The meeting had adjourned and Nayl spared a brief glance first to Lior, then Castile. When having taken a place at her side, the boy couldn’t help but peer upward uncertainly. His eyes narrowed for a fleeting moment, his heart lurching as he tries to decipher whether to protect mother or simply stand aside.
He chose the latter.
Nayl pressed her lips against her son and mustered him toward the mouth of a nearby cave. Silent as poison in the veins, she glances over her shoulder to Lior and suggestively tilts her head for him to follow. With minimal conversation as of late, the Queen still finds herself pregnant with a second. The discomfort has already sunken its teeth into her body. Some mornings she awakens with a dull ache that stems across her core, while other days she is fine and more tolerant. Fortunately, today is calm.
Castile, while meandering toward the cave, occasionally glances behind him at the burly stallion then up at mother. He almost asks, his mouth opening, but he’s quickly hushed with a sharp look.
When they stop, the ocean crashing in front of her and the cave yawning at her back, Nayl looks at Lior. She had maintained such a stern expression for so long – a face of marble – that seeing a lopsided grin appear is almost startling. Beneath her forelock, her eyes blaze with a subdued joy in seeing him again, in breathing him in. ”I thought it was about time you two finally meet.” She doesn’t question Lior’s whereabouts or even scorn him for being absent; she has always reveled in independence. Castile, curious but protective, takes a stance at her shoulder, his wings shuffling against his shoulders. His mismatched eyes – one silver and one gold – follow the edges of Lior’s face, then down his neck and side to where leathery wings sprout. My wings have looked like that, he almost says, but decides against it as mother continues with a cooled voice. ”Castile, this is your father, Lior.” While mother had been content in the absence of the stallion, the boy had often wondered.
Who is he?
Lior
Where is he?
I don’t know.
Will he like me?
Of course.
When is he coming back?
Enough questions, my son. It’s time to rest.
Nayl cannot count how many times the boy questioned her. The worry for his father frequently burdened him, but all she could do was offer vague answers that would spare him from high hopes, because in reality, she didn’t know what to expect. She didn’t know how Lior would take to fatherhood.
But he is here now, standing with them on their sandy shore. ”Lior, meet Castile.”
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