[private] I think I made you up inside my head; pteron

[Pteron]

finger trips across my cheek----------------
----------------kiss me until i can't speak

Pteron’s dreams are no less frequent, and yet they have all ended the same of late. Cloying ash overwhelms the fragile scent of flowers, smoke chokes the clear sky, true flames burn away the warmth of his memories. Today is no different. Having chosen to roost in a bole far from his usual nest, the first breathe he takes upon waking is flavored only by the trees and the fog. That makes it easier to forget the dream – or at least that it was ruined.

The rest of it is forgotten as he descends to the ground, a slow spiraling of his pied body down to the forest floor. Once there, he tucks his pale wings tightly to his sides, takes a sip from the little creek that flows near the base of the large redwood, and begins his journey through the woods. He’s not headed anywhere in particular – except not south, because that is where Reia is likely to be – and instead meanders slowly toward the east. Perhaps he might visit the sea, he is thinking, try and pick out the distant rise on the watery horizon that is the landmass of Silver Cove.

He doesn’t make it there, because part of his dream stands in the shadowy forest ahead of him.

Aegean is unburnt (he never leaves the dream unburnt, and rarely as more than a pile of ash) and Pteron knows he is not sleeping. His chest constricts tightly after the briefest moment of overwhelming joy, and though he continues forward, he pauses far far out of reach.

“Aegean,” he says softly, and even the sound of his name hurts, because Pteron has done his very best to put it from his mind. “What are you doing here?” The words should have been happy, should have matched the initial brightness in him at the sight of the antlered stallion, and instead they are torn and ragged.

-- pteron --

@[aegean]