Tarian had grown up watching and studying the winds. Before Beqanna, he had been like most of his ancestors. He could make the winds shift and swirl, calm a gale as it approached, or call a hurricane where there had been none.

But more importantly, his grandsire Valerio had taught there were whispers on the wind. One didn't need Magic to hear them. One didn't need to be able to call or conjure them. They only need to be aware. "The Winds and Fate often blow us in the same direction," he had once murmured. Tarian had thought it a cryptic saying but what his grandfather explained was this: the path taken is the one that a soul was meant to walk, even with all it's twisted and winding turns.

So he takes one now, arcing his wide white wings beneath a summer sky.

The sun is back, in all its shining glory, and even Tarian, who hardly leaves a moment to chance or Fate, takes a moment to enjoy it. With his last border patrol done in Loess and a more invigorated (albeit grunting) nod from recovering Ashhal, the white pegasus took off. It's a rare burst of excitement - an energy that he hasn't shown since he and Liam first learned to fly - and Tarian leaves the Southern Kingdom behind. His flight strokes carry him further from his home but don't take him towards the Brilliant Pampas, where his Queen has requested he go.

(And Tarian will. He just wants to give whoever might be dwelling in the land of wildflowers to enjoy a day or two of sunlight first. Perhaps to feel the burst of bright joy that he does in his silver chest, to know a moment of freedom that they can't be swallowed by the Dark.)

He certainly doesn't mean to fly as far as the Field. But when his hooves touch down and Tarian lifts his proud head, the groups of horses surrounding him are eager and bright-eyed. They look hopeful, an expression he hasn't glimpsed in months (because there had been little light to see any joy; because who had any joy when they were surrounded by death?) The pegasus contemplates quietly leaving before anyone takes any real notice of him. He could be gone and nobody would be any the wiser that he had been here.

Turning around like he intends to do exactly that, two horses catch his attention. A golden roan - a shimmering color that brings back memories of his youth - and a dark stallion who looked as lost as the mare, two horses who looked lost among a sea of shining faces alight with hope. With his wings still partially flared, Tarian feels a breeze pushing past him and grits his teeth. It comes again. Legado help me, he thinks and then turns to approach the pair.

Maybe they were lost here together.
Maybe there was time to convince them to turn around and come back from wherever they came from.

Lacking the finesse of words, he speaks bluntly. "Are you both lost?"

@[Ruthless] @[Osiriis]

Tarian's heart flickered once and then it went out.

It had once hoped for many things - the life that he had been intended for: taking his place amongst a dynasty of airbenders, earning a place amongst the ancestors who had fought and bled and even died for their ancient home - and then Fate had shown how little it cared for what a young Tarian had once wished for (yes, even Tarian hoped and dreamt - even if the stoic stallion would never admit to it now).

All it took was the flicker of a moment, a shimmer of Magic, a moment of mist, and then it was all gone.

Fates, the Winds, the Gods - whatever it might have been - had taught Tarian a lesson at an early age and he is grateful for it. He had learned that Gods hold little thought for the things they destroy; for something eternal, a beginning is an ending and so the circle of immortality continues.

For the woman who sparks on the sunlight like a kindling flame, the pegasus withholds his sharp tongue (for now). He sighs and settles the white wings carefully against his silver sides. So she hopes to be recruited like the rest of them, looking for a beginning to continue that cycle of living. The way she speaks of the Field is with familiarity and there is a glint in his blue eyes for the direct way that she speaks to him.

Good. Tarian has little time for those who cower.
Not when he is representing a kingdom that has seen dragonfire, death, and theft in the last few years.

The other stallion rolls his eyes and that snaps Tarian's attention from the palomino. Not lost, retorts the brute, not physically. He wonders briefly what that means. His dark lips pull into a thin line (not quite a frown, though he feels the downward tug of it) and the Loessian lifts his head to glance between the pair. "Forgive me," the winged stallion states. "I'm still... familiarizing myself with the concept of the Field." Tarian had been born knowing exactly where he belonged. He never had to go searching for it. And he had never been a creature for conversation. "Tarian of Loess," is offered as a hesitant introduction with an expectant gaze that the duo would introduce themselves.

@[Osiriis] @[Ruthless]

It isn't that Tarian can't be sympathetic - he is capable of compassion - but the silver pegasus has never been lost. Not in the sense that @[Osiriis] is speaking of. As a boy, his future was preordained from a dynasty that went so far back that no horse could distinguish a time that Paraiso had a leader without Legado's blood flowing in their veins. His youth was planned out - days of lessons and learning, histories of battles and tactics, and then when he came of age, the sparring and the fighting techniques that had made his grandsire and great-grandsire such renowned warriors.

Then, there were days where Tarian learned the protocol of the royal court and the importance of the roles that each horse held.

Liam used to remind them that it was a good thing that serious, somber-eyed Tarian was the Heir because he would have made a horrible diplomat. He was far better at fighting than speaking and there was a grace to him on the battlefield that fled when his mouth opened. (In some ways, his fighting style and his social abilities were the same - quick, direct, blunt.) His brother would most likely laugh to see Tarian now, attempting at idle conversation.

When the other stallion mentions that he is from Tephra, the gray lifts his head curiously. He assumes the bigger brute doesn't share his dark humor or Tarian might have made another attempt at a joke, asking if the Western had made any sacrifices to the Volcano recently (is that how the sun returned?). He isn't entirely sure how to answer the other as debating the philosphical is not one of his strengths. So the pegasus simply tells her, "It's like no other place in Beqanna." It sounds rather cryptic and the statement could likely be applied to all areas of this land but it's true for Tarian. "Open sky, warm sun, only a few residents." These are all the things he enjoys most Loess and so these are what he shares with the palomino mare.

His idea of Paradise.

"Ruth?" he says, turning the name over on his tongue. It's a familiar name but the face is foreign to him. The word feels heavy - the weight of the word lingering from another lifetime and wanting to be lifted in this one. His rather stoic expression changes and he considers @[Ruthless]. "The last Ruth I knew was a skilled General," he tells her, and something in his stance changes. That Ruth had been a trusted advisor of his grandfather, had been a pegasus like Tarian and had shared the gold coloring that was so common in his fraternal bloodline. A spark in his dark eyes emerge and it compelled Tarian to ask them both: "would you like to know something else?"