Gale
run away with me--
lost souls and reverie
running wild and running free
Curiousity, she says, and there is no fault in such a reason. This island is a wonder even to those who have not heard of the place, and even those he has told or even shown always seem to doubt their eyes at first arriving. The black beaches, turquoise sea, and jewel-toned plant life are inordinately pleasing to the eye, and if she had come simply to look at them for a few moments he would understand.
But surely she had not come all this way from Hyaline just to look.
She is thirsty, and Gale turns to lead her toward the nearby stream, gesturing with the long primaries of a half-furled wing in the direction of the water. It is broader this time of year than any other, still fed by the last of the winter rainfall, and runs out from the purple and yellow forest toward the sea, creating rivulets in the sand where he pauses near a depression large enough to drink from. There are better places farther upstream, but this is the nearest, and Gale has enough memory of extreme heat to appreciate a rapid quenching of thirst over a prolonged but more appetizing one.
“My name is Gale,” he tells her following a short sip of his own. The water is lukewarm, the most common temperature on Islandres, and one that the brindle stallion is fond of. “The pack?” He asks curiously, the familiar word lost in the strange context? She uses it like one might ‘family’, and perhaps it is much the same as his winged kin refer to their resting places as ‘nests’. The golden mare might be more than she seems, Gale thinks, though there is nothing about her that looks non-equine.
He makes sure, watching while he waits for her to finish drinking. He says nothing, not until she comments on the length of her travels.
“I’ve not been to Hyaline,” he tells her. “At least not from the ground.” Nor from anywhere too close in the sky, he thinks but does not say. Though the mountainous land is like most, filled primarily with terrestrial creatures, there had been shapes in the sky, lean quick creatures that the brindle had no intent of crossing lest their share too much with their Pangean kin.
“There are a great many curious things here,” he tells her, thinking of and then mentioning the black animal life that lives beneath the chromatic spectrum of the native plants. “I’d suggest the volcano for biggest ‘wow’ factor but it’d take a while to get there.” He is thinking of the path through the island, on foot through the more populated areas, or the longer (but arguably more picturesque) walk along the western shore with Tephra’s sister peak rising on the distant horizon.
Gale does not like to be away from home for longer than he must, so he asks: “How long were you wanting to stay? There are nearer things I might show you, or give direction to if you prefer to explore alone.” The pegasus likes this place for its solitude, after all, and some things are best alone for the brindle introvert.
@[breach]
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