Night was falling, and Quyen had been relieved of her duties for the day. As she walked back to the part of the oasis where her family made its little home, the Lyra stretched her wings. Wings she'd seldom, if ever, had reason to use. Sure, her mate and children were happy to fly. But Quyen had never really been happy to have her wings. Much as she'd never liked her own haircut, her skin tone, or the hat that her parents had plopped on her head. It all reminded her too much of Chris, her father. Who hadn't really been a good man of the family.
But now was not a time to spoil with thoughts of Chris. This was a better time to think of her mother, Kim, who had been such a wonderful mother. Sure, Quyen idealized her mother a bit, but Chris had never seemed good enough for the sweet, beautiful, loyal Nova. If Chris had been the sun, Kim had been the moon, and Quyen loved the moon and the night. Honestly, she wished she took after her mother more. Especially when it had come to her own son, Tahmid.
Oh, Tahmid. Tahmid, who'd followed in Chris' hoofprints, only with less grace. Not even pretending to commit to the caring Arcturus mare who'd given birth to his children. Not only was the poor mare so hurt that she joined Quyen as the queen's bodyguard, but Quyen herself was hurt. What had Quyen done so wrong that Tahmid would do this? Or...had Chris left some kind of curse on the stallions of her family? She didn't remember her brother Tam being like this, and her mate, Diya, certainly wasn't like this. As for Tahmid's children...to be frank, Quyen didn't know them all that well. Not that any of them had made the effort to socialize with their grandparents, either.
The family was broken, as usual, and didn't seem to be making any strides toward getting better. And that hurt. Perhaps, more than wanting to be free of the seeming curse of her father, Quyen just wanted to be surrounded by a happy, loving family. Underneath all the frustration with stallions that had built up over the years, especially stallions she was genetically related to.
She was almost on top of him by the time she noticed him. Madhu. Her eldest grandchild. Underneath markings inherited from his mother, he had the pale skin and dark, straight hair of her mother, no Lyra wings, and some of the jewelry she'd specially arranged for her grandchildren to have: jade, with red silk and tassels, and a bead that looked like the crescent moon. Madhu bore so few of Chris' traits that, despite his eerie similarity to Tahmid, he still took strongest after Kim. Quyen paused, uncertain of how to interact with her grandson, ducking her head beneath Chris' cap, hating herself and her lukewarm attitude toward the poor, fatherless stallion of her blood, just as much as she hated Chris and Tahmid for never being there for their families.
Ice_Dragon_Demon
Madhu didn't know much about his family, at least from his father's side. he was primarily raised by his mother Braith. His father well... he did his best to avoid him. Well his dad didn't really care much for him, he'd met him once and... yeah. Madhu was somewhat smaller than usual due to his arion blood he was partially shrunk, it was probably not a good idea to walk around like that but it made him feel better. He didn't like drawing too much attention to himself. he glanced around, not seeing anyone but much to his streak of bad luck. His grandmother had nearly toppled over him. He made himself a little bigger his earls lowered submissively.
