leave me at the altar, knowing all the things you just escaped
He is young, Isakov, but he speaks as if he’s much older. As if his words alone can make him appear older. Never mind that he still has the lean body of a yearling. Gangly and coltish. It doesn’t matter that his voice does not shake in the face of this older stallion’s anger, because he is still just a boy and this is something he cannot hide.
And, as a boy, he cannot imagine the lifetimes this stallion has lived. He cannot imagine the years shed or the memories he carries with him. He does not know love, unrequited or otherwise. His magic, the magic that had provoked the stallion in the first place, is rooted in love, but the boy does not understand it. Neither the magic nor love.
So, he is a boy who stands and tries to pretend he is not a boy. He stands and he does not shrink. He watches, the eyes a pale gold, as the older stallion seems, too, to shed his anger. Or, at least, he shifts his anger someplace else. He does not wield it against the boy who is just a boy and never claimed to be anything else.
He offers his name and Isakov nods. He offers his name and something that might have been an explanation. But Isakov is not sure. There are so many things he does not understand.
He tilts his head and feels some defensive pang ricochet in his narrow chest. He is of the stars and he cannot decide if what Tarian said had sounded like an accusation. Not lobbed at him, but at the stars he loves. (Not as much as he loves the water, no, but he loves the stars all the same).
“I have never known the stars to be cruel,” he muses and blinks those pale gold eyes. “How did it trick you?”
@[Tarian]