The stretch of his wings feels glorious. For ages, he had felt naked, empty. The lack of the weight of wings against his sides, the brush of feathers against his flanks, had felt like an ache. The pain of loss and the pang of memory. But then Beqanna had forgiven them. She has always forgiven them in the past, but this had taken far longer. And the toll had been enormous, irreplaceable. The accompanying damage irreversible.

There is no going back now. The Tundra is gone, wiped from existence as though it had never been, and in its place stands something new. Something different and foreign in a way he has never experienced before. He is old, ancient even, and change is particularly difficult for him. Perhaps it is a sign of his age, or a sign of his weakness, but whatever the case, he is only just now coming to terms with this new Beqanna.

But still it hurts.

And maybe that is why he has come to Tephra. To the land most of his brethren had chosen to settle in when the lands had buckled and caved, giving way to the new and fresh. There is something familiar here at least. Or rather, he hopes there is.

The heat of the volcano is oppressive, the air thick and sticky inside his lungs. The scent of ash lingers eternally upon the stagnant breezes, the metallic scent of magma rising into the steamy air. There is nothing familiar about it, nothing that feels like home. Even after all this time, he still considers the Tundra home. It burns to know that he will never be able to truly go home again. Burns more than the heavy air and the nearly overwhelming heat of the encroaching lava.

For a moment, he considers taking to the sky once more, that he might feel the breeze on his skin, might clear the scent of ash from his lungs, but he does not. Instead he strides to the nearby beach, wary dark eyes glancing briefly around before he wades into the surf. A sigh escapes his lips as the cool water laps against his fetlocks, his cannon bones, his knees, his shoulders. There he stops, his gaze shifting back to shoreline. Seeking, searching. Looking for the familiar dark figure of the stallion who had made this his kingdom.

He could not be far behind. Hurricane would never make the mistake of believing him unaware of his arrival. He knows the man too well for that.

there is never a day that goes by

that is a good day to die

Hurricane

Tephra is something different to him than it must be to his brother, something vastly less comforting. He had not been here for the founding, had not seen the mists lift their veil to display the home that would be theirs. Had not been among the first to set foot upon its soil. Had not even come here in its earliest days, in the days when the new world order was still being shaped. It would never belong to him the way it belongs to Offspring. Could never mean to him what it must mean to his Brother.

It is not the Tundra. It is not home.

But he respects what it is to the black stallion, respects what the rich, loamy soil must mean to him. For that reason, he waits. He waits for his approach, his invitation. They might still be among the Brotherhood at heart, but change had come and thrown the world into chaos. It is left to them to make what order they may of that upheaval. Hurricane, of all the things he is and has been, is a creature of order.

But the eagerness of Offsprings approach, the easy, open, welcoming way he is greeted does his heart good. Setting a faint worry, a niggling, intrusive thought, to rest. No matter what history the two men might share, he has long since learned to take nothing for granted. Despite his reticence on the subject, change happens every day, whether one wishes it or not.

Stretching snowy wings wide, Hurricane wades towards the shore, towards the man who stands upon its edge. Water cascades from him, sluicing down slick, pale skin unnoticed. His gaze, dark and unreadable, rests upon Offspring with intense focus. He notes the changes in his Brother, the weight that had not been present when last they had met. It is not physical, not when one has immortality on his side, but rather in the lines of his dark features, in the feverish hollows of his red eyes.

“I’ve come,” he finally says by way of greeting, the gravel of disuse in his tone. “I am… glad to see you, Brother.” The words come roughly, as though he has trouble speaking them. But then, emotion has never been his strong suit. But it is there nonetheless, barely discernable, but still roiling in the darkest depths of his soul. “I was not made to be a wanderer.”

there is never a day that goes by

that is a good day to die

Hurricane

Isolation and loneliness are nothing new to the pale stallion. It is a protection perhaps, protection against the cruel vagaries of this world. If one never grows close to anyone, one must never need feel the pain of their loss. When immortality reigns, one must do what they can to protect the heart, or they shall rapidly turn into something unrecognizable. Something despised.

He had thought, once, it was safe to love his kingdom. There was safety in attachment to a place, because places are eternal. Oh how Beqanna must have laughed in showing him the error of his ways. The heartbreak of that loss rivals (indeed, perhaps even surpasses) any heartbreak of the romantic variety. And though Hurricane has carefully guarded his heart these long decades, even he has not always been so hard and immovable. It is merely the years of eternal life that had crafted the man now wading amongst the shallows upon a foreign, unfamiliar beach.

The two men standing there in brotherly reticence could not display more perfectly just what eternal life can forge. Just how differently two can live it and still inevitably end the same. Life has a funny way of showing just how little choice one truly has in the destination of it.

But it seems life still has a sense of humor, that even as ancient and calloused as the black and white stallions are, they can still be surprised. Though whether Hurricane would ascribe that to the vagaries of life or the vagaries of a certain magician is an entirely different story. Certainly he has never been terribly inclined to give most magicians much in the way of benefit of the doubt.

At the moment however, the exchange of power goes entirely unnoticed by him. He is old, but he has no supernatural senses with which to become aware of such things.

“Home,” he rumbles, his voice a low, husky murmur. It is home to Offspring, but it is far from home to Hurricane. He would stay a while, perhaps. Would see if he could grow to care for the land even a fraction as much as Offspring seems to. But he is certain that nothing will ever be home again in quite the same way the Tundra was.

“Thank you, brother.” No further words are necessary. Those simple sentences say all he needs to. If anyone could understand, it would be the man before him.

Of course, little did he know he would soon have several reasons to stay. At least for a little while longer.

there is never a day that goes by

that is a good day to die

Hurricane