"Of course, brother mine," Tigris murmured from where she remained but a small distance behind Euphrates. Her pale, porcelain face hardened a moment as she sank into her thoughts, sifting through the waters of memory for the mystical voice of their mother. "She watched him climb out of the sea. Thought he was some ghostly spirit, an omen of change, bleached white like the sunken bones of the creatures who perished in the deep." It is only then that she moves to the colt’s side, her movements slow and flowing, her bright eyes gleaming in anticipation, hungry to gaze upon the figure from their mother’s stories.

She leans into the length of her brother, curling into his side as together they turn to stare upon the slumbering form of their father. The filly draws in a deep breath, picking out the stallion’s scent that was unique amongst all the familiar scents of the Ridge. "I think it was a relief," she whispered in Euphrates’ ear, like it was a secret, like the words were inclusive of her too, and not just their roaming mother. "When she learned he was just flesh and blood like her."

They were ever drawn to the river that ran through their home, and it had been inevitable that they had sought to determine the source of it as soon as they’d been free to wander as they willed. And there, welling up from a hidden crevice in the south-eastern foothills of the Ridge’s mountain range, they’d found the spring that fed the river. It held fascination for Tigris still, no matter how numerous their visits to the wellspring had become. Of course, there was joy, peace and belonging to be found along any stretch of the river, though the pair had yet to follow its winding course too far beyond the borders of their home. One day, they would follow it through the Harbour to the south.

The journey would take them through the unknown, but there was a comfort in knowing where the river would lead them. ‘De ocean, ‘er will be waiting always for ‘er rivers.

And the wellspring.

With a gentle huff of a sigh, Tigris broke away, stepped towards the stallion sprawled among the ferns and vines. She circled around the white beast, eyeing the shadowy speckles upon his hide, aware of Euphrates always, though not needing to look to him, knowing that he would soon draw near. They were ephemeral, the both of them, transient, and never lingering in stillness for too long (though it was not too hard to find them, if, like their family, one knew where to look. Like the river through the earth, they cut paths through the undergrowth of the lush jungles of the Ridge, and along these, they oft ran swift and true).

"He seems so peaceful, and faraway..." Tigris observed at length, eyes coming to rest upon the stallion’s beautiful, delicate face - the darkness rimming his eyes, dusted his lips, and the graceful curve of his slender ebony ears that reminded her not only of her own and her brother’s, but another. Tabaxi. Tigris inhaled sharply, flicked her two-toned tail in a sudden rise of uncertainty, but she swallowed down the words that rose to her lips, knowing that her brother would not be able to give her the answer she sought, because Tabaxi’s mother had gone a long time before their own had left these shores, and she’d shared little with them of what she knew of the mare who was called Nzingha.

"I wonder if he dreams, Euphrates," the filly pondered instead, deeply intrigued by the depth of the serenity the stallion had seemed to find for himself, curious about the emerald staining upon his muzzle, the scent of them sharp and herbaceous. Finally, her eyes returned to her brother, as she stepped closer to their father, and bowed her head to touch her unblemished lips, featherlight to the slope of his crest, breathing her words upon the tangled tresses of his alabaster mane, the clear blue of her eyes fixed upon the deep brown of her brother’s.

(They were both rivers, deep and true - waters that flowed up from hidden places beneath the earth, muddied by storms and floodwaters, so that even what was once crystal clear became ambiguous and hid from all those not brave enough to venture from the banks the truth of all that they were.)

"I wonder if he knows."

TIGRIS;
swift running water child born of khajiit & charybdis