I'll settle for the ghost of you.

He had never forgotten her.

For a year he had been trying to find his way back. There had been adventure, the excitement of meeting new faces, and now it seemed he even had a new place to call home. Despite all of that, he had never lost sight on seeking out survivors of the Pampas. Of finding those he cared about that were missing. Aela had always been top of his list but she was not the only one he searched for.

He had never forgotten his friend or her stars.

Often, he had looked up at the aquamarine aurora weaved between the heavens during the freezing nights on the Isle and thought of her. He wondered how she was doing, if she still wandered the Meadow at midnight, if she had yet to smile. He had convinced himself that no matter what had befallen the rest of Beqanna, she would still be there. Intact and whole, covered in her celestial blanket of twinkling stars.

Would she forgive him for being gone for so long?
Would she still want to be his friend?

Pangea is a much closer walk to the common lands then the Pampas had ever been and before the moon can lose its fullness, the young jaguar stallion makes his way there. There is trepidation in his steps, uncertainty flickering in the flames along his shoulders, but he cannot stop himself from seeking her even if he wanted to. He would come here every night if he had to, until he either found her or the answers he dreaded hearing. Silvery moonlight bathes the meadow in it’s cool hue but when it reaches for him, he glows gold. It makes the long curling tresses of crimson that fall against his arched neck seem as if they are aflame and, perhaps, they are as his determination wavers. Shining as bright as the sun, a dazzling beacon that can’t be missed by any that may lurk here. Exactly what he’s counting on.

I'll settle for the ghost of you.

Despite the way the starry patterns across her pale skin fades, no matter that her stars don’t swirl around her… There is no mistaking her. Just as there is no mistaking the expression of raw relief that floods across his golden features the moment he lands on her and settles on her familiar unsmiling face. That dark voice had been whispering in his ear since he had washed up on the Isle that maybe she would have forgotten him or worse, that she would be upset with him. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she had been. Yet, he doesn’t find anything accusing when he searches those endless black skies of hers and much of that fear Terror had manifested inside of him suddenly fades.

They study each other, these grown versions of themselves that are both foreign and familiar, until she shifts slightly and whatever spell that had fallen around him breaks. Relief starts to twist into concern as he looks for her stars and finds them missing. He has come to associate the heavens with the girl who called them down around her, had found some unholy determination when he looked up at them and thought of her even as the sea had tried to swallow him whole.

As a child, he had asked to befriend her constellations… These little sparks of heat and flame and beauty that had lured him to her in the hushed quiet that only midnight can provide. But it had never been the stars that he had really been curious about, as bewitching as they were.

He had never stopped hoping that one day he might still make her smile. It hadn’t occurred to him why that might be. It is so different from the playful banter he has found in Lillibet, that easy flirtation. While Pangea’s newest crown could make the fire rise along his back and curl bashfully around his shoulders… It doesn’t compare to the way the flames now dance beneath his crimson mane and spirals down his chest… As if they might reach for her and coax the stars from her once more. As if she wasn't mesmerizing on her own.

He understands what has changed.

The moment she says his name, that certain pronunciation, he smiles.

“Liesma.” He murmurs to her, not quite trusting the steadiness of his words. Regret flickering in the reflection of his fire when she speaks again. “I didn’t mean to be.” He says quietly in the deeper rougher tone that had appeared as he reached adulthood, feral yellow finding starless dark. (I didn’t want to be), says the fire dancing along his spine.

“I’m sorry.” Deep down he knows she wouldn’t ask for an apology but he feels she deserves one anyway. (I missed you), says the flames that scorch down his chest.

I'll settle for the ghost of you.

Long ago beneath the light of a full moon, he had made a silent promise to always smile enough for the both of them. That is, if he could not make her smile at all. A feat he is relieved he still has a chance at achieving now that he has found her. His own twists uncertainly beneath the steadiness of her stare before it eases back into something smoother. Warmer. Tipping his dark muzzle in acknowledgment that he had heard, noting how similar the words were to what Aela had once instructed.

She searches the shadows for his strange friends and he knows she will not find them. He hesitates, the uncertainty spiraling along his spine openly. He cannot lie to her. “I’ve been… It’s been…” He snorts softly, frustrated with the sudden inability to put everything that had happened into succinct words. “It’s been.. A lot.” Is what he ends up on. Watching the orange cast of fire reflected in her depthless gaze and finding courage there. “I fell when the South fell. I woke up on the Isle and met an angel in Hyaline that reminded me of you. She healed me.” In more ways than one, he thinks. He leaves out what it was like to drown, that the soul that had stayed with him had been a terrible one.

“I've been looking for my mother. I met another Southerner, Lillibet. She took over Pangea and I live there now.” It is the short version, the highlight reel, that he settles on for now. In reality, he is bursting to know where she had been, what she had seen, what had happened in their time apart. But she had asked a question and he intends on answering it. “I don’t really talk to those friends right now.” He admits quietly, suddenly unable to meet her gaze. How can he explain to her, that reason of why? That he doesn’t want to see who might appear.

That he was afraid.

“What about you?” Eager to focus on her, his yellow gaze sweeping once more over this grown version of the girl he had known. Unable to stop looking at her in case this was a dream and she wasn’t real. “Liesma… Where are your stars?” A gentle question of concern and honest curiosity.