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[nelithic]

He'd traded words with an Emblem once, admitted something at the tail end of their exchange regarding siblings. A belief that he truly meant- that he well and truly believed. 'Elder siblings are not the only ones who care.'

Stalking the docks- searching for his older sister with a grim expression that staved off strangers in a sweeping radius- that opinion clung tightly to the truth. He pushed past the men and women going one way with single-minded focus. Rafal stuck out. Rafal didn't care. He thought about transforming and scouting for her from the air just to make the search quicker, and only vanquished the thought at Nel's sighting.

"Here you are, sister." An angry furrow cleaved the space his brows even before he approached her. So easily sprung up at any annoyance. At this juncture it was a signal of something deeper; worry and distress. Nel hadn't been on his ship. Word of major assignments to different continents flooded his ears instead. It was easy to connect the dots.

"You are on a different ship. Did you tell them it was a mistake?"

But it wasn't a mistake. He knew that. His shoulders tensed preemptively with the burden of that knowledge, wanting to erase it. Wanting to change the rules. Rafal had promised to be her brother to him, to her, and to himself, and he had meant it.

A frustrated sound whistling sharply through his nose, he dragged his fingers through his hair. ". . .No matter. I can simply accompany your ship. I can fly if I have to—if there isn't room for another passenger. If they intend to stop me they may contend with my fangs."

chance was the word the weak used to explain the planning of the strong — so had it often been said in gradlon, land of their origin. whatever opinion one may hold on such a maxim, it is what occurs to her curiously now as a pale, stormy twin pushes his way through the milling crowds towards her. despite his thunderous expression, nel's loses a fraction of its own with relief. before she can say, however, that she had been searching the docks for him as well and so his finding her here was not only owed to coincidence, he launches into accusation: more and more familiar now since he had shed his skin as nil, but still yet an adjustment from the meek and compliant temperament she had known for centuries.

yet there are certain things that remain the same. a frenetic energy beneath the outburst that speaks to its root. she finds a smile touching her lips whilst he rails, for what greater comfort can there be to a fraught fell dragon, ever mindful of her other half's safety, than to know that the desire to remain at one another's side is returned in full?

it eases the part of her that had, for a moment in time once, feared— doubted— that his triumphant rejection of her after the shell of nil had been sundered was not so made of flagrant display as she had adamantly believed. in the clutch of that urgency at the fall of a world, it was all she had had to believe, and so she had clung to it then with an unshakeable tenacity and a willful denial of any other truth ironically befitting of sombron's once-favored heir.

she is remitted for it now, in each moment like this one.

"you know as i do that that is not an option, rafal," comes her anticipated, staid reply — stone to curb his agitated flame. "you must have heard that my destination is hostile to our kind. i would not tolerate you putting yourself at risk." a quick headshake. "and before you ask — i will be careful."

quiet gaze returns to his, garnet to garnet matching, and with the disquieted shadows of his face and figure to the waiting background of large ships moored for imminent sail, there comes an undeniable pang in her chest. were they somewhere quiet and alone together, she would perhaps transform and enfold him in the microcosmic blue of her wings in an embrace that had always come more naturally than those of this smaller and somehow inadequate form. instead, she only takes his hand, holds it firmly as though she intends to lead him somewhere as she always has.

"i understand how you feel. to be separated when you have waited a thousand years is indeed cruel beyond words. i am also pained that i cannot watch and protect you as well, as i have since we were nestlings. it will be the first time we have taken long missions apart. i trust you will return to me safely."

a statement, not a request. at the fall of a wholly different kind of world, it remains still an adamant belief — a willful denial of any other truth.