symphonies exploding in the sky | elio

[elio]

elio

some say I should learn to cry but I only learned how to fight
and I know everything must die but nothing fades like the light

Elio now wears physical scars and aches.

He should have known his father's curse mingled with his own pride and naivety would collide into a furious tornado, but that aforementioned naivety kept him from really seeing.

His coat of scars and muddied fur shields him from the cold sorrows that chase. When they catch him, his defenses grow ragged: Lio is shaken, if still smiling, and often finds himself trapped in the memory of his father tearing his tongue from his mouth.

A phantom pain tears through his mouth.

While happier and more grounded in Taiga, the golden man still finds himself wandering from the land in dazed escapes. Wolfbane is there with Lilliana, but neither of them are actually there. Nashua and Yanhua are there, very literally, but Elio doesn't know how to be something to them that totally makes sense.

He feels blind, often listless, but oh . . . how terribly good he is at hiding it.

That's why Lio smiles big when he sees Pteron. What he wants to do is turn and hide, observe from a distance but not bear the weight of explaining why he's different now. He wears his painted grin as well as the mottling scars on his sides, matching that boyish face with an equally as boyish greeting:

"It's me, dummy."

Elio trots closer, wraps Pteron in a tight, swift embrace.

"Where have you been? Mom asks about you sometimes."

@[Pteron]