Fool's Gold Chasm Turning of the world

For @Adonya and @Sovanya please! Storytime with the sisters finally <3 Set early evening 10/3

had a dream so big and loud

JUMPED SO HIGH I TOUCHED THE CLOUDS

Enera  knew she was a bad sister. She was just as bad a sister as she was a friend - why else would Marrah have left? For all that she'd said, and that she'd at least called her out to say goodbye, the eldest Rayvne girl couldn't help but feel she was the real reason @Marrah had abandoned them. And that's what it felt like - abandonment. She couldn't go with her, and her sister-friend knew that. Enera felt so alone. Both Woya and @Adelard were so busy with their new children they didn't have time for the only remaining yearling... and Enera was so busy caring for her sisters she hadn't spent much time with them.

That was about to change. Enera was determined they grew up hearing the same stories their mama had told her, so they knew their history and where they came from. Knew as much as the eldest did, anyway.

She trotted toward the den. "Adonya, Sovanya, I have something special for you," she called as she approached. "Do you want to hear one of the stories our mama told me? I've been saving it for when you're big enough." They were certainly old enough to hear about the skywalkers now; they were getting to be nearly as big as she was. When had that happened? Is this what their mama had felt like, watching Enera grow up?

Adonya was bored. The younger ones weren’t any fun to harass as of late, though it was not for a lack of trying. She had even tried to pick on Geminia but the woman hadn’t seemed phased by her at all! It felt so rude in her opinion. How dare she not yield to the power of the Ravyne twins? She huffed lightly, lounging in the pack den, sprawled out over her sister as she nipped at her ear, harassing her twin a little bit.

Desperate times, desperate measures, right?

She would have to find some kind of new way to pick on them. It wasn’t until their older sister entered the den that her ears perked up, eyes narrowing for a moment when Enera said that she had something special for them. She felt… suspicious about it. She didn’t understand why she kept trying to be this good and wholesome figure in their lives. Hadn’t she made it clear that it wasn’t what she wanted?

She snorted softly at the question and she rolled off her twin, back on the ground as her paws splayed upward towards the sky. “No thanks, Nera.” She stated matter-of-factly. “We’re too old for stories now.”

Sovanya had been trying to sleep, but her twin had decided that would not be the case. A low growl began to build in her chest, a warning that she knew was not likely to work. The truth was, she didn't want to move and it bought her a little more time before the annoyance became too much and Adonya got the tussle she must have been seeking.

Before it could reach that point, Enera was calling out to them, providing a distraction. Sova lifted her head as Donya unceremoniously dumped herself onto the Chasm floor, and smirked at her banter. She was growing used to this subtle friction, her skin thickening every day. Her sister could take issue all she wanted, it didn't have to impact her if she didn't let it.

"I'm not," she answered for herself, standing and stepping past her doppelganger to greet their older sibling with a nudge to her pale cheek.

"Why'd it have to wait?"

That was the bigger issue. What, did she think she couldn't handle a simple story? They'd already heard that their real mom was dead. What could top that?

had a dream so big and loud

JUMPED SO HIGH I TOUCHED THE CLOUDS

It seemed her younger sisters weren't as asleep as she thought they might be, given Addy had started a tussle with her twin. Upon her approach they both sat up and Adonya was quick to decline. Enera's ears flicked back. She didn't understand why her sister seemed to dislike her so much. She was constantly picking on her foster siblings and turning Enera's own advances towards a relationship away. Was she angry her older sister had spent more time transporting water than with them? It was certainly one of her regrets, but...

Sova's voice broke Enera out of her distressed internal rambling as she stepped forward and nudged her cheek. The older Rayvne girl smiled and touched her nose to the top of her sister's head. "It's a special story," she said, "one Mama waited to tell me too. It's about her family, and about the Sky Walkers." She settled down and gestured for her sisters to lay with her, should they want to, before turning her gaze to the sky - to the stars Mama had said were her grandparents - and where Enera liked to think her mama was too.

"Mama used to be the princess of a pack, far away and long before she came here," she began, "but not everyone liked the way our grandparents ruled."

(This post was last modified: Mar 04, 2023, 03:01 PM by Enera.)

A special story? Sovanya remained skeptical, but she'd give it a try just for her. Addy seemed to have given up any kind of protest, and she settled back in with her grumpy sibling, leaning back into Adonya's bulk and focusing on her big sister as she gave more and more information.

A princess? She couldn't help but look her twins way with a toothy smirk. What, all this time making fun of @Adora and @Apolline and it turned out they were actually the princesses? She would have giggled, but stifled the sound instead in order to continue listening.

"What was their problem?" she asked for Enera to go on.

(This post was last modified: Mar 04, 2023, 10:10 AM by Sovanya.)

had a dream so big and loud

JUMPED SO HIGH I TOUCHED THE CLOUDS

At least Sova seemed interested, and even Adonya settled in to listen, if a bit begrudgingly. Enera smiled encouragingly and shifted to make herself more comfortable as she told her mama's story, absently placing a kiss to the crown of each girl's head. Maybe they were a bit older than she had been when mama told her this story, but that was okay. They were hearing it now.

"Grandma and Grandpa preferred peace, trying to avoid fights and be friends with their neighbors. They ruled their lands with justice, and some of their pack thought it made them weak. When our mama was still young, her parent's friends turned on them." Here she lowered her voice a little, trying bring in the right mood. "They attack them out of nowhere and our grandparents were killed. They tried to kill mama, too, but she managed to escape. Our uncles and aunts might have too, but mama didn't ever know for sure."

Enera glanced up to the sky, finding her stars. She hoped her mama liked the way she was telling the story.

Sovanya listened as the story not only deepened, but also darkened in ways she very much was not expecting. A certain kind of apprehensive awe expanded her eyes while her brows crinkled with confusion. She knew what it was to kill, but wolves turning on each other? There were no dynamics of power that reached the pup within the calm pools of the Chasm, little more than faces she'd always known and trusted, absent of reason to do anything more than shove and nip.

Yet their grandparents had been murdered? Sova shifted her paws, uncomfortable in an unfamiliar way. This was far more than she'd thought she'd been biting off, and it didn't sit well. Another glance to Adonya, and then she looked back up at Enera.

There was nothing she could think to say, not yet in that moment.

(This post was last modified: Apr 17, 2023, 11:45 PM by Sovanya.)

had a dream so big and loud

JUMPED SO HIGH I TOUCHED THE CLOUDS

Enera was aware of her sisters' awe and Sova's uncomfortable shifting. It was why she'd rushed through the scary bit, and why she'd waited until they were this age to tell the story most crucial to her own childhood. She looked down at the twins and smiled softly, trying to mimic their mama's own comforting expression. How cruel, that they'd never gotten to see her themselves. "Don't worry," she said gently, kissing each girl on the crown. "Mama made it here, and our grandparents are still watching over us. You see those stars, right over there?" she pointed out the ones their mama had shown her on a night very much like this one. "Those are grandma and grandpa, and that third one in the middle is our mama. They joined the Skywalkers. They get to adventure in new places and can see us and take care of us as they can from afar."

It was one of her few comforts, that her mama was still with her in a way... just further.

Don't worry, Enera insisted. That was easy to do, the world an illusion of safety thanks to the efforts of her living caregivers, but that wasn't the only emotion squirming within her chest. In all honesty, she couldn't summon a name for it, didn't expect it to be recognized or quelled by anything more than time. Death, something she'd never knowingly experienced, followed their little family, and she would just have to live with that.

Sova cuddled into Addy and continued to listen.

You see those stars, right over there? Her gaze followed her big sister's, and she could only assume Enera was referring to a particularly bright cluster in a peculiarly straight line. She tilted her head as the starlight shone in her eyes.

"That's... Mama?"

Rhaegara. She'd heard so much, but that was all she'd been; words, a garden, pinpoints in the sky.

"I... thought she slept in the ground."

Her words were quiet, the youth unusually vulnerable in this moment.