@Arakh

Mathèo recognizes Arakh at once. A smile lights his youthful face and once Kisamoa is finished speaking, the ashen boy pushes his way through the crowd ("excuse me!" "sorry!" "coming through please!") until he was at the bull-horned colt's side. "Hey!" He chirped brightly, a boyish grin on his dusty face. "Do you want to work together? We can probably do more if we do!" Looking around, his green eyes scanning for any who might be listening, Thèo dropped his voice. "I know where there are some branches...we could burn them." He whispered, clearly very excited about the prospect of using their magic to accomplish this task.

The boy looked around. He hadn't spotted Zero or Luther yet ... if they were here, he'd want to invite them too. He couldn't help the way his lips twisted, mirroring the feeling inside of his chest. Had he known that Arakh was missing his sister too, he might have felt even more at ease around his bull-headed sibling. As it was, those details were unknown to him, and so Thèo tried to wrestle with his inner disappointment as best as he could.

He had wiggled his way beside Matheo in the larger gathering too slowly. The sunlit boy bounded through the crowd with an enigmatic energy and joy akin to the light that graced him. Iskra was left to follow on his heels, too breathless with the rush to gather a proper holler.

Eventually Matheo paused, exchanging words with another foal Iskra recognized but couldn't truly say he knew, not that such bothered him. Someone you don't know now just means it's someone you get to know!
The delay gave Iskra enough time to catch up, and with an "Oomph," he slid to a halt nearby the pair. He shook himself off, head swaying too and fro and wings, which were still half grown like the rest of his partially shed coat, rattled at his sides with the motion. As he lifted his head he smiled at them both, teal eyes dancing with energy that seemed to unfurl as sparks from the under ridges of his wings.

"I bet I could help move them and spread the fire!" he added enthusiastically. By move he meant his magic, which he displayed as he heated the air around some nearby leaves and sent them spiraling off in another direction without lifting little more than his eyelids. It was a long cry from his and Metheo's first meeting when he hadn't known what his abilities were, much less how to use them, and confused his bruncle's teachings with telepathy he did not possess. "We could probably make the biggest Pyre in the WHOLE WORLD!"

 

@Iskra

As Iskra appears at his side, Thèo's grin immediately doubles in size, causing his ashen cheeks to puff out comically and crease the corners of his sea-green gaze. "Aww yes!" He chuckles to himself, and had they been human, he might have dramatically leaped into the air to offer Iskra a highfive. As it was, he extended a wing toward's Iskra's brown shoulder, still grinning broadly.

He was unsurprised that Iskra was happy to go along with their plans - such things often just seemed to fall into place with boys of their age. Thèo's eyes did widen as Iskra made the leaves swirl with no more than a blink of his eyes; it was a far cry from the ridiculous amount of effort it had taken him only a few weeks ago. "Whoa!" Thèo praised happily, turning to Arakh as he began to demonstrate his own magical abilities.

However those ... didn't quite provoke the same reaction. As Thèo saw the creature composed of fire, his jaw dropped open. But only my Father could do that... he thought dumbly, not quite putting the pieces together. As Arakh turned towards them, looking quite proud of himself, Thèo only stared silently for a moment looking as though he might cry, or begin to yell.

Wiping his face clean of emotion with a small boyish shrug, Thèo mirrored Arakh's magic, creating an eagle of fire of his own. "Huh." The sun-drenched boy commented, more to himself than to anyone else, not connecting the dots any further than that, happily letting himself be distracted by Arakh's introduction.

"That's Iskra." Thèo announced proudly, grinning at his friend. His friends. "He's the fastest out of anybody!"

With a buck of joy, Thèo 'galloped' (read: enthusiastically flailed) into the trees, in the direction of the thick tangle of branches he'd seen earlier.

With their youthful vigor it all fell into place easily and they were little more than a bundle of legs and laughs plotting arson. Arakh was a bit short on words, but he more than made up for it with his talents, quickly blowing Iskra out of the water with his fireworks. "Wow!" Iskra exclaimed in pure delight as he watched the flaming bird rise. "No wonder you like fire," Iskra laughed, oblivious to the un-set it caused in Theo, and failing to draw the similarities between their talents and the tales he knew of his sire. Though he did jokingly say, "Lookit that you guys are like brothers," with a wide cheesy grin and all, as if it were nothing more than a grand joke and great coincidence.

Although a bit magically shown up, Iskra was back to beaming as Theo proudly proclaimed him the fastest of anybody. With feathers ruffled for peacocking, Iskra's head lifting marginally, and he winked at the fellow colt. "Betcha I'll beat the both of you at collecting sticks," he boasted challengingly, always willing to turn something into a game. Just as he was about to take off after Theo who lead the charge, a voice stilled him, and with a question on his features he slung his head over his shoulders.

Another familiar but not-properly-known colt was there, and even before he could ask Iskra's lips were spreading with a wild grin, his eyes dancing with an electric energy. "Yeah of course!" he greeted, a certain haste to his voice as he glance back around where Theo and Arakh were starting to gather. "C'mon, hurry, we're seeing who can collect the most sticks!" he said without any confirmation the other boys were playing his challenge (all the more likely he'd win if they weren't!). Iskra stole another glance at Saoirse before hopping off to wrestle with some lumber. He used every means necessary, often all at once, to drag the wood into order- magic, mouth, hoof, even wing.

 

Arakh was not the only one pulled of course by Iskra's casual comment of the boy's paternity. Physically, they were not overly similiar. Arakh looked like a creature born into the ashes, consumed and burned by fire and soot, whereas Thèo looked like a piece of diamond produced by the flames. Yet they both possessed wings and horns, and Gaucho's characteristic barring.

Ave... Growing up with Gaucho's influence, the sunbeam child had not learned any of his Father's native tongue from the Wildfire. Yet he had picked up bits and pieces of it from his siblings. Hadn't Vinati referred to Gaucho as Ave. Hadn't Tae?

But, compartmentalizing that thought, Thèo found himself in a race between his brothers and a new-face. As they reached the trees, Thèo came to a giddy and ungraceful halt, his pale flanks heaving back and forth as magical sunlight filtered down and glistened off of his slightly-sweaty flanks.

"Ave means Father?" He asked his bull-headed counterpart, still breathing heavy, but with eyes focused clearly on Arakh. With a swallow and a look towards Iskra that seemed to all at once say, What is happening, and Can you be my brother too, and did you know???, Thèo turned almost cautiously back to Arakh. "Gaucho. " He said, his voice low but melodic. As his emotions rose in the back of his throat, so too did the light that coated his body. "The Wildfire."

Thèo looked from Iskra, back to Arakh. He wanted to ask them who their Fathers were, but the words died on his tongue. However as Thèo had unknowingly learned, he didn't always need to open his mouth to speak.

>>Who is your Father?"<< His mental voice moved outwards, unknowingly, towards the boys before him, as Thèo's sea-green eyes skirted back and forth.

If Iskra had known of Arakh's thoughts, labeling him as a leader for whatever rag tag gang of foals he was always swept up in, he would have laughed. Iskra was just trying to get through life the only way he knew how, holding on tight to happiness, which was something best done when you shared it with others. The politics of it all, any of it, escaped him in the pursuit of this one single notion. If he thought about it really hard though, he was usually the one chasing after Matheo, the boy's constant light like a divine recognition and a beacon of invitation and hope.

Iskra didn't laugh though. Not just because he wasn't privy to Arakh's thoughts, but because regardless, in that moment something significant was settling into his consciousness. Something so strong and demanding of his attention in fact, that he didn't even preen at Arakh's easy submission to his speed, nor hasten to complete his stick-gathering challenge. Instead the twigs scattered hap-haphazardly around Iskra as he slowed until he wasn't moving at all. He stood stock still, body so rigid it seemed even his heart had stopped.

Theo's voice was in his head, but long before that his words were in his ears.
"Gaucho."
"The Wildfire."
That phrase tumbled endlessly inside of him, an echo which left scorch marks even as it chilled him with a shudder.

The teal of Iskra's gaze lifted up, catching the ocean of Theo's wondering stare. "S-same," Iskra breathed.
"Gaucho, the Wildfire, is my father too."

The admission came out quietly. This wasn't for any shame, or hesitation in the knowledge. It was because Iskra was so stunned, and he wasn't really sure why. He knew Gaucho had other kids that wasn't the direct family he knew of under Ampere. That seemed like something distant though, like something that would never touch him and so it hadn't mattered. To find however that Matheo was his brother, after all this time - it felt like he didn't know the boy at all.

His ears flicked at Saoirse's final words, having misplaced all the prior ones with this dawning understanding. His head tore away from Matty to offer the other colt a glance and a weak smile. "I don't think we would know," Iskra admitted. "Mine died before I met him."

 
I suck x 1000000000


Brothers.

Something inside of Thèo felt split right down the centre. He didn't want to be rude to Arakh, but he couldn't resist the urge to pull away and look at Iskra. Thèo was fine being Iskra's sibling. It was great, and already the pull of family filled something inside of himself.

But Iskra? They were friends. Best friends (probably), but if they were also brothers...

..did that mean everything would change?

With uncertain green eyes trained on Iskra, the sunlit boy gave a nod, to confirm that yes, he was a Gaucho-son too.  I don't want anything to change.. Thèo mentally whispered towards Iskra, though because he didn't have his magic 100% under his control, the others might have heard it as well.

Then, outloud, he said, "I was born after too. Did you?" He asked Arakh, now turning to face his bull-headed sibling. Arakh was older than both of the pegasi, and so it was entirely possible that he had met Gaucho. Might he have even spent time with him? Learned from him?

Thèo didn't want to feel the first crampings of jealousy inside of his tiny ashen body.

But he did.

Theo's presence is there again, drifting across his mind like the steady pulse of the ocean against the shore. Iskra's gaze hadn't left his... his brother's yet, but his expression changes, it warms and it promises as Iskra thinks, "It won't." He forgets Theo cannot hear him, but maybe he doesn't need to.

As Arakh confirms them all as brothers, Iskra's attention jerks towards him, seeming to take in the other colt for the first time. It's not quite the same slap in the face as Theo's blood tie is, if only because their friendship is not as tight, but it's still a pinch of revelation. His family just grew, and he wonders how many more are still out there. Perhaps he ought to make it a habit of introducing himself as Iskra, son of Gaucho the Wildfire, just to see who else is out there.

At the grullo's question Iskra can only firmly shake his head no. "I've heard a lot of stories though," he attempts to explain, as if those empty words could somehow conjure the embodiment of his father for him. It's the one thing Ampere has always given him, and perhaps why her pain dragged on so much longer. "An my brother," Iskra pauses, clearly unnerved as he's not used to that word meaning anyone else. He hesitates, before stammering out, "My brother Z, Z-Zekle, he made the golem of 'im that walks around. Him and this girl and the Sun God himself!"

In this Saoirse has since departed, and Iskra's head turns as he hears the clatter of debris as the other foal gathers. Part of Iskra feels bad and wants to go join him, to get back on mission, but another part of him is firmly rooted to place. He'll make sure to find the colt in the sands again soon, he seems like he could use some cheering up.