[private] i've always had too much pride

[bolder]

The story of how Bolder came to be in Hyaline is complicated, but the older that the young pegasus gets, the more he realizes that it was necessary. Had he stayed in Taiga, he might not have discovered his shifting. According to his Uncle Gale, if he had stayed in Taiga any longer, he might not ever have discovered it.

(It's just one more thing to be grateful to his Aunt and Uncle for.)

But since coming to Hyaline, the earlier lessons of his youth grow hazy. The boy who had raced beneath the mighty Taigan trees is different from the one who roams the shores of Hyaline's lake. He blinks, and lifts his head, trying to recall some of the manners that his parents had attempted to instill in him. "And you as well," Bolder says, continuing to study the unfamiliar face of the other horse.

Could he split himself apart between the icy cracks?

Did he shift into seasons, change like the weather?

He keeps studying Selaphiel's face for some type of hint to his power, and finds traces of his mother staring at him instead. A sense of longing surprises him, as thinks of her last visit and the way she had wrapped him tight within her embrace. Bolder loves the adventures and the new things he has learned here under the Alpha, but the feeling that his mother invokes is powerful. He misses her, but the knowledge that this is another relation is comforting.

"She's my grandmother," Bolder says, "My mother used to live here with her." Noel had eventually left Hyaline, though. She had come to Nerine, and the rest is a history that resulted in the young crescent-marked colt. He glanced around them, before his silver eyes rested on Selaphiel again.

"Like you do now," he adds, putting all the pieces together. "So you're my Uncle, like Gale."

@Selaphiel