[private] oh, there's a river that winds on forever

[bolder]

His grin broadened at her mention of ‘the one and only.’ It had been hard for him to gauge individual personalities when their small group had met at the Ruins. Bolder had met Elliana previously, and knew a little of the chocolate palomino from their earlier conversation. She seemed to enjoy the same light-hearted banter that he did and the pair of them seemed to get along well enough.

Rezza was certainly a curiosity. He had never seen a horse like her before, and the shifter within him marveled at how she differed from their kind. Bolder had wanted to learn more about Baltia for Mazikeen and Hyaline; it wouldn’t harm the Pack to be informed about the changes that had taken storm across Beqanna. To know where exactly Baltia was, and why the new land that had risen after the ground-shakes was called the Ruins.

And then there was Lillibet.

She had come across his mind a few times. When Bolder had patrolled the edges of Hyaline or remained just outside the borders of it - as he did now, lingering in the northern point of the Meadow. There was always the chance that horses headed in this direction might be seeking out the Mountain (and oh, Bolder would have had a few things to share about that place if they had tried asking the striped squirrel that rushed from branch to branch or the silver-eyed falcon that liked to keep watch in the nearby trees) or Pangea; but if something struck him as odd or out of place for anyone who migrated towards his home, Bolder would be there to intercept them.

But the last few interactions had made him think of the ethereal girl with her clenched jaw, the way she asked about her home of golden trees that now rested beneath the waves.

Where had she gone?

Apparently not far, he mused to himself, finding that he was glad they had crossed paths again. She certainly made for better (and prettier) company than the badgers that dwelled in this part of the wood. With the arrival of spring, it meant that the grazing was sweeter but it also probably meant there was more than just the pair; avoiding a new family of anxious badgers and enjoying Lillibet’s company instead sounded like a far better way to spend his morning (even if his stomach grumbled a little).

”There’s such a thing as being too comfortable with shifters?” Bolder teased his companion with a raised brow as if his own father hadn’t been repulsed by his ability to shift, as if he hadn’t been raised in Hyaline because of that. The former Sylvan wastes no time and comes alongside him, and the pegasus draws his copper wings closer to his barrel so that she might have space to do so. "Not often," Bolder revealed to Lillibet while he moved ahead, "but I like to make use of my wings and I don't particularly enjoy long, stagnant winters."

Bolder refrained from opening his wings (though part of him wanted to show them off for the slender female beside him), and asked the glowing girl while they walked instead, "And what has you out-and-about so early?"

@Lillibet