[private] i feel a bad moon rising

[elio]

How like his father he is in the way cool apprehension wants to mask his face. The naivety of youth keeps from falling so easily into a complete stranger, but that power still sits dangerously beneath his flesh. He feels his emotions like bubbles popping up beneath his skin. They want to explode like hot pustules—infect his body with feverish confusion and unchecked anger.

It is his mother surety that calms him—just as it has always been. Her strength and pointed magic soothe his wild aches. His mind grows sore with the weight of this responsibility, the confusion of not knowing his father his whole life. It is down to him to welcome this stranger: no amount of decision-making or false smiles from his parents can make up his mind for him.

That is, the final decision is up to him—the hurt on Wolfbane’s face is an easy weapon against an impressionable boy.

“Ew,” Elio gasps at the mention of snot icicles. Now he grins up at his father as he imagines such an intimidating man with frozen green spikes dangling from his nostrils. This, too, he projects—the delight. It is a much gentler sensation, like the slow warming of an early spring dawn.

“I can’t wait to meet her.” His statement is simultaneously matter-of-fact and excited. The idea of another big sister made his heart swell and his head swim. Elio’s siblings have always been his most beloved constant.

When Wolfbane’s face twists into disappointment, the golden and crimson boy peers up at him with a frown. Elio’s logic is that he would not run up to a stranger, just as mother had taught him (be brave, but most of all be smart); and the atmosphere was not exactly cohesive to a warm meeting. Still, the colt hesitantly steps forward and tucks his head against the shapeshifter’s chest. It feels nice, actually—this he admits to himself and closes his eyes.

“I guess I missed the idea of you,” Elio murmurs as he draws away, a half-smile curling the right side of his mouth. “Mom always made you sound so awesome. Yeah, I guess I did miss you.” He nods with a full smile now, then turns back to Lepis as if searching for approval.

---

@[Wolfbane] @[Lepis] i feel like this is COMPLETE gibberish i hope you can make sense of it

[Lepis]

Wolfbane slips back into parenting as swiftly as he slipped out of it, spinning a tale for their youngest son in a tone that is as familiar as her own. He’s always been better at telling stories; Lepis too often focuses on the lessons learned rather than the adventure. This is a novel tale for both Elio and herself though, and Lepis’ navy ears flick forward as he speaks.

Eyas has been on the Icicle Isle? Jesper had said nothing to her about it on her journey north. A deliberate withholding, she wonders, or perhaps simple ignorance. She does hope for the latter, though perhaps it would be simpler if he were hiding something. Wolfbane had lost Eyas’ trail, he says, but the certainty with which he tell Elio that she is returning soon is reassuring, as is the warm sensation of delight that the colt projects.

”Your father is awesome,” the dun mare agrees, returning Elio’s hesitant smile with a steady one when he looks back at her. After though, when the delight he sends has faded, her cool grey eyes flick back to Wolfbane’s for a moment, and the smile slips away. Elio’s father is awesome, she thinks, but she is suddenly not certain the same can be said for the stallion in front of her.

”Why don’t we go find Celina?” Lepis suggests after a moment of silence she’d spent tugging a twig from Elio’s golden mane. She turns to where Elio had emerged from the woods, but glances back at Wolfbane for just a moment. She sends him a moment of feeling inquisitive and then content, asking without words as she always has if he is willing to accept her projections. He had been less and less so before he’d left, Lepis recalls a moment  to late, but she cannot take back what she’s done, and instead waits for a response even as she says to Elio.

”Were you playing hide-and-seek? Maybe you can show your Dad and I a good place to hide, and we can surprise your sister when we find her.”

@[elio]
@[Wolfbane]