Nemeon isn’t sure why, but he smiles at her question. It is streaked with sadness but it is a smile all the same. He’s never had the chance to tell someone before - his mother and sister both found out when he did. “It does not shine on me at all, not while I wake. When the sun crests the horizon, I will turn to stone. Every day. And I will not wake until it is gone from the sky.” He even envies the stone skin that crawls over him in the morning because it has felt the warmth of the sun. Sometimes, if he’s caught in the open, he has felt the remnants of the summer sun lingering when he returns to flesh.
All of these are just echoes of the thing that is kept from him, though, much like Baptiste’s halo. Tiny glimpses into that strange world of the waking.
His dark ears twitch at the sound of her soft voice as she continues, admitting that she prefers the time he is trapped in and then his gaze drifts away from the filly for a moment. Glancing around at the quiet area around them. There aren’t many others close by, moving with the same slow pace Nemeon has come to expect. A few golden fireflies blink in and out of existence nearby.
And Baptiste matches with the night so well, he thinks it makes sense that she feels like it is her home.
“I hope I can be that comfortable with it one day.” Nemeon admits quietly, finally bringing his gaze back to her and attempting a smile that is a little less mournful. He’s not yet come to learn that maybe he matches the night too, that maybe it is better that it is his cage. If he were free to wander beneath the sun - how many would he hurt?
@
baptiste
