He’s missed her. He always misses her. There’s a hole in his chest when she leaves and then there his chest is full when she is with him. He loves her from afar, while she dances with magicians and silent killers and her tender child and her wolf child and her rain child. He waits patiently until she bores of them and finds herself creeping toward his lonely arms. He admires her beauty even when they do not (he admires both sides of her he knows – that willow-strewn, spring-goddess side and that carefree, freckled-sun child side) and he waits for her until she ceases her dancing around the fire of her other lovers and comes toward the shadows he lingers in.

And so when they separate just before their child (his child, her child, their child) arrives, his heart cries for her touch. He can see the boy’s smarts from behind his red and white face and he knows instantly their hastily-covered tracks will be noticed. It doesn’t help that both of his parents (he cannot get the thought of his mind; this boy is his son, this boy is her son, this boy is their son and they are his parents) jump to opposite conclusions about how they know each other.

The broken-hearted lover forces his face to remain neutral (something he’s become good at, since there are often times when he must hide the suicidal darkness and plaguing shadows from the brown depths of his eyes) and keeps his gaze on the boy. Looking away would suggest lies. Looking away would suggest losing the competition of strategy. The stallion’s heart begins inspecting the she-wolf, allowing the pair a few minutes together. His jaw remains in the ever-present grip of seriousness throughout the boy’s speaking and wondering. When he asks the rhetorical question of where else he might possibly be, the red and white stallion struggles to keep his face blank.

They could be living together. They could be a little family, the three of them. They could be making lives for themselves but strengthened by the bond of love. They could be back in Echo Trails. He could have another sibling on the way. He could be sparring with his father. They could be together as a family in the bubble of safety and love his parents once had. They could be anywhere but here.

A flash of pain sparks across his brown eyes but he manages to resume the look of neutrality before pain and heart-filled agony and sadness and grief and regret crept in completely. “I’m sure you belong here,” he chokes out, forcing as much smoothness and casualness into the words that he possibly could. It’s hard to talk, now, around the lump in his throat, so when the boy changes topics from where his father – ahem, uncle – lives and about how he wishes to fly, the stallion breaks his serious face with a gentle smile.

“I was born in the Jungle, like your mom.” It isn’t a lie, actually. They were both born in the Jungle, and although they can’t say truthfully they are siblings it does lend to the story. “I don’t really have a home that I can live in at the moment.” The hidden meaning might be hard to pick out, but the red and white stallion’s brown eyes flash toward the spring goddess for a quick millisecond. She is his home (wherever she is, that is his home) but he cannot live with her. Fate has other ideas.

Before the stallion can speak about his wings, the boy is coming out with a statement. He gives a chuckle, as if to reprimand the boy about his foolish nonsense. “Of course I am your uncle. We just haven’t seen each other in a while as well, that’s all. I didn’t know if your mom wanted you to know or not,” he says. He inspects the boy over again and then nods deftly. “You look just like your mom. I’m sure your father is handsome as well – you’ll be a looker for sure.”