"As you wish," replies an equally smooth Tarian. He considers her quietly, lifting his head for a better look at the spotted woman. The silver stallion tries to fight it but a smile twitches at the corner of his dark mouth, the only hint of the laughter that might have otherwise come between them. "Take all the time you need."
He eyes her again when she says her name and his brow furrows slightly. (Tarian isn't about to repeat the word.) While it is unusual, there is something... about the way it flows. He'd butcher it, he knows, with his soldier's tongue. He'd look for a shorter and more efficient way to say it. There would be nothing of the graceful rising and falling that Altissima had bestowed upon it.
Better to leave the girl and her name with their eloquence.
"My twin was the one with all the luck," Tarian says with a tight smile. "My brother had the charm and manners and good fortune." It had always bothered him that Liam had left them to explore the world. He had spread his wings (black as pitch as his were bright) and ventured off to worlds unknown, shaking off the sense of duty and responsibility that Tarian had so eagerly shackled himself with. He's brutally honest with Altissima when he answers, "If mine hadn't run out, I wouldn't be here."
Tarian had been the once-Heir. He had known that he would grow up to be like his grandsire, Valerio, and great-grandsire, Ichiro. He would grow up to be like those Guardians of hold who had protected and defended and his story would be another illustrious chapter in a history that spanned across entire volumes. He had felt it in his blood. He had known he would be something great.
And then Paraiso had vanished.
And then he became the displaced Heir.
And then the almost-exiled son.
And then the almost-lover of Orani.
And then (over the last few years) a soldier of Liridon.
And now? Now, he stands here with @[Altissima] in a land that he doesn't know and he feels aimless. It makes his hooves eager to move and there is something restless in the way that he angles his shoulder, as if preparing to take step towards, away, somewhere, anywhere. He's perhaps too abrupt with his movement, something brittle in the way he smiles. He almost asks if she is afraid that misfortune might be contagious. Like his fate might catch flame to her own and burn it all away.
Was. Almost. Not quite.
Words that have all described his past.
He sighs and the smile falls behind something more stoic. "Would you consider yourself lucky?"
Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength
which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are.