ALL THINGS FLOW LIKE A RIVER >> euphrates Posted on July 18, 2021 at 11:38:19 PM by TIGRIS
TIGRIS
khajiit x charybdis
“Brother mine.” The voice was sweet, and carried traces of guile not normally heard in one so young. Such lilting tones were but a foreshadow of the coquettish manner that would develop as she matured. Even now, as the young filly angled her flawless face towards her brother, there was a sly glint in her eye, and an impish grin upon her lips.
They were a sight to behold, the boy and the girl, when they were stirred to action in such a manner. Like reflections of one another they were, with fiendish delight surface first in one, and moments later the other. Sometimes, the ripples appeared in them simultaneously, as though they were infused with the same spirit.
It was easy enough to tell them apart, though not always at a distance. One muzzle speckled, where the other blushed pink. And the eyes. The filly turned hers skyward now, her sapphire gaze scrutinising the movement of the clouds through a break in the jungle canopy. There was something strange about the heavens, but instead of asking if her twin had noticed, the filly scrambled for a head start in getting a closer look. (It was one of their favourite games, racing each other to the top of the cliffs at the heart of their home, blessed with a recklessness that belonged only to the youth.)
Like the strange, horned creatures that bleated at them from their own precarious perches on ledges too small for full grown horses, the pair did not hesitate. To falter would be to fall. They flowed fearlessly from one foothold in the rocky face to the next, instinctively seeking the path of least resistance.
Breathless with exhilaration, tough blades of tussock grasses pricking at her alabaster legs, the girl called Tigris reached for her other half, brushing tender lips over a smudge of dirt marking her brother’s near shoulder. The anticipation was always irresistible, but in the end, it rarely mattered which of them arrived at their destination first. What mattered was that they journeyed together, and that both of them made it to the other side.
“It will be a fierce thing to behold Euphrates,” she said of the storm that stretched upon the horizon. There was a childlike eagerness to her still, a naive sort of innocence. Never before had they witnessed the full force of nature, but the squall that had its sights set on Atlantis would be something the blue-eyed Tigris would not soon forget.
In time, she would come to realise that she could be a storm if she wished. A howling gale, a blinding flash of lightning. A torrent of water, capable of uprooting, undermining, overwhelming any limits placed upon her with all the ferocity of a river bursting its banks. Maybe even drowning those who saw her rushing towards them but had not the sense to place themselves beyond her reach.
Never her brother though, nor any other she gave a piece of her heart to. Tigris would see these precious souls borne safely through the rapids and beyond the reach of any who’d wish them harm. She’d deliver them to the sea, were they might drift in peace a while, before the tides and the currents guided them back to her.
“But perhaps not from these great heights,” she mused, having shifted closer to Euphrates during her contemplation of the storm brewing. One slender, dark ear turned at every sound from her brother, and she leaned into his narrow shoulder, content to linger upon the bluffs a little longer if that was what he wanted, and then, when they began their descent, Tigris was happy for him to take the lead,and trailed close behind, alert as always, following each step that he made, trusting wholeheartedly that he would never fail her.
AND NOTHING ABIDES BUT LOVE FOR THE RIVER THAT FLOWS WITH ME