Journey continues...

[magnus]

Her company is easy, and he finds that he does not mind it.

Even though she is enigmatic and he has more questions now than when they started, she is witty and entertaining and different from anyone that he is run across in recent memory. So he doesn't mind that she dances around his questions or that she stubbornly sticks to her formal language and unnecessarily formal titles. He just relaxes, shooting her a lopsided smile now and again, walking her around the land.

“Freedoms are not often appreciated,” he muses, looking upward at the fog that rolls off of the nearby volcano. “It is pleasing to hear that you recognize your own.” Sometimes he wonders if he is indeed free anymore or if he had given it up long ago. He could not remember a time before responsibility. The closest he had come was his youth when he was raised amongst vine and wildcat, but even then, he had not been the feral colt he had pretended to be. Even then he had been a prince of two different kingdoms.

There had been expectations, duties, responsibilities. Even then.

Of course, he doesn’t mention those now. Instead, he just rolls his shoulders and regards her when she responds with a question of her own. “For fun?” His lip quirked slightly. Fun was not often something that he gave to himself. He had too many things to take care of—too many things riding upon his ability to stay alert and responsible. Still, there were ways he let loose. “I rather enjoy running when I am by myself.” He took a few springy steps forward, shaking his tangled, matted mane loose before looking back at her over his shoulder. “Perhaps you’d like to see for yourself the land at a quicker pace?”

The words were said kindly but the fun challenge beneath them couldn’t be ignored.

out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know
I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll