you keep my head from going under; wolfbane

[Lepis]

The breath I'd been holding is released in a slow exhale, and I open my eyes to look down at the sunset kingdom below me. The sun is at my back, and the entire realm is bathed in brilliant orange light. It has always been my favorite sight, even as a child. The autumn has made Loess indistinguishable from our Sylvan neighbors, and I can imagine that our borders are far out of sight.

It's a childish fantasy. I know I should have grown out of it, and for the most part I have. Yet there is still something there, a hungry ache for something that isn't food. My internal pursuit for the source of this emotion is derailed by the sound of approaching hooves. The setting sun makes them only a silhouette, but the wind is in my favor.

"Wolfbane," I say in greeting. The king and I have had few one-on-one conversations of late. In fact, as I look for the familiar planes in his shadowed face, I find I cannot remember when the last one was. We've spoken about kingdom matters, of my talk with Hyaline and the arrangement for me to be healed. I realize as I'm standing, wings still flared, that I've not encountered Wolfbane at all since their restoration.

"Oh!" I say with a rapid smile. "You've not seen them yet, have you? The extreme novelty had worn off on me in the past day, but I take advantage of the chance to flare them out proudly. "What you you think?" I ask, glancing from the left to the right with an absent grin still on my blue mouth.

@[Wolfbane]

[Wolfbane]

- Are you thinking of me when you love him? -

Lepis is as familiar with him now as he’d dreamed from the beginning. There’s not an ounce of a greeting given to her as Bane approaches, she gives one anyways when the shift of a breeze gives him away. No sneaking up on this one, though he’d never attempt it anyways. “Lepis.” He throws back, once his legs come to a standstill and he can view her properly.

For a moment they defer Kingdom talk; the striped pegasus is happy enough to see her restored and glowing, both wings unfurling from her side in a showy gust. “They make mine seem plain.” He laughs, not hiding the thrill of triumph that rockets through his core and touches his eyes while he views them in their work. “Are they ready for flight?” He wonders aloud, focusing now on the gentle curves of her bright face. In ways he can’t understand her nearness brings him peace, and now her happiness at being restored gives him reason to believe Loess will harvest much riper fruit in the future.

“There’s much I want to talk to you about but those things can be said just as well above the earth as they could be said here, standing on it.” He muses with a characteristic smirk. The only other flapper in Loess is Rey, and the color-changing mare does well to stray away from her Leader’s flight patterns. They have nothing in common. To share the skies with Lepis though? … it sounds too agreeable to pass up.

As if in response to these thoughts his own wings unfurl, slender but lengthy - meant for speed - and the orange hue of the fading light tints them a rustic terracotta color.

WOLFBANE

@[Lepis] I figure maybe we can just fast-forward this to present time? Arthas/Bane vote and all