Gilt to Rust I

"Gilt to Rust I" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread written on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
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==Full Text==
Treepelt leaned back in her chair, rubbing her forehead tiredly. “So after all that, they’re still safe?”
“Yes, I was only just with them.”
She sighed and rubbed a few of her fingers together, her claws slipping in and out with a few clicks as they rubbed against the arm of her chair. “I know it’s not anything worse than what I was doing. But gods, I just…I hate to just let them go and run into danger.”
“I understand.” Milae tipped his iron kettle from where it was hanging over the warm hearth of the Arnason’s fireplace and released it with a jangle, seeing that the water was not yet boiling. It was late into the night; the two had been talking for a while. “But they are extremely capable, and they have a…stubborn guardian.”
Tree wrinkled her cat nose. “I suppose.”
A low hum permeated the house and Milae stiffened, half-reaching for the staff leaned up against the wall beside him. A faint noise tickled his long velvet ears, as though someone was stripping linen in half a far distance away, and it was long and drawn-out and echoed. His vision briefly pulsed with psychedelic colors. Then it ended, nothing happened, and he relaxed, trying to catch his breath. It was probably nothing. Many strange things had been happening lately. 
“Besides, with Vox and Dario around to keep an eye on them, nothing will happen to your children any time soon,” he continued.
“…what?”
Milae started to turn around, confusion drawing new lines across his expression. “Vox and Dario, on Haligan, remember?”
He met Tree’s eyes, and his stomach dropped. Where her face had been untouched by anything but age, there was now a long, faded scar stretching from the right side of her chin upwards over her lips and crossing her eye, which was glazed white and filling with hurt, angry tears. She curled a lip and gripped the arms of her chair tightly, her claws digging into the wood. “Do you think this is funny?” she demanded with several emotional cracks in her voice.
Milae was stunned. “I–I didn’t–”
“I don’t know who the Hel Dario is,” she spat, getting to her feet, “but how DARE you come in here and try to play some kind of sick prank like that–”
“Treepelt!”
“–telling me Vox is alive–”
“What are you talking about!?” Milae’s stomach was full of ice, and he grabbed up his staff as she stormed towards him. He stumbled behind the table and she paused, her tail thrashing back and forth. “Vox is still–”
“He’s not!” Tree cried, the tears falling down her face and filling the new crevice in her right cheek. An unnatural shudder went down Milae’s back, and he fumbled for the door behind him. His hoof clunked against the door’s iron handle several times as it shook violently. A sudden suspicion began creeping in, and he finally seized the door, pushing it open behind him. 
“I’m sorry,” he said weakly, and Tree mopped at her face, still full of sorrow and rage.
“I don’t care. Get out.”
And Milae ran. 
Tree sat heavily in her chair, put both her elbows on her knees, and hid her face in her hands as she began to sob. The kettle whistled at a pitch that grew higher and higher in volume, but it went unnoticed.
Milae sprinted through White Hallows until he was several hundred feet outside of town, and he slowed to a walk, clutching his throat as it acted up and he had difficulty breathing for a minute. When he glanced up towards the horizon while trying to inhale hot grass and wet mud and thick, stormy air, he was suddenly entranced by the sight of a flashing light in the distance, similar to the dancing colors of the northern sky. But he could’ve sworn he saw it far closer to the ground than was possible.
There it was again. A shimmering curtain of violet and cyan light, sweeping outwards in front of him like a sheer fabric. 
The goat cautiously approached, and the closer he got, the stronger and more opaque the lights were. They more clearly formed a wall that stretched beyond him without end, and they curved inwards slightly the further he looked, until they were out of his sight. 
Another light caught his eye, and when he looked down, his scars were flashing and shining with the same lights as the wall, almost in tandem. He carefully approached until he was no more than a foot away from the barrier, and stretched out a hoof, comparing the dazzling displays to each other. It was almost blinding, being this close.
Milae reached further. His hoof broke the wall like mist, and he could feel little to no change in experience on the other side. This had to be the answer–or cause–to something. There were no coincidences in his line of work.
He took a deep breath and stepped forward.
Over the warm hearth of the Arnason’s fireplace, the iron kettle ceased whistling as it vanished with a teal flash.
-
Across the ocean, Liam and Kendra sat together up in one of the guard towers, the only sound being the distant wind and crash of the ocean as they conversed silently, as usual. They were halfway through small talk when Liam’s hands suddenly grew still, and his eyes grew unfocused as he appeared to lose his train of thought. Kendra waited a moment before waving a hand in front of his eyes, making him jump and blink several times. Hello, earth to Liam?
Sorry. I thought…hey, listen…this is a random weird question, but…Kendra, who…who is…our dad?
Kendra looked at him funny and raised her hands to answer when she stopped. Her eyes focused on her fingers, which twitched slightly, as though she couldn’t make the right sign. I don’t…I don’t know, she finally said, bewildered.
Are you sure?
Are you sure? she said back, worriedly poking him in the chest as she referred to him. Why are you asking? How did you… She didn’t even know what question to ask.
I just…remembered that I…couldn’t remember…somehow. He swallowed, looking out to sea. He saw a glimmer of light in the horizon, and attributed it to being lightning from the distant stormy clouds, even though it was oddly-colored. Did we know before? Have we ever known?
I don’t know.
People know who their dads are.
Yeah. This is weird.
The siblings were unnerved. We’ll…we’ll ask Nala, Liam finally said, breaking the tension. It’ll be okay.
Kendra smiled weakly at him, but in another flash of the strange light, he saw a brief few tears streak down her cheeks. He reached out to them and hovered his paw over her face, and she touched them and smeared them over her skin, as though surprised at their presence. Liam made a questioning sign, and Kendra shook her head, standing up and making her way back down to the island.
Category:BOTGD 2
Category:Events
Category:Act I
Category:Yun Milae
Category:Treepelt Halfpaw
Category:Kendra Arnason
Category:Liam Arnason