Nightwalker's blood; kids, etc

[Kreios]

kreios don't you tame your demons, but always keep them on a leash I look over as another appaloosa joins us, expecting to see perhaps another nephew. There is something about the boy though, something familiar, but I am too distracted by the arrival of my father to pay much mind to a boy that I don’t even know. He says my name – I am so accustomed to him calling me ‘boy’, or ‘you’ that it sounds strange in my ears. Stranger though is the apology that follows it. It is something I had wanted for years, something I had imagined and pictured a dozen times as a child. It feels hollow. I return the gesture – brushing my pale nose against his dark one – but not the sentiment. It is too raw, but physical affection I am comfortable with. We can ‘hug it out’, but talking is an entirely different matter. I do not want to brun bridges though, and so I tamp down the immeadite reply and choose to wait. It is wise, I think as Vanquish turns back to the rest of the horses. He offers Kreios – offers all of them – whatever they wish. What does Kreios want? He wants a childhood where he was not his father’s least favorite son. He wants the life that he might have had if his sire were not ashamed of him. But that is not something that Vanquish can give him. That is not something that anyone can give him – not even Yael. Two of my family members – for they must be family – say that they require nothing, and I am spared from answering by the arrival of another face that I recognize. I knew him as a far younger stallion, but to Gaza I offer the first genuine smile since my arrival in Beqanna. He had always been kind to me – kinder by far than by blood brother – and given the way he greets the young mare he has continued that habit into adulthood. I take a moment to glance back at our father, and decide in that moment that while a reuinion is in order, I am not entirely ready for it. “I’ll be back,” I say, not entirely able to meet my sire’s eye. I mean the words though, and even though I turn to head for less memory-laden ground, I know that I will not be long in returning.