#rayla's pride

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The Youth Guides

Long Live the Kings AU

Idk man I don't know what to title this, here you go

Meeting the elves' mounts had gone better than Callum originally hoped. He'd never been great with horses, but the shadowpaw Rayla led over to him - Astari - purred just like the palace cats and knelt on her front paws to let him climb onto her fluffy back. Hadan lifted Ezran up in front of him, too, and the cat didn't seem the slightest bit bothered by having two unfamiliar riders.

Sneaking out of the village was a lengthy affair. Rayla and Sirius led the group, with Sirius rapidly weaving illusions to hide them from the village guards at turns. Rayla led them in a wide arc around an area she only said they didn't want to be caught in, and they moved alongside of a path rather than on it outside the village.

With how much time that had taken to stay undetected, silent, it was well after dawn before they reached the edge of the trees. Vela reined her cat to a stop there, squinting out at the light. The other elves all stopped too, and the shadowpaw Callum was riding stopped without any signal from him. "Are we ready?" The woman asked.

Sirius' ears were tilted back and his smile was a bit nervous. "I've just realized this is the farthest I've ever been from home," He admitted.

Hadan shot him a reassuring look. "It's not as scary as it seems," He promised. "My mother took me to visit the Uncharted Forest once a few years ago. The rest of the world isn't as . . . tricksome as Moonshadow Forest."

"Wait," Callum said with a blink, looking around at the elves. "Have most of you guys never left Moonshadow Forest before? It's so small."

Sirius winced, his ears laying back further, and Rayla glowered, wrinkling her nose like an annoyed kitten. Vela shrugged, though her ears were lying off to the sides a bit too, and Hadan sighed as Altari cleared his throat. "The rest of Xadia isn't the friendliest towards our kind," The white-horned young man said after a moment. "So no, most of us don't bother going too far beyond the tree line."

"It isn't safe," Vela concluded with a shrug, rubbing the back of her neck. "We've got a bit of a reputation, and most elves are a bit uncomfortable around us."

"They're afraid," Hadan corrected, with a tone Callum could only take as resigned.

"It'll serve us well enough to get these two through Xadia without interruption if most people are too afraid of us to talk," Altari pointed out.

Rayla glanced over her shoulder. "We should probably get goin'," She said. "Runaan's definitely noticed Shinx is missin' by now." She patted the neck of the moonstrider she rode, the foxlike creature giving a chirp at her name.

"Right."

"Last chance to turn back." Hadan said.

Sirius smiled weakly at him. "I think we passed last chance to back out when Rayla stole Shinx and Astari. Let's go." He urged his shadowpaw into motion, and the other elves followed suit. Hadan took the lead, as he was the one who knew where they were going.

Ezran found himself grateful they had made new friends on this mission. He and Callum had been traveling light and having to sleep on the cold ground, but the elves brought proper bedrolls and tents. They pitched a full camp to sleep in when night fell, hidden in a copse of trees on the plains.

Vela had also had the foresight to bring extra tents, though Ezran was privately grateful Callum insisted they share one. He didn't like the idea of sleeping completely alone, too used to his bedroom sharing a wall with Callum where he could go curl up with his brother if he woke up from a nightmare. Here in the strange new environment of Xadia, it was a nice comfort to just cuddle with Callum to begin with.

As they all shared some of the fruit the elves had brought as provisions before going to bed, Ezran peeked curiously at their differing horns again and asked a question that had been bothering him since he met them. "How come some of you have those lines on your horns, and Rayla and Sirius don't? Everyone we saw in the village had them too."

"They're paint," Hadan replied with a little reassuring smile, though Sirius and Rayla looked startled at the question. "The lines are patterns we had drawn as a coming of age. We pick the color and the design. Parents are usually the ones to actually apply them. Rayla an' Sirius are just a little younger than the rest of us, haven't had their staining ceremonies yet."

"Though I hear Rayla's is coming up soon," Vela piped up with a proud smile at her friend.

Rayla straightened up proudly like Soren did whenever someone complimented him. "Yeah! I've already decided on a color an' everythin'."

"Let me guess - pink?" Sirius said with a grin.

She shoved him, rolling her eyes as she visibly fought a smile. "What if it is?"

"Oh, I can't imagine why it would be pink," Sirius moaned dramatically, flopping over as if her shove had knocked him out of his seat. "It isn't as though Runaan's are pink or anything."

"Shut up." Rayla threw a berry at him and he just rolled over to catch it and popped it in his mouth, righting himself with a smug little smirk. "Anyway, maybe I also just like pink."

"That's cute." Callum said, though he looked embarrassed when Ezran glanced at him for some reason.

"I think mine will be blue," Sirius mused. "My sister's are blue too. Mom's are purple, though, and I . . . don't remember what color my father used." He shrugged sadly. "I think blue, though, and that's why Andromeda uses it."

Altari cleared his throat. "Blue's a good choice."

"Very," Hadan agreed, idly touching his own horns with their blue stains and lines.

Ezran tilted his head at Altari. "So how come yours are different, Altari? Is the white a paint too?"

Altari wrinkled his nose. "Unfortunately, no. I'm sick." He waved a hand dismissively in the air. "Always have been. My body doesn't make enough of some of the things it's supposed to for horn development - and color. I know enough about what to eat now that they don't break like they used to, but the color's never going to come in at this point. I've learned to enjoy the attention."

"Thank the Moon they don't," Hadan said with a grimace. "My head hurt just lookin' at you sometimes when we were kids."

"Wasn't exactly a walk in the square for me either," Altari quipped back, reaching up to trace his own horns idly.

"What happens to you guys if you break your horns?" Callum asked. "I mean, I can't tell, so I guess they just grow back?"

The elves exchanged glances and Hadan huffed and chose to explain. "From a minor break, yes. The tips don't have any feelin' or living tissue left, so it's not even that painful to carve the very tips out for jewelry if you like. But broken horns make it easier for the rest of the horn to split, an' lower down, they're still alive. It's not flesh, exactly, but it's like bone, and they attach to the skull. The deeper the break, the more serious it gets."

"Splits are the worst," Rayla said with some amount of relish though Ezran's stomach was twisting uncomfortably from even Hadan's gentle description. "If they split far enough down, they can split your whole head open - an' that's if you don't bleed out first."

"Rayla!" Vela and Sirius both cut her off, scandalized.

Sirius was the one who continued, as Vela looked vaguely ill. "You don't have to get graphic in front of the child, Rayla."

"In my case, the frequent breaks led to my horns developing . . ." Altari interrupted, and Ezran looked to him, grateful for the distraction as Rayla and Sirius began to bicker more quietly. The white-horned youth gestured at his own head. "A bit oversized for my age. Though they might just stunt now, it's too early to be sure. Growth slows down quite a bit after they sharpen."

Ezran tilted his head as he put it together. "So that means when you're little you have little horn nubs like baby deer?"

"Something like that," Vela said.

Ezran couldn't help but coo at the mental image. "Oh, that's so cute! I love little horn nubs!"

"Oh, I know," Sirius completely broke off his argument with Rayla to enthuse, beaming back at Ezran. "Elflings with their little bumps are so cute. I get excited whenever my sister brings a rotation of Mooncubs to visit, they're adorable. Once I've had my staining I'm signing up too."

Hadan was smiling softly at his friend when he commented, "I think Sirius and I both want to have kids one day."

"Definitely."

Altari and Vela both shrugged. "I don't think I will," Altari said, looking up at the moon through the trees. "I don't love the idea anyway, and with my condition being what it is, likely best I don't pass it on."

That brought Ezran's mind back around to Altari's original explanation and he clasped his hands together sympathetically. "Our dad says that too," he said quietly. "That he was scared Callum would end up sick like him."

Callum winced, looking down at the ground, and Altari glanced at each of them with his eyes going a little softer. "I'm not above admitting that's part of why I was moved to help."

"I had a feeling." Vela sighed. "Should we keep watches tonight?"

"We're outside the village, the answer is yes." Rayla replied, stretching as they all seemed to move past the moment of vulnerability. The elves didn't seem to like living in those moments, though it made Ezran frown a little to himself. He preferred to pause stay in moments like that, especially if they felt like good connections like this one.

Sirius put a hand on his shoulder. "I think we can let Ezran sleep through. Callum can join the rotation though."

Callum sat up straighter and his eyes shone at being included. Ezran frowned a little, offended, but . . . he really was sleepy. He could argue another night. For now, he let the elves discuss watch times with Callum and crawled into the bedroll they'd provided to cuddle with Bait and finally give in to sleep.

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Rayla's Pride

I have headcanons about Rayla's pride of mooncubs (as in the pride she was a part of as a cub) and I'm consolidating them here so I have a post to reference their names.

Sirius: A young mage, the younger brother of assassin Andromeda (son of the late assassin Alcor). He was planning on becoming an assassin as well until Alcor died and he realized that would leave their mother (Miraa) alone. He's a compassionate sort much like Rayla, and most of their pride shares a love for musical games/singing together (he's a tenor). He's an illusionist who likes playing with what amounts to magic tricks, sparkling things to entertain children, and will likely become a teacher. He's the same age as Rayla, though his birthday is just over a month after hers in September.

Vela: A sharp young woman who's on a path to becoming a Forest Guide. Her elder cousin Vega is Ethari's apprentice (post-Runaan's supposed death). She's a year older than Rayla and Sirius and notably larger than either of them, built along thicker lines that speak to other elven blood somewhere in her family history though both of her parents are Moonshadow. She's got way less anxiety than Rayla and is fairly comfortable in her own skin and who she is. Forest Guides are essentially scout-guards who make sure the paths between villages in Moonshadow Forest are still clear and safe, and guide people down them to avoid any incidents with the more run of the mill menaces of the forest.

Hadan: A unique case of a rare Earthblood woman marrying into a Moonshadow family. He's Moonshadow (arcana don't mix even if the parents don't match, and children identify by arcana not blood), but built with the broad mass of a Drake Rider and with much more sharply curved horns than most in Moonshadow Forest. He's often quiet, relying on sheer presence and intimidation to do his fighting for him, but he's very capable and definitely plans to become a village guard. He also figured out several years before Sirius did that they were gay for each other and just kept his mouth shut and waited for Sirius to notice too. Part of it was nerves but increasingly as time went on he just wanted to know how long it was going to take. (seven years)

Altari: A bit of a himbo, Soren reminds Rayla of him. He's loud for a Moonshadow elf, a bit boisterous, and most likely to become an entertainer though he has personal dreams of being a teacher one day. He's overwhelmingly friendly to a point that he gets burned really easily when people don't return his energy, and his whole Pride is a bit protective of him as a result. Hadan often jokes that he somehow managed to steal the Earthblood hospitality despite the two being unrelated to each other (and Hadan's Earthblood ancestry is anything but hospitable).

(Bonus: Go listen to Pentatonix "Come Along" and imagine these five darting around the dangerous shadows of the haunted/illusion plagued Moonshadow Forest singing that together. Absolutely terrifying, they contribute to why their neighbors are afraid of them.)

(fic specific ages under the cut)

Different Path Taken: Sirius and Rayla are both 15, Vela and Altari are 16, and Hadan is 17. Rayla is starting her adult career at this point, and Vela has been a full-fledged Forest Guide for a year already. Altari and Sirius' apprenticeships started later in their lives, and so they're still apprentices. Hadan is also officially a village guard already.

Long Live The Kings: while the fic largely takes place in the same year, it's earlier in the year. Rayla and Sirius are still 14. Vela and Hadan are both 16, but Altari is 15. Rayla isn't a full fledged assassin yet; she and Sirius are still waiting for their staining ceremonies/coming of age ceremonies and aren't considered adults yet though the rest of their pride are.

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Idk if you’ve seen/listened to Wicked but “Dancing Through Life” gives total Altari vibes. Especially the movie version, which starts with “I see the responsibility to corrupt my classmates has fallen to me”

Oh boy, you could not be much more off the mark if you tried 😂 Yes, he's a bit of a prankster who enjoys encouraging a bit of chaos in the youths of the Silvergrove, but he's far from "brainless" and "thoughtless". He's in fact pretty clever - he's the one who called Hadan out for being too curious, he's the one that was sharp enough to look deeper into why Callum and Ezran were there, he's the one who questioned why outsiders would be in Moonshadow Forest without knowing the danger. He's not choosing not to think, he's choosing to put his considerable intelligence towards making life interesting, and Moonshadow Elves have a high regard for trickery in the doing. His vibe is more Hermes from Epic: The Musical ("Wouldn't You Like" is the best song to get a feel for that).

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If Altari’s horns are more brittle than average, has he ever had a breakage? Either a tip snapping off or something more serious like a crack further down

He definitely lost the tips a time or two when he was young and freaked his parents out with it, that's part of why they were digging for answers about what was going on with him as a child. He had them split from the cracked tips once (each, though not at the same time) too, which was Way more dangerous, but he healed from it all right. Actually (me spinning lore out of nowhere) that might be why his horns ended up oversized, as they were dealing with a lot of healing over when they were initially growing, which made them really bulky. His father used to joke he should get married young so his horn cuffs would protect him from worse damage (as we see Runaan's do in the show), though Altari brushed it off at the time. He's never had a crack form lower on the horns, though, and he's pretty careful with them now.

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Are there any fun miscellaneous facts about the pride that you can share? Like hobbies, random quirks, experiences, etc.

This gives me an excellent excuse to ramble about them and figure some stuff out, so sure.

Hadan and Sirius are both gay, but Hadan figured it out like seven years before Sirius did. By the time they were 17 and 15, respectively, Hadan had realized that they were both gay and had feelings for each other, but Sirius was a bit younger and distracted with all the shit going on in his life and didn't know. Hadan had a moment in his teens of wondering if he liked men in general or just Sirius, and ended up coming to the conclusion that in theory, he likes men. He just developed feelings for Sirius really young, and decided he'd just be patient until Sirius was ready for all that. It got increasingly funny to him over time, because it wasn't like Sirius was getting interested in other people - he just was Not Noticing how much he and Hadan were acting like a couple for several years straight.

Vela realized around the same time as Hadan came to that conclusion that she didn't really have interest in anyone like that. She's a really ride-or-die friend, so she was usually down for whatever chaos Altari, Rayla, and Hadan were causing when they were kids. She and Altari are the two of the pride that care about their appearance the most; though she doesn't have his vanity, she likes bright purples and standing out. She's really close with her parents, and while she likes having her hair mostly short, she leaves long sections at her temples so that she can wear them in tiny braids they put in for her. She's an adventurous type with an excellent sense of direction and navigation, which means she and Rayla (with Hadan as a decently close second) are the best leaders when it comes to getting through Moonshadow Forest off the beaten path. Dance is important to all Moonshadow elves but it's more than ceremony for her, it's one of her favorite activities. She plays by dancing, which works out as most of her pride also enjoys it all, though not as much as she does. Actually, she considered going into becoming a ceremonial dancer as her job, but she decided to keep it as a hobby to maintain how fun it is, instead of risking burning out on it.

Vela's parents I don't have names for, and I think they were a fairly traditional het couple in the Silvergrove. Her mom was a gardener while her dad was a gatherer; they really don't know where she got her adventurous streak from. They're often exhausted by her sheer energy, though they adore her.

Sirius was actually in training to become an assassin for a while when he and Rayla were young too. At some point in his life (varying by AU, always after his father's death, after Andromeda's in canon) he had a pause and think about what that duty meant. And how if he and Andromeda both died, it would leave their mother alone in the world. He didn't want her to suffer like that, and he'd always been interested in magic as well, so he left training as an assassin to become a mage instead. He's also incredibly loyal, and has a soft heart that would have led to him leaving the assassins' guild later in life anyway. He's not much taller than his sister as an adult. He's fond of kids and finds his passion in being a children's entertainer via his illusions as an adult.

As a kid, Hadan and Rayla were both real reckless. He grew up with two moms; his Moonshadow mother from whom he inherited his arcanum was trans but opted to stick with social transition and not seek a magical one. I'm thinking her name was Maien (derived from the night elf character Maiev, if anyone's curious, though she's nothing like Maiev in personality). She was loud and gregarious for a Moonshadow elf, and was one of the few Moonshadow who actually took time to explore outside the forest in her youth. She met Virga, his Earthblood mom, at Moonshadow Market one year, and stepped in to defend her from the men she was traveling with (the Drake Riders are uh, a pretty misogynistic society. Not all Earthblood are like that, but it's a problem with them, and the Moonshadow being historically matriarchal they take special offense to this behavior). Virga ended up opting not to leave with them, and Maien offered her a place to stay - classic knight in shining armor trope. Now Virga is a bit of a homebody (Moonshadow Forest isn't kind in general, but especially to those who don't know it's magic) who tends a pretty elaborate garden. She often shakes her head about how Hadan is a lot like his other mom and Virga's own brother (who was one of the only men in her life that she actually misses, as he was actually at least kind to her, though he participated in the culture that oppressed her). Hadan has a temper and as a kid had a habit of picking fights, but he developed that into a protective streak and tried really hard to be Responsible:tm: for a bit after becoming a Guard of the village. He'll relax with a little more time and get a bit arrogant/reckless again, though never as bad as he was when he was younger.

Altari is one of the sharpest young minds in the Silvergrove, though some lament how he chooses to use it to be the local trickster cryptid. He's the type of introvert who uses flashiness and performance to distract from how reserved he is about anything regarding his actual person. He's a smartass, a dancer, and a showoff with a vain and arrogant streak, but he's also actually pretty shy under it all. He's got a softer inside and a gentle streak for the kids, but only his pride really knows the deeper parts of him. His parents were both older mages and he was a bit of a surprise to them. They were about ready to pass on before they had him and held on basically for his sake for his childhood; his grief in Long Live The Kings is because they wandered into the forest together and never came back fairly recently, since he was grown to handle himself. He's a bit unique on top of that as he has an illness I haven't named yet that results in his horns being bright white and rather brittle though they're oversized for his age. Virga was the one who figured out when he was young that he had an imbalance and he could manage his other symptoms (he used to have a lot of unexplained aches and pains, and fatigue to the point of narcolepsy) by adjusting his diet, but he can't fix the pigmentation of his horns.

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I believe it was mentioned that Altari has some kind of vitiligo or other pigmenting problem in his horns—did he stain them anyway to make them vibrant or was he just like “white horns are My Thing now”

The staining ceremony is a really important coming of age thing for Moonshadow elves, he definitely didn't skip it. That said, he chose to stain them blue, which does make the whites of his hair and horns stand out as more intense even though they're not. He didn't know that would happen but he's cool with it. Staining isn't really a strong color dye - every Moonshadow elf we see in the show for example has visibly brown horns, just with a faint tinge of some other color on top, stronger in the "wood grain" type lines (which the kids don't generally seem to have, outside of that one sketch of Rayla). So it's still visible that his horns are white under the staining.

I'm still deciding for sure if his horns are white due to a pigmentation disorder like leucism or vitiligo or a nutrition imbalance like a phosphorous or calcium surplus (both of which can lead to paler or white antlers in deer). That said, it's looking like whatever I land on does have more implications for him than just a lack of color. Either his horns are unnaturally hard (and probably excessively heavy), brittle, or they're soft and easily damaged. If it's a nutrition issue he probably has other symptoms as well.