symphonies exploding in the sky | elio

[Pteron]

and since you’re the only one that matters,----------------
----------------tell me: who do i run to?

It takes him a moment to recognize the other stallion. He knows the colors, he is sure but something is not quite…

“Elio!” he exclaims, realization and excitement clear in his voice, “I didn’t even recognize you! When did you do all this growing up?” Pteron holds him tightly as they embrace, marveling at how much his youngest brother has changed. Elio and Lepis had left Taiga when Elio was still a child and seeing him as a man grown is clearly a surprise to Pteron. A welcome surprise though, as he draws back to look at the other dun stallion. With his golden skin and colorful stripes, the young pegasus looks just like the Wolfbane of Pteron’s youngest memories, though his eyes are a shade closer to their mother’s. It has always been a habit of Pteron’s to compare the faces of those he knows, and his family are of particular interest. Elio looks more like Marni than any of the others siblings, Pteron thinks, though who knows what Marni even looks like these days?

This distance between them has never been something that Pteron enjoys. Family belongs nearby: the belief that has driven much of the dun stallion’s recent decision to find his own growing a permanent home. Nowhere felt right, and so he had chosen somewhere new.

“Tephra,” he replies, “with my children and their father, Aegean.” With two of his children, he doesn’t clarify. He does not like to remember that he has almost forgotten what Adarra looks like.

“She asks me about you, too.” Pteron responds, his olive eyes darkening in humor. “Perhaps that is her effort to get both of us to visit more often,” jokes the winged stallion. He takes in the sight of Elio once more, noticing for the first time the scars that Elio wears. Those must have been deep wounds to leave a mark on skin like their, Pteron knows. It takes effort to mark the brothers with any sort of permanence, the silvery scars along the underside of Pteron’s neck proof of that.

“You are back in Taiga?” he asks, rather than press his brother for more information about the injuries. Pteron had made no show of hiding his sympathetic reaction to seeing them, he trusts that Elio will speak of them if he wishes to. “It took me months to get the pine smell out of my nose, but I’d recognize it anywhere.”

@[elio]

-- pteron --