I'll come for you, if you just stay where you are.

Dacio recalled the infection that ravaged him: the intensity of his headache; the thrum of a rapid heartbeat in his ears; the heat of a thousand suns that burned beneath the surface of his skin. He could easily conjure the memory of sorrow in the hearts of those who loved him as they awaited the inevitable, and remind himself how undeserving he was of their tears. His life had been a short but solemn one, void of glory and all he'd wished to accomplish.

He remembered, vividly, how it felt to die. The prospect of being dealt that fate once again was terrifying.

From the tender age of infancy, Dacio and his siblings were taught that to die on the battlefield would be their greatest achievement. He had embraced that this could be the only way to meet his end, conditioned himself to accept that he might find his fight over during a battle with his enemies in Drageda's name. Since that time had never come, and he'd merely existed in the darkness until he roused in an unknown afterlife with very little knowledge of the place he'd come from let alone what drove him from it, he felt eager to try and make himself anew.

Dacio knew he would have to, with the other half of him left behind in another world. From his perch atop a looked longingly out at the rolling waves of a vast sea that cool Spring evening, reaching for fragmented memories of a life barely worth recalling, but right at the forefront of his mind was @Opalia.


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omgssss a big ramble

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It happened fast, and she could only catch glimpses. A dream? A memory? There were pieces of different stories, she thought at one point, feeling them intertwine at their hazy edges. But when it cleared suddenly, it was far more. Her blood was singing, heart-pounding--like suddenly waking up when the welcome familiarity of the fight set in, she blinked. Her toes skidded over loose earth, gripping as soon as she could, realizing how heated the moment was. She dodged, then swung her own teeth in the very next instant. There was fury, and it turned into rage--she launched with each urging her on, wind at her feet to her victory. The pale Drakru went onward with the rush of it, forward against their enemies, and towards her goal of revenge. Up this close, nothing else mattered, but it hadn't truly for quite some time. She wanted this more than anything. She would bring them down.

And, with a blink, she was somewhere else. A slow, steadying pull of breath and it dawned on her: overlooking the sea again, with jagged cliffsides rising nearby. Her ears fell back, far from the spray of the crashing waves far below. It was a bittersweet feeling of peace, and the cloudy horizon suited, comforting somehow.

When she turned her head, craning it upward in the motion with words of a curious young girl on her tongue, it was another heartbeat and everything was gone. A terrible, lonesome darkness spread vast around her, infinite and hollow. Cold, bitterly so, all straight down to her bones. It rattled, first like a shiver, then rose to quake. Her eyes narrowed, uneasy, and she saw the void open up--a flash, then a colossus in flames, leading them towards such a grim dark. Gravity took her paws this time, frustration ripping at her jaws as the world crumbled, from above and below. It couldn't be fair.

She rose gnashing and furious into the next breath, but there was only so much to be said. They had taken much from her already. Outnumbered, and bloodied, strength dripping away with every heave, the Drakru would still go down fighting--taking them with her, with or without her own prize. Discretion had no place here. But ultimately, when everything was said and done, Opalia was tired. She had been at war for years, after all. When finally there was nothing left except her descent, she never feared that it would be her last time.

It was the cold whip of a breeze first. On her face, her fur, heavy with the scent of the sea. Awareness slipped back into her, slow, but uncomfortable. It eventually was enough to press her up, confusion already ramping up her bleary heart-rate. Slowly, delicately, like she was waiting for something to go wrong and resist her, she pulled herself up to stand.

As her head rose, she squinted into the day's dying light to survey the unfamiliar scene. The sea lapped near, but she was dry..tucked just out of reach still, though not by great stretch. Once her feet felt steady enough, she shook the debris from her pale coat, and eyed the small, inconsequential indentation at her paws. She didn't know what to think, or know where she was well enough to explain how it was she woke up here. Her still-fresh dreams left a notable fog behind.. but it was not one she was going to look towards for answers about this.

Focus the warrior willed of her scattering thoughts, exhaling slowly, then testing the winds. Something urged her to search, and reach out--to keep going forward. As ever.

For the first strides, she was slow, but she tracked up the shoreline steadily, unknowingly into range.
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While there was comfort in the sea and peace at the heart of him, something unknown roused an uncertain feeling in his abdomen. Dacio gazed on at the waves as they swept gently across sun-kissed sand before retreating back to sea in a steady rhythm he felt himself envious of.

Oh, if only life could be so predictable. 

His breath left him in a low sigh as he rose his gaze to squint against low light of the evening's setting sun, keen to take in one last long look at what he thought was the last connection he had of a previous lifetime. Dacio drank deep the sight before he gathered to his dark paws and turned atop his outlook, preparing to move on, before something unexpected entered his line of vision.

Ears pricking high atop his crown, the warrior jerked his mottled muzzle in the holden figure's direction. He blinked once, twice, shook his head briefly in disbelief, and focused once more.

Is it you?

In his throat, the threat of a whine as he fidgeted, unsure, and before he could contemplate his next move he was loping her way. His steps were quick but with a hint of caution, and as he drew closer he paused to keep from overwhelming her. Silver-green eyes glistened with recognition as he sought his sister's warm features, and life returned to him with a swish of his tail.

“You are the one true thing I know I can believe in,” he told her confidently in their mother tongue, sure that Opalia would recall the sentiment he'd shared with her following the greatest turning point in their previous lifetime; “but do my eyes deceive me today?”


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Though her limbs still felt terribly heavy, every step was some type of progress she could focus on--one assurance in this here and now, where confusion clouded everything else past all that didn't seem to want to piece back together. The sea, the sand, and her paws upon it served as a necessary foundation, but one she still needed to pull herself up to stand properly upon. Focus, again, she willed with more fervor when she found the first tendrils of recognition--ones that pointed accusingly to her own weakness, if she could not get her head straight, and body following..

Everything was strange, for despite the efforts, clarity was difficult to come by. When she lifted her head properly and vision in front of her came better into focus, there was enough light in the day left to catch silver. Eerily familiar, tapering to dark at all the right points, and moving her way..? She paused to narrow her eyes, taking the beat to feel something almost seem to add up. It was her brother, but that.. shouldn't be..? She remembered the grief, a great strike of it after a long, slow series of give and mostly take. More than ever, though, that all seemed far away.. like so many other things she could only vaguely make out through the fog.

Is it a dream? was all she could conjure. It must be.. she reasoned next, even as Dacio spoke on. For a moment, all she could do was stare, wide-eyed and trying to make sense of this. Certain that she did not smell the fever, and he was hale, whole... it was as it should have been, she thought. I think I get it.. she settled on, blinking a sheen off her eyes before she could finally close in, giving into the pull and embracing this, what it was. Once more, perhaps she could walk beside him. She was finally able to catch up to him again. “Somehow.. not today,” she answered to dispel his doubts, shaking her head in this haze of disbelief, but letting her own tail sway back. Fondly, she peered up at him. Scars where she remembered, too.

She heaved a sigh of relief, and leaned closer to bump the top of her head against his shoulder--to prove they were as tangible as it truly seemed, for her own sake, too. Her ears, nose, and eyes were not deceiving her. Not right here and now. “I do not know how, but..” she murmured. I thought I lost you... she didn't have the heart to say as she pulled back, away just enough to not crowd his space so terribly. “It seems to be so,” she flashed a rare, true grin despite everything. She had the heart to face this new world going forward.

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