The giant of Donostrea had been thinking about loss a lot lately. About death and sadness and the reason why. It brought him around in a full circle to thinking about his parents. He couldn't explain the pain in his chest, the unexpectedness of it and how it left him short of breath. He hadn't mourned their parents, not as voltage had. In fact, how his brother had broken down had in turn built glacier up. He would not let his brother carry him in a time where he struggled to carry himself. Was it possible that so many seasons later he was just now letting those walls unravel? Unbidden, illume name came to mind. But how could he mourn her without a body? Suddenly, all he could think about was the death of those he had known, what their presences in his life had mean and how it felt to know they could never be there again.

He fled his den, desperate for fresh air. He walked the base of the cliffs, rather then climbing them for once. There was a crumbling remains of clay beneath their favourite cliff that dug out a slippery climb and a niche wide enough for his bulk and leave room yet. The climb wasn't an easy one but the task set his mind off his dwellings for all of a moment. When he reached the top, claws stained brown, he would find the memory hadn't wondered far. What was he suppose to do with the sudden restless energy in his gut? He wanted to walk, he wanted air and space and he couldn't quiet decipher why. He wanted answers, he wanted to know who their parents where and what secrets they had kept and how it had brought about their death in the end. The trail was far too cold now, his thoughts where chasing a pipe dream

Voltage had been resting infront of his den, soaking in the last rays of warmth and resting his body and mind so he might spend a few hours on the cliffs with his sister. He didn't need much sleep, but the past year he had learned the joys of rest. It had been unfamiliar to him for most of his life, and still he couldn't get a decent night sleep because he fidgetted himself awake, or his mind reeled too quickly to allow himself more than a few broken hours. But rest, rest was nice. He could lay still for longer than he had been able to before, and soak in the sun rays. He still moved quickly, his paws continued to fidget and twitch even as he laid there, but it gave him enough rest to recharge so he could spend the hours he needed too with his siblings, with his children, with his family. Each year it grew and grew and it only meant Voltage had to be smarter about his time. But he made it work, he always made it work. He blinked when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and his body moved before he could process it. Subconciously he knew, instantly, that something was wrong with his Big Brother, and he would always go to him. It didn't take long for his mind to catch up, and by then he was halfway to the cliffs, watching as Glacier began climbing along something new. Had that been washed away by the flood? Shaking the curiosity away, he quickly moved along after him, beginning the climb up the muddy thing. "Glace?" He called softly, his voice gentle. Glacier showing such vivid emotion was rare for him, and it was so strong he could almost cry. He was always so intune with his brother, ever since the very first day, that he knew when he was upset by the very twitch of his brow. But this...this was like inhailing the pollen of a flower, the scent so strong and overpowering it nearly knocked you off your face. He managed to pull himself up to the place where his brother perched, shifting to sit near him in the lack of room. Invited or not, Voltage was here. Without a word he'd lay down against Glacier and stare up at him, his eyes soft and lips set in a small frown as he stared. He didn't say another word, his look said it all. Something was wrong, and they would talk about it. They always did. "Burn Baby Burn"

He knew his brother would find him, even if it was not a concious thought,but some instinct some awareness that knew the moment voltage was approaching him. There would be no surprise, only gladness. Somehow, when glacier had climbed up there was room beside him that fit voltage perfectly. He shifted his weight to push gently into his brothers fur, his gaze out into the ocean. Aside from saying his name voltage was silent and he knee his brother was waiting for him to speak.

"I've been thinking lately about our parents. About their secrets. It was always my belief that they kept them to protect us, that they abandoned us, to protect us. Something killed them in the end. Was it their secrets?"the titan let out a soft sigh, knowing he was rambling and knowing also that he didn't want to stop. "I don't want to go on belief anymore. I want to find out our history, what they where hiding from and why they kicked us from our nest. I want to see our old stomping ground, where we grew up the first time" he meant from pup to yearling. "And where we grew up the second time" maturity, learning to fend for themselves. But he didn't believe he needed to explain that to voltage,the one wolf who shared his entire history. Every last moment of it. "I want to see the blossom tree we sheltered in our first night alone. The small mud pond I frightened you in. The place I first found your crescent moon stone. I think. .. I'm getting sentimental in my old age brother dear. But I don't want to leave with any regrets..." he paused, took a breath. "It's all a dream of course, I can't leave them" any of them, voltage,their siblings, his wife and children. "Do you ever wonder what our lives would have looked like if our parents had raised them, raised us?" Thoughts that he would die before speaking in front of any other.

They existed so wholely as two pieces of a single entity. Two hearts, two souls, two unequally sized bodies, but one single thing that even seemingly random places they found managed to fit the two of them perfectly. The universe was kind to them in this way, allowing them to exist in a way that only they could, even as they branched out in their own little families and friends. They would always come back like this, laying together and contemplating the world, falling so insync Voltage wasn't surprised when he felt his breath fall in line with his brothers. He was silent as Glacier spoke, letting him get his thoughts and feelings out in his slow way, feeling the emotion swell between them as he fell to his brother's feelings. He turned contemplative, staring at the slow crashings of the water as his brother spoke of their parents. Stormy eyes slowly shifted to stare up at Glacier, soft and fragile in this place. He blinked at the question and slowly took a breath. "I have..." He whispered tentatively, but it wasn't something he could afford to think about. Voltage felt everything so strongly that he had to be selective on what he allowed himself to think about, and he had allowed himself to mourn their past and their family, just as he had mourned his daughters and Arian. Glacier, however, icy to emotion as he was, hadn't seemed to allow himself that opportunity. So he took another breath and shifted to rest his cheek against his brother's neck. He hadn't thought too much of their parents, of their lot in life since his spring trip a few years ago. "The island is so far away now, it feels like its nothing but an image in the fog." He whispered softly. It was long gone now, untouchable, lost to the time between seconds that he felt like he couldn't reach it anymore. "There's a lot of mystery in our lives, for us especially....but sometimes the answers are not the best things to have." His voice was soft, nearly a whisper above the cold crashing of the ocean beneath them, and he stared out at the horizon. "We have a wonderful life, Glacier. If it weren't for our past and the mysteries our parents kept from us, we wouldn't have this life. We wouldn't have Gaia or Ani, wouldn't have our children. We wouldn't have made a home on the beach, and we would have all probably gone our own ways when we were able too, instead of being forced to leave. I take comfort in knowing that, even though the pain of our parents rejection and abandonment is something I will always feel." He'd tilt his head back to look up at Glacier then. "What if their answers shatter our reality, Glacier. It's fragile, our life. I don't want to see it break..." "Burn Baby Burn"

Glacier hadn't been back since the very first time they had left. Sere and Voltage had both had a chance to see and reminisce, and perhaps that in itself was part of the problem. He might be a little slower to catch on to his emotions, to really feel it, but he was wondering if he might now be in the place the both of them had once encountered. The need for closure, to go back at least once in their lives.

He listened to Voltage had he said his own thoughts on the matter, as he spoke about their future and how the answers might not be that important. But did Glacier really want to spend the rest of his life wondering and never knowing? From the first day they had been kicked out into the cold Glacier had always known that he would know why someday. The reason for everything their parents had always done, because there would be a reason. The idea that he would never find the answer... it astounded him, it left him speechless, it shook his belief of reality.

Glacier shook his head slowly as Voltage finished speaking.
“I think that well it is a part of ourselves, a part of our legacy, and well I hope to be able to pass on the full story of our lives and how our family came to be, to our children one day – and our children's children, I also think that it is in the past, and I do not believe it could hurt us now” he said softly, wondering if his brother might better be able to make sense of the emotions that flooded Glacier now. The curiosity and longing and sentiment, and whatever else made up the strange cocktail that buzzed though his skin.

Voltage just breathed in the warm air, closing his eyes as he relaxed against his brother. Resting. Easily resting. He knew Glacier wouldn't accept his words so easily. If there was a singular truth about the two Elementas, it was that they were insanely stubborn. It was how they had survived, too stubborn to feel sorry for themselves when they were tossed out into the world. It was how they lived, too stubborn to let their family go. Stubborn stubborn, but oddly less so with each other. They were always so intuned with one another that there was little to be stubborn about, but things like this, hurt and emotion, were those things. Voltage knew Glacier was a reality kind of person. He believed in truth and fact, Voltage believed in stories and emotion. Perhaps that was why he felt differently about the loose ends left behind. They were mystery, and still they were stories. They were their past and Voltage accepted them whole heartedly. Slowly he opened his eyes again as Glacier spoke and he just breathed in the air, the scent, the emotion. He soaked in it, in a rare way he didn't get too often. Glacier was always the one he could lean again, discussing his emotions and his feelings and his fears, and it wasn't often that he got to do it for Glacier. Though, he still was doing the leaning, wasn't he? "There are truths in stories." He whispered softly. "Maybe our family, maybe the future generations...maybe they don't need factual he-was-here-when type stories. Maybe they don't need history." He'd lift his eyes to the horizon, as the first star spotted in the darkening sky. "Maybe we just need our stories, our truths, the ones we decided were true." He murmured softly, closing his eyes again. "Do you want to go back? You could make a trip...it's not too far if you walk all day. A few days at best." He shrugged his shoulder. "There's nothing, though. Our tree is vibrant, our homes untouched...our parents buried outside of their den. The answers waiting on ghost's silent lips." It was a hard truth, but perhaps one that might help Glacier understand that he might not get to understand and that was okay. "Burn Baby Burn"

There was something about not knowing that had always bothered Glacier, and a different way to how Voltage had seen it – to him, they had been kicked out, and for a long time he had hated their parents for it. For Glacier, there was a reason, and the knowledge that there would be logic behind their action, and one day he would be old enough to understand it. He was old now, too old, he was going to become an old man and never find the answers that he had once accepted as a fact that he would know one day.

Perhaps Voltage was right, perhaps it wouldn't matter down the line to know, to have a time line and laid out facts, all neat and orderly. After all, all of them had survived off the stories Voltage had told them about their heritage, their elements. It had become them, it had defined them, and for that he would be forever grateful for his emotional brother.

He offered for Voltage to go, and his breath drew in more slowly, more hesitantly. Did Voltage know that his words where a temptation? He made it sound so simple, a hop skip and a jump and he would be there and back again. It was only a few days, but a lot could happen in so little amount of time. Their world could end, and Glacier might not know it until he returned. They could be raided or besieged, they could lose a member... they could lose a child. How could Glacier ever leave them? He had held his breath, and it left him now, a long, tired exhale, one that took with his wishes and left him with reality. “Nothing is certain” he said softly. Not the answers he needed, not the safety of his world.

"speech"

Voltage rested against his brother gently, his brows stitching together. He hated not being able to give him what he needed. They had always been able to provide for the other, everything that was needed. Food, a shelter, some kind words, and all the answers for all their questions. But this answer, this one, they could never find, never give each other. For Voltage, he had come to terms with it. He understood that they would never know the reason for their parents action, for those reasons died with their parents. He opened his eyes to look up at Glacier, feeling him hold his breath before letting it go. Ears pulled back slightly, slowly, before he, too, sighed softly into the wind. "What fun would life be if we knew everything." He said with a gentle smile. "If we knew every answer to every question. It would save us some heartache, sure. I would have known to keep Illie and Current away from the ocean on that day, we would have known what to say to keep Arcus home. We would have been able to help Caeli better through her journey. But we would also know everything, every little surprise. We would have known Ani and Gaia before they ever fell into our lives, and we wouldn't have been able to enjoy the feeling of falling in love." He said softly, staring out at the water. "A little mystery in our lives is never a terrible thing. What if it isn't some big mysterious reason that we were sent away from our home. What if our parents just wanted us out so they can have more and more children? How would we feel then? Or what if it is some big mystery, and by uncovering it we put our family in jeopardy..." He whispered softly, sighing. He didn't know how to help Glacier, for once. So he just stared out at the water, watching the waves crash onto itself. "Nothing is certain, but we have to take comfort in what we have. And Glacier." He whispered, looking up at him with a bright smile on his lips. "No matter what happens, or what we have gone through. No matter if our parents never wanted us, or were trying to protect us...We always and will always have each other." "Burn Baby Burn"