Anger is ugly.
He had been choked by it at first. He had raged against the surprise, against the betrayal, against his own acceptance at leaving the island for the last time. It was incomprehensible that they should suffer so much, this last bastion of Daleans intent on growing their own sanctuary in this reborn land. They were already hounded by heartache: first losing the oldest members of their tribe, then losing their collective innocence (when Wallace hurt, they all had). A cold fire had dropped like ice in his belly when Sabrael had let the dragon fully overwhelm him. Usually, he ran hot like lava (the beast pooling his every pore with burn). But this time, for the first time, they are in tandem.
They are cold clarity, righteous aggression.
He flies until his throat is clotted with clouds and his wings are raw and limp.
The again-horse recovers his strength in the meadow where the remnants of his family have gathered. He placates and pleads and plays the son he is supposed to be. Because now is not the time to berate his mother for leaving them vulnerable. Now is not the time to let loose the questions burning his tongue like some kind of matryoshka dragon inside of him (Where did you go? Why did you betray father? How are you going to fix everything?) Now is the time for action and dragging one’s feet forward, even if it is through thick mud. Anger is ugly. Sometimes progress is, too.
But he has no time for either.
Sabrael leaves his family in the stinging heat of the gathering grounds. He is slow through the humid air, reluctant to put so much space between them when it is the last thing they need. Pangea pulls him closer with claws he’s evaded for too long. Now they pluck at his tail, move spider-like up his back, closing their sticky fingers ever-tighter around him. He goes to the wasteland like a man marked for the gallows because where he wants to be fades into the background. Where he needs to be looms on the horizon until he makes it – until it rises above him.
Dead faces of dry rock stare at the outsider as he passes underneath. Pangea is no paradise, he’s heard (not like Ischia had been; anger flares and flutters like a trapped animal in his stomach). This is unlike anything he could have imagined, though. It is a soulless place. There is a familiar dryness to the howling wind that reminds him of winter in the Dale. The promise that, should he not absorb every drop of moisture he has access to, he will surely be leeched of all his fluids by the land.
Fortunately, he will not be here long enough to find out.
The bay roan instinctively searches for Wallace first, his gold-brown eyes darting between the dust. They are together in this momentary imprisonment and he will not let her linger long alone. His heartbeat speeds at the thought, so loud he swears it is echoing off the canyon walls.
Sabrael