now and then there's a light in the darkness;
feel around 'til you find where your heart went.

    Time is unyielding; obstinate and steadfast as the minutes become hours and hours fade into days. A mindless wanderer, he does not worry himself with such useless nonsense – his mind is too taken with the pale light of morning shedding its gentle touch along a jagged horizon, painted in brilliant shades of lavender and indigo. Too drawn in by the splendor of a starlit sky, with a waning moon peeking out from a midnight canopy. Time has no meaning and it is a heavy burden placed on the weary shoulders of men; it has no place for him and it remains forgotten in the deepest recesses of his mind.

  Though he does not permit it to edge its way into his mind, he has little choice in the way that time etches into the marrow of his bones, carving long, statuesque legs and broad, sinewy shoulders out of the youth that had once enveloped him in its entirety. No longer did he give way to boyish features – his eyes set above rigid cheekbones, and his skull set atop a thick, heavy neck settled onto a solid, muscular frame.

  The gaunt, awkward youth has been whittled away, leaving a shadow of maturity in its wake, but still – the impish mirth lingers always, hidden within the golden flecks that gleam in his hazel eyes.

  Alas, with age came a restlessness that could not be stifled –a wildness that could not be contained within the tepid, ashen shores of Tephra. Just a breath beyond the age of two, he had ventured out beneath the covering of night, with nary a glance given to the molten lava and jagged, mottled andesite that had been every bit as much his upbringing as the salty brine of the sea.

  The warmth of day has yet to penetrate the frigid haze that lingers close to the thawing soil below, and an unnerving shudder of discomfort courses its way along the ridges of his spine. The sunlight is bleak, pale yet staunch in the way that it settles across his pallid skin, highlighting the edges of his shifting, stirring bones, which carry him aimlessly across the once barren plain.

  The buds were just beginning to the blossom with new life, and emerald threads of vegetation were beginning to emerge from where the soil had once been covered with a sheet of ice and snow. Lazily, he presses his whiskered lips against the crystalline flecks of sleet, tasting the sullied loam on his tongue – but soon his attention is drawn away by a brief flicker of movement, and the slightest smile reaches the golden rim of his eyes.

  It does not take but a heavy stride to close the distance between them, and with a gentle (and fleeting) lipping of her dark tresses along the ridge of her withers, he lures her away from the waters’ edge, a carefree grin worn along the crease of his dark mouth.

  ”Mauve,” he begins with warm honey laced in his coarse, rumbling tone. ”how long has it been? I almost didn’t recognize you.” A pause, with an exhalation of breath as his gaze flickers from the dwindling sun on the horizon to the soft curve of her features, which time has seemingly had its way with as well, leaving the shadow of a once petite, gangly filly behind. ”How have you been?”