i'm peppa pig, and this is my little brother george; magnus/any

[magnus]

— find what you love and let it kill you —

Loyalty was always a fickle thing in Beqanna, but never more so than in this new world. When the land had opened up and swallowed the rest, it had left everything unsettled and different. Sure, alliances had forged from the old kingdoms, but they had been tenuous at best. Some kingdoms stuck together while others fell apart. Tephra had been, in theory, the coming together of the Tundra, the Chamber, and the Valley, but even that had been shaking. Magnus had been an outsider as a representative of the Gates, a kingdom historically aligned with none of the others, and over time, while Offspring, Malis and Eight still roamed the volcanic island, they had stepped down from the council and left it to him alone.

Magnus could only imagine that the similar happenings had shook the other kingdoms as well.

Of course, he has no way of knowing that, not yet. He does not know Ashley’s own illustrious history or even know anything about Ischia and the Queen that he served. He only knew him for the stallion before him now, wings tucked at his sides and eyes bright. At his comment of the scent, Magnus chuckled and glanced around them, “The scent gets easier with time. Particularly when the breeze picks up.” Those were the times that he liked best—when the wind brought with it the clean, salty scent of the ocean.

He tilted his head back to look at the volcano, his gold-flecked eyes studying the craggy cliffs and the fog that curled around its base. “I have lived in darker places,” he answered with a dark smile, thinking about about the belly of the Jungle where the canopy ran so thick that no sun could reach the ground and the shadows of the Chamber. “But there are places where the darkness does not reach so that the residents of the land can enjoy the sun on their backs.” Either way, he did not mind. He loved the land all the same.

Turning his gaze back toward the buckskin, he looked upon him for a moment, wondering what brought him to their shores. “And what of Ischia? I had planned to visit shortly, but you beat me to the punch. How goes life upon your island?” It would do Magnus well to learn of it while he had Ashley’s audience.

magnus