[P] {Fall} Is Every Goodbye a True Goodbye?

[Below Zero]

B e l o w Z e r o

I don't care what they're going to say, let the storm rage on
the cold never bothered me anyway

The emotional meeting was wearing on the poor elder Treader mare. She had been leaning more and more against the strength Sol had to offer, keeping herself standing so she wouldn't fall in weakness before the sheer amount of emotional stress being placed upon her back. But as things smoothed out, as her sister and she talked it out further, and realized both were afraid of the same thing, the strength she drew from the stallion at her side had spurred her into action to embrace the youth before her, her heart panging for the time lost with her sister. She had missed over a year and a half of her sister's maturing, a year and a half in which she wasn't there to explain the changes of biology - to teach her about the vapors and their uses. To teach her how to sing through the waves, and how to use that talent to echo-locate in the dark. To show her the calls to bring dolphins for a game to play. To teach her the ocean isn't scary when you had a Pod at your back. All the things her mother had taught her, and should have taught Polar. Instead, Pol had been abandoned, never learning all those tricks. Never learning what it meant to be Pod.

There was so much that she should have done when their mother had left for Davy that she never got the chance to do. Bel nodded at her sister's words, returning the shaking smile. The entire situation had sucked, it had "Forget swimming into a school of jellyfish, it was crossing territories of a shark. We'll be okay now though, we have each other again, and we can keep moving forward together now. No matter what, you'll have my support in anything you need, anything you do. Look at me, getting as sappy as a damselfish." Bel shook her head with a soft laugh before hugging her sister all the tighter, "Of course we can swim forward from here, there's only open ocean ahead of us, no troubles on the surf." She reassured, before telling the younger Treader about the Novus she called home, promising that no distance would separate.

Polar stepped back at them, and Bel looked towards her little sister, meeting her sister's brilliant lavender eyes - eyes that Bel just now noticed where the same shade as mother, even if her eyes were watery and mother had never cried. Bel nuzzled her sister's cheek gently, "Well, I'm going nowhere fast. Novus is my home, and as long as you're here, neither of us will ever be alone." They would have each other - and any other friends they made along the way. "I never realized before . . . you have mama's eyes . . . ." She added softly after a moment, an almost sad smile touching her muzzle, "I'm sorry there's so much you don't know, even about yourself and Treaders . . . so much you were never taught, you never learned." As if on instinct, the vapors that steamed from Bel's back shifted in temperature, growing warmer and thicker to drape over them almost like humidity, an offering of comfort from the thicker water vapors. "Things mama should have taught you . . . that I should have taken over when she left us." Bel shook her head, clearing the thoughts before brushing her muzzle lightly against her sister's forehead, "It's getting late, however, and I must return to Dusk before it gets too late. We'll meet up again soon, alright. If you need me, sing for me, and I'll come." She promised with a warm smile, before her gaze turned up to Sol, and gave him a weak smile, still emotionally drained from the experience, "You'll walk me home, won't you Sol?" She asked with a hopeful expression, not yet ready to be alone after everything that had happened today, and trusting him to get her home even if she breaks apart on the way there. "Get some sleep, sister; it has been a long swim through rough waters for us . . . I will see you soon. I promise."

"Bel"
Yukime
@Polar North
Notes:: A closer on Bel's side, the poor emotional exhaustion they both must be feeling! x.x