love is my religion. i could die for that.

Aegean has never visited Hyaline which is strange, perhaps, when you consider that it once may have been his home. Had he been born but a season earlier than he had been, he may have found himself as a Prince of Hyaline as his older siblings had been but, instead, he had been born during the onslaught of the plague. The threat of the sickness had been the only thing that he had ever known, and he had instead been raised within the silvery beauty of the Cove. First, a temporary move, and then a permanent one.

He does not regret such things, his wondrous heart has never yearned for anything different, but still—

but still, he cannot help the curiosity that begins to grow upon the edges of his consciousness.

It begins as a dream that morphs into a thought and then a yearning and it soon leads the pale colt from the borders he knows so well to the ones he knows not at all. The fever sticks with him, the warmth of it spread like a flush beneath his cheeks, but he is not delirious with it and the only sign of it at all is the smear of blood on his milky lips. All the same, he is weaker than usual, and he takes his time on the trip. 

Perhaps he should wait upon the border, but this is still a territory of his mothers and he is but a curious soul so he does not pause. Instead he wanders further in, driven by a need to fully see all that the territory has to offer. He doesn’t hide his presence and, in many ways, he couldn’t if he tried. The faint glow of his body, the growing curves of his maturing antlers, the amethyst of his hooves—he is not made to blend in and he doesn’t bother to try. Instead he merely walks to the waters edge of the lake, peering down into it with a dreamy smile before glancing up and seeing the woman of red not too far away.

Aegean watches her for a moment, before he nickers softly. “Hello,” his voice, like all of him, is different. It walks the fine, androgynous line of masculine and feminine, the soft and the harsh blending together as his dark purple eyes study her. “My name is Aegean.” His blood-stained lips tip upward.

i could die for you.

love is my religion. i could die for that.

She is different in a way that he cannot name nor explain and he finds that he is enthralled because of it. There is something of magic crackling in her veins and he cannot decide if it is magic that she controls or if there is something that is entirely her own. Something that sets her apart and yet makes her completely one with the nature around her. He decides that it is the latter, decides that it is a spark that lives within her and he feels something like a pull in his belly, a magnetic need to know more that drags his feet through the sand on the shore of the lake toward her, his youthful head tilted to the side in thought.

When she reaches him as he reaches out for her, he smiles, the curves of his lips tilting upward in a dreamy manner, his amethyst eyes lingering perhaps a moment too long on her face—as if she is a puzzle that he cannot quite figure out. “It is lovely to meet you,” he finally offers, although the word feels too plain to explain what it is like to meet the fire-woman. She has the same texture as his mothers, in some ways, that same power beneath the surface, that same crackling magic that they cannot contain.

Meeting her reminds him of what it is like to traverse the dream landscape.

But for reasons that elude his youthful tongue.

Still, she is a puzzle that he cannot figure out and his heart thrums impatiently in his chest with all of the desire to know—even though part of him is hesitant to ripple the surface of mystery. Perhaps it is better for him to never know. Perhaps it is better to live within the cocoon of not knowing and the thought draws him back, makes him thoughtful as he considers her, the silk of his white mane catching in the wind so that it spills over both sides of his neck and catching on the lower hanging sections of his antlers.

“Do you live here?” he finally settles on, unsure of what he prefers the answer to be.

i could die for you.

love is my religion. i could die for that.

They fall into rhythm with one another, tracing the paths of conversation easily, understanding the ways of it without needing to struggle. Although Aegean rarely feels out of place, he cannot help but find that the fabric of the interaction is particularly peaceful. It is easy to be in her presence, and he does not need to guess at her—there are so many ways in which he merely understands, in which she just makes sense.

He does not hide his admiration nor his curiosity and is grateful that she does the same.

When she reaches out for him, he stretches his neck so that he can do the same, letting the velvet of his muzzle brush against the satin of her skin—branding the memory of her scent for safekeeping. At her answer, he laughs and the sound is silver bells in the back of his throat, loose and free. “What a wonderful answer,” he enthuses, purple eyes glowing with appreciation. “I have grown up in Silver Cove, but I do not feel the same need as my family to be tied to one place. To wander, to adventure, to journey—“

He breaks off on a sigh, dreamy, as his gaze finds the horizon, lingers there.

“What a wondrous thing.”

But they do not linger on the conversation. Not for long. Soon she finds, or the light catches the edges of his hooves, and he glances down, smiling briefly at them. When she ushers him forward, he obliges, picking himself up and moving further inland and away from the water. He picks his feet up as he walks, letting the light reflect, his face still serene, but his lips tipped upward in pleasure at her joy.

When he stops, he angles his head. “I have a memory,” he answers, thinking back to how the quest had ended and he had woken with the newfound weight. “But I very much want to know what you think it is.”

i could die for you.