He is surprised by the name she produced. Even in the dark, she could sense the feeling in the way he tensed. Tiercel had said that he was not welcome among his family. Was there more truth to that than she'd thought? She was tempted to ask, to delve into the dynamic of a family she had lived alongside for so long now. The words died in her throat.
"He seems well," she commented instead, a safe, soft thing to say from the girl who stood outside the family. If there was time, later on, maybe then she would bring it up again. There was a story she was missing, but now was not the time to overstep her bounds and ask after it. Not when the dark pressed so heavy on her, and there were much larger worries at bay.
Her head bowed at his reassurance. Pteron was confident in all he did. She had no doubt that he would do his best to stay safe. Still, something his brother had mentioned tugged at her, and she paused before bringing it up again. "Thank you. There's also something Tiercel said... That its not just the dark. There are.. Well, I don't know what. Monsters, or bandits, or really dark shadows. Just that there's something hiding and it's not friendly."
It felt silly when she said it out loud. Like a foal afraid of the shadows the palms made on the sand on cloudy nights. She hadn't even seen one of these so called monsters for herself. That was the problem though, wasn't it? They couldn't see them. Not until it was too late.
A shiver ran along her spine, an echo of fear or of the unseasonable chill that had begun to permeate the normally tropical climate. Don't go, she wanted to say. Please, don't go. The threads of their lives had woven across each other for so many years now. He had left, and broken her trust and she knew she would never be his first priority. He had come back and he had helped her raise their youngest son, and all the other island children, and had been a quiet but dependable support to her for several years now. Both sides were truth.
She had hated him and loved him, avoided him and sought him out. Moved on with her life and then fallen back into the inexorable current that always seemed to pull her back into his embrace. Being with him was what she imagined drowning to be like, but in the slowest, sweetest way possible. She lived in a masochist's dreamland, and was tired of trying to find her way out.
There were no words when he offered to take Torrent for a while when he returned. It was a kind thing, the right thing, to say. She could only nod mutely, overwhelmed and exhausted and knowing that if she let him in just a little, Pteron would share the weight of the world with her. He'd offered to, over and over again. Why was it so hard for her to give in?
The gentle buffet of air from his wings swayed the sail of her mane, whirled the sand at her feet in invisible eddies. He was a light in the dark, even this impenetrable night was no match for the energy he created just by existing. It surprised her just as much as she was sure it would surprise him when she pressed close to him. Placed her cool lips upon his warm ones and kissed him as she'd only ever kissed him.
@[Pteron]