws. The red slams his fangs shut with a clack and returns to his bonded's withers, his thick chest heaving but his mind swimming with arrogance. "He breathes ice," murmurs the colt in an awestruck whisper.

Not a dud, then. Just different.

Dragging his gaze back to his sister, his heated blood cooled as if by his dragon's frost, Volterra fixes his eyes upon her. She is indignant, her skulled face ablaze at the very notion her mother could be violated so, and the colt wants to hang his head in shame for bringing the truth words to her ears. "I know not what they do to her," he confesses, his nostrils wide and breath hacking. "But I know they will want to break her, dominate her. You know her as well as I do, Nymeria; she bends the knee for nobody. But they will want her submission, sister. They will want to crush her spirit from her, to show the world they snapped the World-Eater." His impassioned tirade leaves his muscled chest heaving and one colossal forehoof pawing at the cold sand. This likely isn't what spider-sister wants to hear, but it is the truth. The Throat will want to bend their prisoner, the woman who has been a thorn in Helovia's side for so long; what is the most demeaning way they could do that? Volterra knows. She had been taken by a stallion, after all, with a stallion's lusts and thirst for power.

Dammit, he wants to march right there and tear them all apart.

"You see why I want us to go to her?" he questions, his scarlet gaze never wavering despite how much he hates himself for saying these words. "But then, I don't want to put you anywhere near them, because I fear they would do to you what they could be doing to her." Think of it, the World-Eater and her flowering beauty of a daughter - no! Both Volterra and his dragon release a feral hiss at the very thought.

"I don't know what to do, Nymeria," he says, head hanging. He is not used to powerlessness or indecision, and he loathes them.

The breeze off the sea reeks of salt and decay, the underlying stench of rot reminiscent of her mother's hip. Nymeria blinks away the damp in her eyes, the translucent teardrops ocean's tears stubbornly clinging to her lashes, and lifts her head, taking a step away. Beneath her movement, even carefully executed, wet sand crumbles and molds to the shape of her hooves, the firm crust giving way to her weight.

Her brother's dragon hinges his jaws wide, the inside of his mouth not blistering with heat or flame but instead cold, an icy blast which frosts over her whiskers and the hair on her head, even when directed upwards; Lil purred, the rumble of his breast reverberating through her spinal column. Eagerly, in quick and noted response, he lets forth a blast of smoke from his nostrils, greasy gray rags spiraling upwards to indicate his approval.

Of course their dragons would be backwards. It would be more fitting for Lil to have a tongue of ice and glacial cold, one that might solidify the shapes of her water-dancing; and Volterra, the Earth Mover, to have a dragon whose heat would serve complimentary to his telekinesis. Naturally, it is all wrong: Vérzés with winter on his lips and Lilómiel with summer brushfire on his breath.

I suppose we do not choose our companions.

How fearsome Volterra looks, all chiseled architecture and black marble, his lines stark and painted bold against the wind-tossed sea. His breath, short and sharp, incites a sensation in her she cannot easily define, a hunger, perhaps, or envy, of his testosterone-buoyed strength and the inheritance of father-to-son. Beneath his smouldering gaze she burns, flushing beneath the severity of his bloody eyes, struck by him—all grown up! And his voice!—a deep bass that rumbles in her bones.

I will not ever command our armies when pitted against him.

Is this what she was going to be reduced to? Decor? No—she would not abide by that, not tolerate living off his familial sympathy. Magic grew in her veins, too, flourished in her blood and ached, pounded, forever looking for a way out; she would learn how to wield it as weapon. I will be feared too. And she—she would not be overshadowed by her brother's extra hand of height on her. It would be Nymeria and Volterra, brother and sister, twins birthed of chaos and death, who wreaked havoc, not Volterra and his consort; not Volterra and his sister; it would be them, together, as they were meant to be: united.

Lilómiel shrieks, beating his wings against the wind, his ululating call his lusty pride in his bonded.

Volterra's hoof scrapes against the sand. Forward she steps, urged by the knotted neurons of Lil's mind; a smile hooks up her lips and she reaches, aiming to affectionately nip at her brother's forelock. "You're so fucking protective," she murmurs, pressing forwards in attempt to rub her head against his neck, seeking the comfort of his warmth, the memory of their time spent lying entwined beneath Confutatis' hooves. "Mother is strong." And though she fights (and fights hard!) to inject a lethal dose of confidence into her proud words, her voice crumbles and breaks over that is, as if it might wither away in the wind at any moment.

Because it could. Who was even to say the World Eater prevailed? It had been seasons; so many things had and may had transgressed in the transition of summer to snowfall.

She hardens, surly, to his insidious suggestions, backing up and lips curling into a sneer both bitter and vindictive, ears slamming back against her crest. Upon her withers Lilómiel snaps his jaws, the hard, fast clip ringing through the oceanic air. "Do you think I'm any weaker than you, brother?" The spider demands, wrathful in pursuit of equality. "You don't get to choose what I do or do not do. I am my own self."

His head lowers, perhaps cowed by her words or perhaps beneath the weight of what they may or may not do, but she callouses herself against his puppyish eyes. One of them has to be strong. "You alone, probably not; but together, we can come to... something."

The red's jaws gape again and he belches another torrent of frost, just because he can. No longer does he only have his claws and teeth to rend flesh from bone; now he has ice. His wings flare and he soars high, then folds the leathery canopies and plummets towards the sea. Again he vanishes beneath the waves, and again Volterra is dragged into his head, watching through red-tinted dragon-eyes as the scarlet beast snaps up a fish between his fangs. He emerges from the tide with a splash, flipping the fish up and freezing it into a statue with a single blast of breath. The creature falls to the sand and smashes into pieces, which Vérzés hungrily gobbles.

He picks up a piece and throws it in the direction of Nymeria's black, however. He shares with his brother, after all, even if they often bicker. Like the horses they're bonded to.

You're so fucking protective, she says, and the giant snorts. He is, because she is his. He loves her, but his love is smothering, obsessive - he doesn't know the meaning of an equal relationship, doesn't understand that she wants to protect him as much as he wants to own protect her. She rubs her head against his neck, that gorgeous, skull-marked face touching his thick and tight flesh, rubbing against muscle, sinew and countless nerve endings...it's electric, and heat pools between his thighs again. He reverses swiftly, reluctantly breaking off their contact, and the absence of her warmth is shocking. A displeased snort leaves him, ears flopping miserably. Is this what his evolution to manhood has cursed him with? An inability to even touch his sister for fear of what he'll do?

"I know Mother is strong," he growls, stomping one colossal hoof. She birthed them, after all; created two little warmongers with her blood and her pain. "She is steel and poison, and I know she can crush almost anybody that gets in her way - but not everybody, Nymeria. She is not infallible. You saw, as I did, when she fell to that unicorn." What if that unicorn had pushed further after defeating her? If the Reaper had taken more than just her pride? Those are the things Volterra worries about.

She tenses then, hardens, and so does the obsidian monolith. "I didn't say that," he hisses. He may have the advantage in physical strength, but she is every inch his equal; she can manipulate, she has intelligence and thoughts sharper than a knife. He is all brawn, kick it and think later, whereas she is capable of rational thought. He is earth, all hard and eternal and obvious, whereas she is water, able to slip unseen through the cracks yet wreck as much damage as she desires.

His temper flares at their miscommunication, and his feathered hoof stomps again. Unbidden, the rock beneath the sand rises and presses through its grainy prison in the form of a small spire as his magic slips free from him, and another throaty, masculine growl erupts from his jaws. I am my own self. "You are mine." Straight away he knows he shouldn't have said it - impulsive, stupid. "You are a woman. Like Mother, you are strong, but like Mother you are an object of men's desires. It is nature, sister, and I will endeavour to break any stallion who so much as looks at you, but I can't always be there. The idea of you, in a herd, in a crowd, not safe by my side..." Ears ram back once again.

Together, she says. Together. He sighs. "Then what do you suggest?"

For a fleeting moment, admiration licks across Nymeria's telepathic bond, a surge of sudden envy and delight as Vérzés veers towards the ocean. The arachnid's face remains composed (frigid, almost) but her heart jumps in surprise at the suddenly light-hearted emotion. Among Lilómiel's roiling seas of greed and vanity, sloth and sin, his wonderment is a lighthouse. In turn, Nym's own tended garden flutters and blooms with flowers of adulation, white and pink among emerald grass. The sanctum of Lil's beacon scrubs away at the pervasive rage that has crawled through every corner of her mind, plucks the weeds from the soil of her head.

It is only momentary.

Dripping with water, the red dragon re-emerges from the sea, frost streaming from his throat to solidify the prey in his talons. Whatever brightness or momentary respite the sister and her bonded had found went out, extinguished by Lilómiel's spite. He did not want Vérzés' leftovers—but neither would Nymeria let her bonded pass up the free food, or snub a courteous offering. With a mental shove, she forces her black off from her spine (his claws digging in harder than usual upon takeoff) into flight. Irritation reverberates through their chaotic connection. Bitterly, with a undue amount of savage strength, Lilómiel snatches up a chunk of meat, circling back to Nymeria. Smoke spirals up from his nostrils, dark and sooty against the wind-lashed sea. As his brother did, he tosses the piece of fish into the air, burning it to a crisp before swallowing it whole.

Nymeria's colossal twin snorts, and she skitters, jarred back into attentiveness. Towards him she turns a baleful red eye, but she embraces her brother anyways, too fond of his thick skull to begrudge him the familiar motion. Lids slide shut, and she falls into darkness, safe and secure with the heat of his body pressed up against hers. Here, she is sheltered, from wind and sea spray, and more importantly from the volatile emotions and roused hormones in her body. Safe. Why had she ever left his side willingly, when they belonged together?

Volterra withdraws.

Lips twist unto a scowl as she steps back, ears flicking to her skull, reproach in her gaze. Away her line of sight slides, unwitting and unwilling, fearing to see whatever might be in her twin's eyes; why would he move away? What was so wrong with them that he felt the need to shy from her touch?

I know Mother is strong. The behemoth's voice drops into a rumbling baritone, sawing at her ears. Nym resists the urge to flinch as his hoof drags across the sand, wrenching forth memories of different hooves and different bruises. There's a certain new depth (a darkness?) to Volt's voice she hasn't heard—and not just an audible depth that comes with his growth into an adult body, but a thunderstorm, one which cracks trees and breaks mountainsides, all lightning and rain and wind seething across the land. When had he grown up? When she had closed her eyes last night, she saw them in the snow, Volterra tumbling head-over-heels, laughter ringing in the air; and this night, she feared she would only see this, the man he was becoming. Perhaps, the menacing aura he had begun to project was good, at least in accordance with Mother's teachings; and she knew she had nothing to fear from her brother, that he loved her... but she didn't want to lose hold of the memories of their youth, didn't want to forget a time when Volt was carefree and dumb whereas she was sharp and clever.

In a certain way, his growth, his maturity... it changed the lay of the ground beneath her hooves. When he was younger, she was the brains—Volterra didn't quite defer to her exactly, but she certainly didn't give way to his whims in the same way he did to she. And now?

"That was a fluke," the filly proclaims in turn, eyes narrowing and lips hardening into a taut and straight line. "Don't you dare undermine her like that, Volterra." Her ears flick forward, their hooped curves taut and dark, signaling a certain growing aggression. Between the two of them something stirred, chaotic and tense, a threat, a presence; not wholesomely unfamiliar, and yet different as to what they had experienced before. It blooms in her blood, thrums in her breast—Lilómiel chirps, wings fluttering, his ruby eyes fixating on Volterra's scarred muzzle. Through their bond comes a pulsating question: again?

No.

The tension erupts.

"Fuck you, Volterra!" Nymeria snarls, stepping forwards. She bristles, seeming to swell with each passing moment; her crest flexes, her chest expands, her legs set a square stance. Upon her spine Lilómiel croons, the low and guttural sound hardly audible under the ocean slapping against the sand shore and the wind picking up over the waves. The tide begins to quicken. "How can you even say that? What has ever given you the idea I am incapable of defending myself? No man, nor woman, will have a chance against me when I'm an adult. And even now? Even now, I will never accept your aid. You know me better than that. I'm not your fucking property." She trembles, her jaw stiff and square, her eyes hard and unyielding—unforgiving.

The arachnid snorts, rolling a red eye at him. "It's obvious, isn't it? We ask our companions to reconnoiter for us. Perhaps Mongrel will be able to communicate with them using his magic."

The scales on the red's back bristle and erect, his white spines standing sentinel against the crimson of his body. Will his brother accept his gift? Surely he would not deny a gesture of goodwill! The black accepts, but Volterra can sense a distinct bubbling rage coming from his bonded, who thinks his extended olive branch was not taken in good grace.

But Vérzés knows better than to act on his emotions, and the height of his displeasure is shown only by the billow of frost that leaves his nostrils as he lands heavily on the giant colt's flanks to finish the segments of frozen fish that drape in strips from his fangs.

The colt's ears slither backwards at the sharp rebuke in his sister's voice. An apology forces itself up to his throat, onto the tip of his tongue; in days gone by he would have let it out into the air, a simple I'm sorry to get back into her good books and ensure he did not receive her ire. Not because he was afraid of her, but because he was afraid of losing her. Because she was all sharp words and macabre intelligence, whereas he was all kick it until it submits. All he had was his size, his strength, neither of which he would use on his sister - so he would normally just apologise, and they'd go back to their harmony.

But not this time. He's older now, his mind hardening into his own vision of intelligence. No longer is she brains and he brawn. Now his brain has sharpened, his tongue has matured, whilst her muscles flex and her strength grows - the lines between them are more blurred. They are more the same, yet more different than ever before. And he will not apologise.

But her first words were just the beginning; just the first rumble of thunder that preceeds a raging storm. She explodes, and he almost retreats with the force of her vigour - his ears slam backwards and his massive head rises to blast a steam of hot air from his nostrils, lifting into a small half-rear with the tips of his front hooves just skimming the sand. Vérzés hisses and takes to the wing again, circling high above with his long tail twisting into figure of eights behind him. Nymeria stands tall, proud, her body language screaming dominance, and again the apology fights its way into the black monolith's throat, until he snaps it back with a bellow. Now it's his turn to explode, his famed livid temper bursting out from the iron cage he keeps it in.

In front of him, the ground wobbles as a spire of rock jumps up from beneath the surface. Volterra's control of his magic sometimes slips when he's angry, and now is no exception - he can only watch as the rock sharpens into a wicked point, rising to chest-height before he can force it to crumble back into the soil. The toll on his strength is barely noticeable - not only is he stronger now, but he's so damned mad the adrenaline forces aside any semblance of discomfort.

"Control yourself, sister,," he commands, demands. "Of course you can defend yourself. But you are not invincible. Accidents can happen, like with Mother. It only takes one slip and you will be on your knees in front of a band of stallions as they take from you whatever the fuck they want. How would you like that? The thought makes me want to kill something, so fuck knows what it does to you." His voice is hard, like granite, each syllable a rumble. When he was younger and he got indignant, his tone would rise to a boyish squeak, but no more. Now it's a stony rasp, a thick, deep purr that only testosterone can bring.

"You are mine, and I am yours. I don't give a shit whether you hate me for it, but I will do anything to keep you out of harm's way. You can kick me, bite me, say whatever the hell you want to me, but I will not let you get hurt. That's why I won't even contemplate us both going in to rescue Mother - because it kills me to think what could be happening to her, but it would destroy me to think of it happening to you." The ground bubbles ominously, and with a strangled growl the beast wrestles his magic back down into its cage before he accidentally erects a whole stone forest right here on the beach.

He drags in a deep, calming breath. He hates fighting with her, but he won't back down. Not on this. She offers a suggestion, and he forces himself to focus on it. He pounds his voice into submission, trying to sap all anger from the rough tones of it. He pushes his ears forwards, crushes his muscles into relaxation. "It would have to be under the cover of darkness. They might have made her tell them that her children have a red and black dragon; they might be looking out for them." By all the spirits, is he going to have to send everybody he loves into danger? Losing his dragon would be...unthinkable. If only there wasn't a damned ocean in the way, he'd storm right over there himself and get his mother out with his own sweat, blood and steel. As any son should do.

I want to see him burn.

It is sudden, this ire, and yet its presence is undeniable and furious, a roaring rage hammering away all logic and scraping each inch of rational thought from her cranium’s crevices. Lilómiel chirrs, crooning his glee, his maniac joy; his urges pound parallel to hers briefly before converging in the way of a tide. There is no care, no tenderness, to his mental attack, only a violent attempt to rip her away from her carefully constructed boundaries. Each of Volterra’s movements, brutal and swift—the flattening of his ears, the clouds curling from his nostrils, the way he takes his weight back and throws his height in her face—only adds the fuel of Nymeria’s flame. She fights for control, for her will, wresting herself away from Lil’s dark murmurings and scheming. Her uncertainty and insecurity, veiled by rage and clouded with her passion, suddenly pulsates closer to the surface of her mind.

‘Cause she’s living a lie and she knows it. 

Cloaked under layered resentment and rage Nymeria is crawling with doubts, with unacknowledged realizations, hiding from what she knows and does not want. There is a fact clamoring for her attention, a realization: that her mother has passed on more than just a wicked face and voluptuous body—that mother has also bred into her cruelty and malice, hatred and resentment. 

Rock slams up from the sand, a needle spire that seems ominous as a wolf’s bared fangs. Nymeria stares, chest heaving from her outburst, neck arched and nostrils flared; and something in her murmurs to back down, childish cowardice clawing its way towards prevailing sensations of domination. No. Back she thrusts it, towards wherever she buries it, once again choosing false security over truth, holding onto control when chaos is imminent. On her spine Lilómiel growls, lips curling back from winter teeth, smoke dribbling from his slick black nostrils. There’s a warning to that rumble of his—but seem as it may to be directed towards Volterra and Vérzés, it’s only for his bonded.

“Don’t tell me to control myself,” the filly mutters mutinously, cutting Volterra a sharp glance. There’s venom yet to her bite—but her tone itself has cooled, forcing itself back into an image of broken ice and chipped glass. It’s Volt, not anyone… important… but she isn’t fond of the way her control slipped so utterly from her grasp, the way she had squeaked and shouted at him like a fool where he had retained his temper. Since when was he the one in control? And here, pitted against him—they just weren’t the same anymore, and not a single piece of her liked that. Before she had always relied on him, sometimes in the callous manner a queen relied upon her guard; she manipulated him, to a degree, though never in a cruel manner… 

Well, that had just gotten much harder with the fact it almost appeared he had a brain now. 

Red eyes roll and she lets her ears slide back against her poll. “Don’t be so fucking dramatic, Volt,” she snaps, lashing her tail across her flanks. “You might think we belong to one another, and maybe we do, but I wouldn’t make decisions for you. And you shouldn’t do the same for me—not that I would let you anyways.”

With a final, exasperated snort, she lets the matter slide, refocusing on what they should’ve been discussing from the start. There’s tension still coiled in the tight fix of her neck, the hard flex of her jaw—and she can see the effort Volt is making to relax—but at least the thought of Confutatis imprisoned is enough to sober the two of them. (Although typical Volterra, all worried about the dragons. Doesn’t he get it? Mother first. Everything else? Second.) 

“Lilómiel can do it. He’ll camouflage better against the night.”

   They aren't fire and ice as much as they are stone and steel - both hard, both unyielding, both desperately, beautifully stubborn. They are two sides of the same coin, but that doesn't mean they have to see eye to eye all of the time.

The black dragon looks positively murderous, and in turn the red ruffles his scales and shrieks into the frigid air. It takes a blast of mental strength from the behemoth to wrest his bonded back from the brink of attack - he cannot let the two dragons come to blows. Brothers cannot fight. With a snort of disagreement, the crimson beast submits to his bonded's wishes and continues to circle high above, his thoughts a roiling tide of displeasure. A wry smile twists the colt's lips. He should have known his relationship with his sister's black would not be harmonious from the moment the little bastard bit him on the nose - he still has the scar, a faded white line against the obsidian of his muzzle.

His sister mutters petulantly, and Volterra fights the urge to go to her, embrace her and giggle at her for her desire to have the last word. But he doesn't. "Don't give me reason to," is his icy retort, his tones dripping with as much frost as Vérzés' breath.

She continues, and the giant paws the ground with a heavy hoof, troubled by her words. They do not belong to one another? But they do, in body and mind. Or is it just Volterra's imagination? In all relationships, there's always one who loves more - is that him? Is it only he that loves his sister to the point of smothering her, that would lock her away in a cave from the rest of the world so he could have her to himself? Or is it simply his all-consuming greed masquerading as affection? He doesn't know, and it concerns him.

But there are more pressing matters at hand - freeing mother. Nymeria suggests sending in her own dragon only, and Vérzés releases another disgusted rumble at the thought. "Fine, but Vérzés will be close at hand, to help if Lilómiel gets into difficulties." The red could fly high whilst the black flew low, a tandem effort to locate the kitsune and pass a message along.

Volterra begins to move, unslicking his ears from his scalp and forcing his voice into civility. "Tonight. No time like the present." And, like that, he begins to walk, expecting his twin will follow, that they will wait for the night together, like this argument had never happened. That is how it had always been, after all.



   

Don't give me reason to, he says, all unforgiving edges and lean, cold-cut vowels. Nymeria steadies her errant gaze, and casts it back to him, hot red meeting cool. Despite the ground's [metaphorical] unfamiliarity beneath her, she lapses back into old habits; a sharp glance here, a coquette twist of her lips there, and a well-timed lash of her tail. They're easy to hold onto when everything else is different—like the judiciousness of Volterra's unwelcome judgement. He's practically asking for his ass to be handed to him, and certainly Nym's tempted to let the stingy retort leaping to her lips out, but she holds her tongue. Even his conceit did not warrant for the cusses circulating her cranium. 

Nothing would be achieved through snapping at him.

Besides, driving a wedge between them would hardly help them accomplish anything. What she really needed to do was plot out the changes of their story arc carefully—it was clear in their time apart and away from Confutatis' influence pieces of themselves had changed, some less subtly than others. Their twinly relationship had become tenacious, almost... dangerous. There were walls where there had been none before, and even though the tension between them was far from truly threatening, it posed a threat to their future together.

Volterra didn't need to be fixed, but he needed a reminder. She was the brains, and he was the brawn. 

"Agreed," the yearling says coolly, dipping her head in acquiescence. It's a satisfactory enough conclusion, though she isn't quite fond of what entails. She longs for results, for answers, for her mother's freedom—her patience is thinning. 

Away Volt turns, the sand whispering beneath the weight of his colossal hooves. Slowly Nymeria exhales, forcing her temper's last, raw vestiges away—forcing herself to forgive, even if not forget. The sooner they got moving, the better. As her brother steps away, the spider breaks into a snappy trot, settling into a steady pace just a whisker ahead of him. He might think some bullshit about owning each other and protecting her, but she wasn't about to let him lead the way.