Eternity [Open-ish]

[Tigress]

[Not at all! I don't see it as an inconsistency, merely flunctuating emotions ]

There was still much fire inside this mare, who had been tossed aside before by the most important figure in her life. What was this, compared to her own flesh and blood disappearing from her life? This shouldn't have hit her so hard, but how else could she feel after spilling out her heart and watching him walk away? If he had at least said 'let me think on this' or given her something- anything to placate herself with; she would have. A few small words would be enough to hang onto, but she was fighting this battle alone, and while physical loneliness didn't bother her so much after experiencing it enough, loneliness of the heart and soul was a hard thing to swallow time and time again. To keep giving love and having it tossed aside like an ordinary rock from a stream. What she gave was polished, rare, and deserved to be cherished like a gem, yet never was.

If she could be selfish, she could hate him. If she could be jaded, she could close down her heart and be done with the insanity. But she wasn't particularly disposed to be either of those things. She was brave, beaten but not broken, as relentless as the tides pouring onto the beach. Even when she had nothing left to push her, she found her own momentum, just enough to make it through one more day. Luna had no idea that Eve was feeling anything other than the same concern and sadness she would feel if one of her own realm went missing and out of contact. Of course Avalir had never told her anything about Eve, not even a name to go by.

"It would be my pleasure... I'm sorry, I haven't asked your name yet." She smiled softly, and it just barely touched her eyes- but at least it was getting there. A waiting game... It was hard to believe she'd held up for a whole year without breaking down or throwing away hope completely. What was one more month, or one more year? Just more of the same. If he came back at all, it would be worth it. Even if he didn't spare her a glance, she'd rather him alive and with the chance to still find happiness. Didn't everyone deserve that?

Luna perked curiously, tilting her head in light confusion as Eve mentioned needing her later. Her heart sped again when she mentioned him coming back. There was a note of certainty in her voice, although the idea of Avalir changing worried her. She had liked who he was before, secrets or not. The stallion he was before, was the stallion who offered to share a life with her to save her from living in solitude and letting her childhood wounds fester and change her completely. Who would he become? Would it be better or worse? If it was worse, could he ever go back, could they ever go back? If she didn't try, she'd never know, continue with her current state and grow old having barely existed- let alone lived. One way or another, for better or worse, their story needed some kind of ending.

"I'm not sure how much I could do, but I will wait for your summons and come when you call." Luna swallowed and looked almost nervously at Eve then. "In the meantime... Is there anything you can tell me about Avalir? Why he left or... why he is so... guarded? That is, if you don't feel uncomfortable." She was trying to pick her words carefully, she had too many more questions and things got easily jumbled. Luna also didn't want to cause any more pain or anxiety than the mare must be going through already.

[Silverdust]

Eve cocked her head with a slow smile, the ghost of a normally familiar habit. Avalir had told her once that it suited her, the vague coquettish motions. Even after everything had passed. Sometimes he knew the exact right thing to say. Shame he didn't do it more often. "No need to ask what is already given. At least, I think I did, but I could be losing it a little. Eve, my name is Eve."

She could tell her words worried the mare. Sive had been ambiguous with the details, as she always was, but on the other hand you never knew what would happen when the heart of a being was in question. Not simply the flesh and blood organ, but that metaphysical vessel of memories and personality and power. Amnesia perhaps, a fractured personality - a shell. All those things could come back, wearing Avalir's face. And that was best case scenario.

She could feel herself tipping over the edge slightly. She shook her head, grounding herself in Luna's questions, in the cold stones beneath her feet and the mist weaving across her skin. Open you eyes, speak, smile.

"Avalir has a gift," she began, and the words felt a little odd on her tongue, speaking about the stallion like he was some odd treasure on display. "He can heal things. Not physical wounds or anything, but things that are broken on the inside."

She wasn't even really sure all the intricacies of it, only what he had used to save her. "Darkness is drawn to him, in a sense. Sive helped him seal it, so he doesn't feel everything all the time, but that enchantment has been growing weaker and she's not sure how to fix it. That's part of why he left, to try to find another way."

She sighed. "It doesn't make any sense when you put it into words, but he has never been completely open with me either."

[Tigress]

LunarPrism blushed faintly as the mare answered, the soft feminine motion a natural habit for her. Frostbite had taken time out of her days to teach Luna the way of the lady, as she often put it. For such a cold exterior, the ice mare was extremely elegant, perhaps the most of them all. Luna emulated that with every tilt of the head, deft flick of the mane, slight blush of the cheeks. It might have seemed rehearsed, but it had built its way into her natural way of being. "If I missed it before, I do apologize. I haven't been the most in tune with things around me recently. Thank you for coming, Eve." No need to hold back, anyone could see Luna had her head in the clouds for quite some time. Maybe not in the clouds exactly, but somewhere far from here. Coming back to reality was colder than she expected- or was that Winter's breath creeping into the air?

She stilled her mind, quieted it until she had pieces to go on to start sorting this puzzle. If she had something to set her mind on, at least it would keep her away from questions too personal to ask, and ones that probably had no answer yet to speak of anyway. Somehow LunarPrism felt guilt when she learned about Avalir's natural ability, she had so much bitter darkness in her heart when they had met. Had she been just another broken toy to fix? But now she was better- or, she had been- why did he still run from her? Right, yes, to find another way to strengthen the barriers that were faltering, no need to make this personal.

Luna was quiet for such a long time that the mare might have thought she didn't listen, or didn't believe her explanation. Finally, she looked up at Eve curiously. "Has anyone thought about taking it out of him, or taking it back? Instead of trying to reinforce the barriers that keep it inside him, I mean." There was an almost challenging heat in her eyes which left little to interpretation about what she meant. Love called for extreme decisions, all or nothing. If any of this was her doing, she wanted it undone. She didn't ask for someone to take her burdens, and she would be fiercely angry if he had taken her darkest emotions, thoughts, and feelings, without so much as a word to her.The riling anger was softened by Eve's tired voice.

"Well, you know more than I. Either way, I suppose we are sisters in suffering, so there's that?" She tried to make an uplifting half-joke, for both of their sakes. Eve didn't have to come here for her, she chose to, and LunarPrism didn't overlook thoughtfulness. She had been so locked in her own sorrows and fears that she hadn't considered that anyone else was in pain except her. Her small-minded way of thinking left a sour taste in her mouth, at least she was finally snapping out of it.

[Silverdust]

"Indeed, that would seem the case." Eve chuckled, a sound low and purring in her throat. A reprieve from every tangled thing she had kept inside. She had known a little about Luna, but Luna as a child, how much Avalir had seen himself in her. She had teased him then, how perhaps they could have a daughter to fill that void. He'd smiled at her a little like a promise.

But it was complicated now, wasn't it? Well, Avalir's feelings weren't necessarily hers to sort out, but regardless of what Luna became to the stallion, Eve could tell that she could love him. She could stand to sort through the labyrinth of his heart and his past. And honestly, he needed it. She did too, perhaps. It was a lonely thing, to love someone so transient.

"If it was as simple, Sive would've purified him." She pawed at the ground again, remembering the darkness, the circle, the hurried seals. "But it's rooted itself to him. The thing with the heart, he has to be the one to let it go, to fight it out. And Avalir is no warrior."

She noted the fiery resentment in Luna's eyes, and she could guess the reasons. While Avalir's gift was healing, it came with an invasive, insidious design. "The seal was in place well before he met you, Luna. It would've kept any darkness in you from him, unless you had asked for his help yourself. What he has in him now is from...before."

Hers, Brittle's, a handful of others in the wandering of his childhood. Sanguine had wanted him to try with Id, but the Warrior had refused and she was glad of it, for that was a trauma too deep and Avalir would've have taken it all. He was selfless like that, but selfish in other ways. He didn't see that sacrifice was rarely a simple two-way street.


(Sorry for the delay, work stuffs)

[Tigress]

LunarPrism dipped her head bashfully, almost apologetic for being so lost and hazy. She idly wondered how long this would have continued if Eve didn't show up. Tine tried to shake her from her reverie with his romantic interest, but it had never touched her even briefly. The heart wants what the heart wants, was there any other way to explain it? For better or worse, something within her made her stubbornly set on the stallion. Luna had never really gotten exactly what she wanted in life before, someone or something always kept it just out of her reach. Somehow she couldn't stand it this time, refused to just 'let it be'.

When Eve responded, Luna nodded shallowly and somewhat knowingly. Of course with others as connected to him, those kind of simple solutions had already come to mind. Somehow it felt good to just troubleshoot aloud, possibilities were reassuring even if they weren't the most useful or plausible. Avalir indeed was much unlike the stallion who was more or less the head of their realm. Chaos was a very different being entirely, and at times had been brotherly to her. He knew when to push and pull, and thus hadn't visited recently. Maybe he recognized that she needed to wake up by herself. She just made a small 'hmmm' of agreement while Eve spoke.

She had calmed down a bit before Eve reassured her less than pleasant suspicions, causing her to exhale sharply in relief. "I feel relief at that. I'm not much one for letting someone else fix me. Call it pride, if you will." Her eyes seemed more alive, more like the fiery and cleverly jaded child she had been once. Less jaded, but no less fiery, even if it had burned down almost to embers- embers could always be ignited into flame. She didn't know whose darkness he carried and she didn't ask, it wasn't her business.

"If the barriers broke entirely, and he were emotionally and mentally capable of defeating whatever escaped into him, would it disappear or simply come back again? I mean theoretically speaking, could he beat this?" If the answer was no, it meant that finding a way to keep this locked up forever was not so much an option as it was a necessity. That would make it impossible for her to help, who possessed that kind of power? She had no idea.

[Silverdust]

It was nice to hear the questions, the earnest dive into what could be done, should be done. Sive held a loose reign over her Bonded, trusting implicitly in their independent natures and self-awareness. It was ideal in some respects, the reason they had been drawn together. But there were things that should have been dragged out into the light perhaps, things that maybe needed to be dissected, impartially and ruthlessly.

Eve was glad that Luna didn't press into the root of Avalir's darkness. Seeing that fire wake in young mare, well, fire could be an unpredictable element. She wouldn't hide the fact that she had a hand in that torment locked deep in the stallion's heart, and should Luna learn that it may tear apart this tenuous bond. It was something for Avalir to explain, his need to fix things, to take on all the pain in the world without a thought.

Eve smiled as Luna's tension eased. "Pride, strength. Avalir admired that about you."

She hoped the words wouldn't seem needlessly reassuring, like compliments pulled out and scattered like bandage shreds over a raw wound. She only knew the bare bits of the mare through him; maybe he had thought speaking of another would hurt her in some way, and she could appreciate the delicacy even if it proved he only knew her so well. Gods, she wanted him back. She needed him back, to tell him these things, to give him these pieces of herself--the light and no longer the shadows.

She tossed her head, trying to clear the sharp grief and focusing on what Luna needed from her, the answers that would ground her here. "I don't know. I suppose we have to trust Brittle's strength to even consider the possibility," she paused, mulling over the implications. "I suppose the original darkness would vanish, but I don't know that he wouldn't use his gift again. It's his way."

His stupid, mad, and destructively selfless way. Sometimes she wondered if Sive had really saved him from himself, that day on the river bank, so long ago.