"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
Laurelin does not often feel jealousy - he considers himself pretty peak - but every once in a while he wonders what he would look like with wings. He dreamed about it once - they were feathered and navy like him but the flight feathers were golden. It was quite the look - but then the dream had shifted into a nightmare and something had crawled from the river and plucked every feather out before he had woken up.
It had been very effective at deterring him from ever looking into making those wings a reality.
He does think about it when he watches the girl land nearby. There’s no surprise in him when she comes over, and Laurelin swishes his tail behind him, sending a smattering of more sparks up. A smile brightens at the compliment and if he did have wings, they’d ruffle in pleasure. A gentle laugh escapes him when she expresses her hope that he is not a monster. “A monster! With baby blues like these? No way.” It’s one of the only faults of Laurelin’s body that he cannot gesture to his eyes but he does wink, and that does the trick well enough.
Belatedly, he registers her introduction. “Wait, your name is Aureline.” He repeats it, and it is not lost on him that he likes the way it feels on his tongue because it is so close to his own name. A little of that self-importance falls away (but just a little). There’s a little mischief in his grin, a little of the youth that he really is, when he introduces himself in turn. “I’m Laurelin!”
