I kept my hope just like I hoped to // MARBLE

[Rhaegor]

I kept my hope just like i'd hoped to
then sang to the sea for feelings deep blue

Enough is enough! He'd listened and listened to Will ramble about her sleep overs in Tephra - enabled of course by her COMPLETELY unfair magic, the little brat - and now, now it's his turn to go have fun. Well, it would be fun eventually; but the beginning part has him feeling a little nervous. He'd have to cross the ocean for the first time - by wing of course - and none of his siblings have wings, so they can't join him, and since Mothers are having a fight right now, Solace can't come because she has to stay and watch Hyaline. Which he understands - of course he understands - but still, it's a big trip, and he's so little.

Well, not exactly true again. Him and Will and Koko are nearing six months of age, all of them ever more gangly with each new sunrise, and always squabling more and more and more until Mothers are so exhasperated, that they put them all to bed in different caves along the mountainside. Go figure! Even little Rhaegor has raised his voice once or twice in petty anger towards his siblings, though what he got in trouble for far more often was his bite. Oh, and for shooting his siblings with searing light beams. That is particularly frowned upon.

But anyway! He's not gotten into trouble yet today, and it's morning, and it's time to head out. He presses quick goodbye kisses to his triplet's cheeks, and then scurries to where Mother stands at the entrance of the cave. "Wish me luck on my flight mother!" Comes the boy's whispy, excited voice. Solace looks down distractedly, mind obviously snagged elsewhere; she murmurs something offbeat, lips lowering to toy absently with Rhae's forelock. Unsettled by this, the little pegasus pushes her off and stares her in the eyes, forcing her to pay attention. "She will be back soon mother. Okay? I love you." This time, Solace's smile is more sincere; and she wishes him a proper goodbye, watching with big, blue eyes as her middle child takes off towards the east.

The journey itself goes well, or well enough at least. For the first part, the little buckskin gleefully darts through low-hanging clouds, and laughingly chases behind flocks of geese as they migrate to the warmer of Beqanna's coast in light of the coming winter. By the time Ischia has fallen behind him though, Rhaegor's flying has taken on a more somber disposition. He's realized that he'll have to reserve his energy if he wants to actually explore Tephra upon arriving there, instead of just collapsing into a sleep so deep that Will would probably be there by the time he awoke, which would ruin everything. So, a little more slowly than he intended, Rhaegor makes his way to Tephra, eventually landing on its ashy western beach.

Feeling a bit like an imposter, Rhae tucks his wings quickly to his side, and skitters closer to the forest. A grumble from his stomach overrides any plans he'd had of hiding, and as he reaches the grass, he leans down as if to snatch a bite for the ride...  But then, without meaning to, he's suddenly grazing Tephra's field as if he owns the place.

Rhaegor

[marble]

By no means does she claim to know every horse that calls Tephra home, but she is certain she does not know the winged boy who landed in their meadow a short while ago. Nor does she know why she stayed to watch him graze. Despite her lineage, she has never much cared for meeting those who enter the kingdom - has certainly never cared for making friends. But this boy seems almost familiar somehow, like she knows him. Knows of him? It is so hard to be sure though, so hard with all the thoughts that swirl rampant in the dark turmoil of her mind.

There are so many things clamoring for her attention now. Worrying about her father and the way his lips seemed stained in crimson now, the way their grotto stinks of death and copper so bad she can hardly enter without feeling her stomach churn. Worrying about her mother who has never left his side, about what will happen if she has to. If they all have to. She flinches at that, eyes closed and face turned into the wind as though it will force these thoughts away from her. She should go somewhere, do something, help if she can (even though she knows she can’t). Should find a better way to force her mind quiet, to find blissful numbness.

Still, she stays.

She is guardedly curious now - though, she won’t admit it. Wonders why no one has come to greet him, why he has not moved on from her meadow. So she watches from her perch halfway up the volcano, standing on rock worn smooth by her hooves waiting for something, anything to happen.

But nothing does.

So she unfurls her wings, large and pale and impossibly soft, waits until she can feel the wind shifting between each feather with the cold caress of winter. Waits a little longer as a quiet hesitation builds in her chest and fills her feet with stone. Why does she care who he is? But she does. Feels herself leaning into that gentle curiosity because it hurts less than the blades her world is full of. On the next breath of wind, she is gone, diving from her stone with all the grace of a falling star until at the last second her wings snap wide and open and keep the green of Tephra safely beneath her.

She is silent when she lands nearby, pausing long enough to catch his gaze if he looks up. But then she half-grins, something soft and secret and meant just for herself, and drops her own head to the grass to pull at the short green grass. I can be mysterious, too. She thinks, that ghost of a smile still caught on the curve of dark lips.

marble

[Rhaegor]

I kept my hope just like i'd hoped to
then sang to the sea for feelings deep blue

As fatigue seeps into his youthful muscles, the little buckskin allows his mood to shift from jovial and adventurous to calm and thoughtful. The Tephran grass tastes different in his mouth than Hyaline's, far less sweet but of far more substance than the mountainland's meager supply; his belly settles thankfully between his sides, satiated in the wake of his long journey.

Although the long green blades encompass the entirety of his sight, fatigue bids that Rhaegor slip into something of a reverie, a stream of consciousness that he doesn't dictate. Memories flash by, and memories that is to come: but when the visions build together into something soft and consistent, he frowns; concentrating on that which appears just behind his eyes.

The taste of the vision is angelic, or perhaps his breath is caught in the downy feathers of her wings: he can nearly trace their every fiber, hear the way the manipulate the air around them in effortless flight. It takes everything he has to tear his focus away from the pale golden appendages, the vision slowly expanding to include the rest of what may come to pass; she's landing next to him, wordless and ethereal, one so like minded to him that his silence is practically a choice, instead of a fact. The only sound is of their breathing - baited - and of her laughter.

But the truth is, he might not hear her laughter; but the truth is, he might not get so close.

He doesn't remember raising his head above the grasses to turn and watch her descension, but as his consciousness leaves his magic and returns to reality, he realizes that he's staring at her. Staring at her as she smiles at him, the expression as undeniably enigmatic and lovely as he'd dreamt it but moments before. Heat rises to the boy's face as she looks away, dropping her shapely head to graze as he had, and altogether too late, he clicks his slack-jawed teeth together; the veritable champion of composure in the wake of the angel's arrival.

Around his own barrel, the dark ash of his own wings (harder cut than hers but no less enchanting) flutter in the wind. He can't take his eyes off her.

She's far too beautiful to squander even a glance.

Rhaegor

@[Marble]

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