There had been a time that horses had once gone without names.
It was when the Old Ones still ran with the wild herds and equines responded only to the call of nature. They measured their days by the rise of the sun and its surrender to the silver moon, by the times their hooves would strike the ground as they galloped. Those ancestors knew each other by their coloring: rich mahogany brown that was the envy of the soil, blazing gold that was the emblem of the sun, gentle white that refllected the drifting clouds above (and for a lucky few, some were cast in multiple shades because their gods could not decide).
When the gods did eventually retreat (because in what story do they remain?), horses started to take names in the absence of their deities.
Her eyes linger a moment too long on those white wings. Lilliana catches herself by the disruption of a blue feather nestled amongst its pale counterparts. If they had been in those ancient times, the Taigan thinks that the pegasus stallion might have claimed a name from the sky. His wings, his coloring all mark him a creature of it. The chestnut mare blinks and there is nothing within her that wants to recoil away from Pteron. A year or two earlier, the sight of them might have had the slender mare take a jarring step or two back. Now, she only blinks.
A delicate ear tips towards Reave's direction, glinting fire-gold beneath the Ischian sun (or what is left of it with daylight waning by the hour). She can hear her youngest child splashing over the waves and there is experience gazing out from the green eyes of the painted stallion as he watches the boy. It's been years since she has last seen him and Lilliana notes the changes; the easy-going stature, a diplomatic smile.
At the mention of boys - sons, he shares with Aquaria (and she immediately thinks of Cormorant is who most likely not a boy anymore) - her expression shifts. Pteron and Aquaria? It isn't a pairing she would have imagined, one of fin and feather but it makes her smile soften and a warmth reach behind her blue eyes. The Pteron she remembers from Taiga had been a father there as well and so she wonders about his eldest child. Both the filly and her mother disappeared not long after the tobiano had. It had been a relief to have a dragon-born away from the Redwood territory but she had often wondered at what happened to the girl.
But there had been so many things to wonder (and worry) about in those days.
"I'd hoped to see her," Lilliana shares. "We had heard she was in the Alliance and I wanted to see for myself how she fared." There had been the possibility of a discussion about a formal treaty extending from the one she has planned to make with the Watcher from Tephra. But then Reave had wanted to see the ocean and Lilliana had gotten distracted by memories from earlier times.
"He told me that the two of you met," she says, carefully, but her smile begins to relax. The young pegasus had been beaming and brimming with a bright smile and the excitement at meeting the eldest of his half-brothers had apparently eclipsed the mention that Aquaria's newest son was Pteron's as well. Typical Nash, she thinks. "You should see his brother," Lilliana says as a gentle tease and then takes the moment to glance towards Reave. The darkness is growing but he still remains close enough that she could reach him within a few canter strides.
Close enough that she can still hear him stamping and snorting at the rolling sea.
The moment quiets and the chestnut looks back towards the pegasus. Had it remained still, Lilliana would have said what she was thinking: that she had been sorry to hear about the death of his mother, Lepis. But the world goes dark - the light gone out - and as the moon and sun eclipse, she asks @[Pteron]: "Have you seen anything like this before?"
sorry for the novel