[private] just a relic

[Set]

" ... but always keep them on a leash."

The air is cold up here, in spite of the season. It ruffles through his feathers, a cool caress for each of his eight wings. Lightning crackles amongst them, leaping and twisting after one another in an electric chase that has him surging higher with the thrill of it. It has been enough decades that he has forgotten how many, enough memories to fill a dozen lifetimes, but he won’t ever change. The river is merely a dark thread far down below, growing darker as the day falls yet again to night’s insistence. Teeth ground tightly together, he drags his heavy, feathered wings up and forward and then down with a raucous shout. They clash together with a thunderous clap, and suddenly the skies below him are filled with a glorious summer storm. His chest thrills with the birth of it. He waits several minutes as it spreads south; treading air, his breath heavy and heaving in his lungs, a wide grin on his face. He would never grow tired of it, the power that hums in his every fiber.

When he returns to solid ground, he’s already exchanged the thunderbird’s body for his own, scarred piebald. The riverbank gives a little beneath his hooves, several small rocks dislodged and sent sliding beneath the water’s surface. It is calm and shallow here, the banks stretching away from one another for several hundred yards. Mist beads on the end of his lashes. Rain dampens his back and shoulders as he wades into the river, muzzle dipped low to slake his thirst. He raises his head suddenly in a flash of lightning, scarred pelt crackling with small bits of electricity in answer. Though his fickle shapeshifting has long since been tamed, he finds that the changes do not always go away all at once.

The rain is warm on his face, a stark contrast to the cool of the river that swirls about his ankles. Mismatched lids, one black, the other white, shutter golden eyes for a breath, nostrils flared, ears flipping forward, back, then forward again. The rain dampens his sense of smell but he can hear her coming. It is several minutes before she meanders into view, lost in thought, screaming for a connection. He is still in the center of the river and he turns in her direction, jaw set in a curious manner. The storm lessens a bit as the darkest clouds shift away on a low rumble. He does not move, save for a shift of weight and a wet flick of his tail. He does not know that she is from a time from before even his father; an enemy of his sometimes-lover, the alluring ice to his flame. Does any of it even matter any more? Do they?

“They say it is the most interesting of characters you meet under the clouds of a warm summer storm,” he says conversationally, when the white mare comes into view. Shaking out his dreaded, knotted mane, he meets her gaze with that wild, youthful grin. “I do not typically put any stock into what ‘they’ say, but, I daresay, it’s already proven true for you.”

SET

alliance champion, once king, mage

I don’t even know … bear with me. I want to write so badly but sooo rusty xD