have you ever thought about what protects our hearts?
just a cage of rib bones and other various parts

He had not come here purposefully—at least not for a while.

He had needed time to grow, to learn, to shape his own path. He had needed time to find out what was his own truth, his own gravity. And so he had. He had turned from his home, his family, and left the warmth of their embrace—and while he had left a young boy, he had returned a man. In the years since he had found ragged hoof on the twisted path, his body had filled out. His narrow chest had widened, his muscles had grown; he was no longer a spindly teenager. Instead, he was mature, maybe even handsome.

Not that he wasted much time thinking about that.

His thoughts were on much different things, the boy having grown serious and introspective in the years since he had left. Even now, walking what was once the path to home, he struggled to connect with the boy of his youth. The boy who had so affectionally bound toward his father and launched into him. The boy who had changed his spots to mirror his family. So much had changed within him since those days. He had to wonder if his family would even recognize him; if they would know his heart still.

A frown grew at the corner of his russet mouth as he walked deeper into the forest, the light splattering across the curve of his haunches until it died away, the thicket of branches above him blocking even that from reaching him. He sighed as the air turned cooler, the summer heat dissipating with the light, and he came to a stop beneath the boughs of a walnut tree, his flesh pressed into the bark. For a moment, he leaned into it and scratched, satisfying an itch he didn’t even know he had, before he stilled.

Gray eyes peered out into the woods as he waited silently for things he did not even think would come.

so it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess
and to stop the muscle that makes us confess

have you ever thought about what protects our hearts?
just a cage of rib bones and other various parts

Djinni is, as always, everything that he is not.

She is made of pure magic, she is bright, she is welcoming, she is sneaky. He has long since come to love these things about her, to appreciate them, but never to fully understand them. He does not understand how she appears so suddenly in front of him, how her emotions can zip from immediate suspicion to joy, how she can so quickly press her muzzle to his jaw, stripping away the distance between them.

He does not understand, but that doesn't stop the warmth that spreads in his chest in response.

He is relieved that she makes the first step, that she is the one to bridge the gap, because he knows that he never would have been able to. Still, he leans slightly into the touch, his russet head turning against it. He doesn’t reach for her himself, but his gray eyes are a little brighter when she pulls back and finds him.

“I am tricky prey,” he rolls his shoulders, a rare humor in the curve of his mouth, “and an inept predator.” It wasn’t the best combination, but it had been the one handed to him—the one he was forced to handle. “So, no, I have yet to find myself.” He does not think that he would ever find himself, not truly. The barriers that he had erected over the years were formidable, even to him. He had walled himself off long ago.

She doesn't seem to mind though—she never did. Despite the fact that his face was impassive more often than not, despite the fact that his gray eyes were too often solemn, she didn’t treat him as the boring lump he was. In her presence, he even felt more…interesting. More lively. Even if it was dim in comparison.

“How is the family?” he finally asks, the words rusted and difficult to pull from his throat.

He isn't sure he wants to hear the answer.

so it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess
and to stop the muscle that makes us confess

have you ever thought about what protects our hearts?
just a cage of rib bones and other various parts

Zai would have been appalled if he could have read her thoughts.

Him?

Lead?

The idea was atrocious—terrible by its very nature. To be a good leader, you needed to know how to deal with people. You needed to be able to care about them, invest yourself in them. He could barely bother with engaging in normal conversations, let alone trying to help carve their path into the future. The idea that he would, in any circumstance, be capable of leading them, caring for a brood, was laughable at best.

Dangerous at worst.

Thankfully, the boy cannot read her thoughts and can only focus on the pain of her words. His family, his bright and joyful and happy family, was gone. “All of them?” His brow creased, his lips folding into a severe frown as he dragged his gray eyes from her to look to the horizon. “They have all left?” It was almost more than he could comprehend—the thought so completely and utterly foreign to him. He had been the one to leave, to look for meaning. But to be abandoned? To be alone? That was entirely new.

He shook his head, the ache of it spreading across his chest. Finding her face again and smoothing out his mottled expression with something smoother, something hard and unyielding. “I am glad that you stayed to look out for the kingdom,” he finally offered, the trees hanging around them not entirely home but also not foreign. There was a comfort in being here, in knowing he stood where his family had stood, even if they were but ghosts now. “I know that is what mother and father would have wanted.”

His handsome, severe face breaks for a moment into a slip of a smile,

“After all, there are few hands as capable as your own.”

so it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess
and to stop the muscle that makes us confess

have you ever thought about what protects our hearts?
just a cage of rib bones and other various parts

Djinni is, as always, everything that he is not.

Her touch softens him, comforts him, and he once again leans into it, gray eyes closing, squeezing tight as if he could keep out the rest of the world at bay, the wicked truths of it too much like a blade between his very ribs, their sure touch carving out spaces within him he was not sure he could recover from. Although his instinct is to pull away from the interaction, to distance himself from her, he remains rooted, the only thing moving being his head as he angles it toward her, his solemn eyes finding her face and studying it.

“Not forever,” he repeats, because it makes him feel better to think that it is temporary, to think that he could close his eyes and wake up to their sleepy, smiling faces. As if he could dream himself backward in time—as if he could wake up young and whole and untouched, his mind bright and willing. But such things are impossible. There are too many walls he has erected over the years, too many ways that he has taught himself to shield that which is most important. He is no longer the young boy that she knew.

Still, there is enough of the boy that his face splits into a grin for a moment. He bridges the gap between them to nudge her neck, a soft laugh finding its way onto his tongue and into the air. “You were truly terrible, weren’t you?” For all of her gifts, for all of her control over the world around her, that had been one thing she had not come by naturally—although he thinks he can understand why she had never truly tried. “You were a fast learner though,” he muses, the memory of their lessons washing over him.

The bright light dims again at her compliment, at her teasing, although this time it is not because he is too serious, but rather because he fumbles at handling it. Confusion pinches his brows together, the red boy uncomfortable with the insinuation of flirtation. He takes a deep breath and shuffles his weight before looking up at her from beneath his forelock. “I am not particularly handsome,” he mutters before rolling his shoulder, wondering why the words coming from her made him stutter. “I am sure there are plenty  of handsome men wandering through your words.” A frown, the words sounding wrong. “These woods.”

so it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess
and to stop the muscle that makes us confess

have you ever thought about what protects our hearts?
just a cage of rib bones and other various parts

Djinni is, as always, everything that he is not.

Her kind smile and reassuring touch eases the embarrassment that simmers beneath the surface, eases the discomfort that causes his spine to stiffen. He wills the discomfort from his limbs, the awkwardness from his expression, reminding himself, again, that this is just Djinni. This is not a stranger—this is not some random soul that he met while walking along that lonely path outside of Beqanna. She is family.

Or close enough.

So at her prodding, he simply rolls his shoulders and sighs audibly, giving into her. “I will stay,” he finally says in his gruff voice before reaching over and tugging her forelock in an uncharacteristic show of play. “If only to get you to hush up for but a moment.” But even then, the teasing in his gaze is clear.

The truth is that he would be thrilled to have a home again. For so long, he has been searching for some piece of honesty—something too ease his soul, reveal himself—but the journey was long and too often lonely. He longed to find a place to settle down, a place with paths he knew by heart, a place where the ground curved to his body at night, cradling his skull. He longed for stability, for comfort.

He can only hope that he will be able to find it here in Sylva.

Growing more at ease, the uncomfortable shell of newness fading, he cocks a back leg and settles into a more comfortable position. “So, tell me, Djinni,” he glances up at the foliage that decorates the land they have decided to call home—this land that was at once his family’s and alien to him. “What have you been up to lately?” Because he could not imagine the tricky little mare staying still for very long.

so it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess
and to stop the muscle that makes us confess