[open] living like we're renegades

[Gale]

Gale run away with me-- lost souls and reverie running wild and running free   The distant cry of the seahawk wakes him. Blinking sleepy blue eyes, Gael shakes his head even while a yawn takes him, struggling to rid himself of sleep. He’d been having a dream, one that he is already forgetting. There’d been a green mare that might have been Divest, and a whole flock of ospreys. A strange dream, to be sure. The sun is little more than a soft glow above the sea, its light diffused by heavy clouds. They carry thunderstorms, Gale is sure, a frequent occurrence during the late autumn and early winter.  The brindle stallion enjoys the rain – or at least watching it fall from a dry place – but there is much he must do before those clouds cross his beach. Erne, the osprey whose call had woken him, has flown nearer, and now circles overhead. The bird does not show emotion on its face in a way that Gale knows (now could he see from this distance even if he did), but there is happiness in the mental tether between them. Erne is eager for the rain as well, knowing that after, the fish will rise to the surface to catch the water-logged insects, only to be caught themselves by the osprey’s impressive talons.  But now is the time for patrol, not for fishing. It takes little more than a heartbeat and the closing of his own eyes. It’s a special trick and one he’s still perfecting, but it is invaluable on this sparsely populated isle. When Gale opens his eyes again, he sees the island resort from Erne’s perspective. Far above the trees, with vision more precise than Gale’s own. This bird vision makes some things look strange, and focusing overlong on the differences results in immense migraines once he returns to his own eyes. Instead he allows Erne to look as he likes, his predator’s eyes scanning for movement rather than detail. Unnatural movement. The first thing he sees is Eyas, meandering down the northern shore. Had she slept, he wonders? She has not slept much of late. But Eyas is not what he seeks, and Erne banks away, gliding on the warm and storm-thick air until he’s circled the entire island. There are no strangers here, no changes during the night. With a contented thank you to his companion, Gale slips back into his own eyes. The world is fuzzy, and will remain so for some time, but that method of patrol is worth the half-hour or so of blurred vision. It’d take five times as long to do the route on foot, after all. Gale had done the math after Eyas asked, though he hopes that with more practice the recovery time will be shorter. With that done, the young chief of the island makes his way toward the spring that flows into the southeastern shore. From here, he can see the distant haze of Tephra and the volcano reaching into the clouds. Soon the coming storm will turn the horizon gray, but for now he drinks his fill and breaks his night fast with the salty purple grasses that grow atop the black dunes.