Gale
this is going to break me clean in two --
this is going to bring me close to you
Thunder peals overhead, accompanying the staccato patter of rain that pours down from full iron clouds. Water has been falling the better part of the day, drenching the colorful flora of the island and turning the turquoise sea to dull gray green. Where Gale stands beneath the heavy boughs of a violet tree, he is protected from most of the rain, and the chill in the autumn air is held at bay by his thick navy hide. He appears less iridescent than in the summer months, and the near-white brindle marks along his neck and sides are so grown out he appears more roan than striped.
He’s staring out into nothingness, a habit he has had since childhood: lost in thought.
Sheltered in the bole of a nearby mango tree, a black osprey keeps watch for the both of them. Erne’s eyes have become yellow once more, losing the matching shade of electric blue he’d had while Gale had been afflicted with the Curse. With them, he peers through the colorful undergrowth, searching for any sign of movement. Soon he will leave to feed himself, and when he does he will call his companion back to himself. For now though, he allows the stallion his time to think.
He can feel the lightning where it flits across his skin, feel the warmth as it darts through his tangled hair and then sinks back beneath the surface of his body. It calls to him, almost as loudly as the lightning in the clouds does, a call so strong that he feels it in his bones. He remembers the first time he’d answered it, and how everything in the world had become so bright and simple.
The world had felt right again, felt like a place he might belong, just for a moment. And then…
Then he had begun to remember.
They were not his own memories. Gale has his own memories, patchy and incomplete as they are. No, these were the memories of someone else - something else. Memories so terrible he does not want to remember them, but when the lightning comes they inevitably strike, like the death and destruction that follows in the wake of a glorious storm.
Yet still the lightning beckons him, tugging at him like the wind pulls at his long white mane. Gale had hoped that his desire to answer it would grow weaker with time. But autumn is a season full of storms, and the navy blue magician feels the lightning no less with each squall, and nearly as strongly between them.
Gale’s usual method of distraction is to wander the island, staying always on the move. The place has changed some in the five years since he had lived here, but he has no desire to see it in the rain, and so has instead been trapped (but dry) with his thoughts for the better part of the morning.
The harsh scree of an osprey pulls him from his melancholy, and Gale turns his head to see Erne taking flight, circling Gale once, and then heading toward the freshwater lake at the center of island where he preferred to find his meals.
Though neither stallion nor osprey have seen anyone in the months since their return, the pair remain wary. With Erne gone, Gale takes up the position of watcher, doing his best to keep his mind from wandering. When it does, he steps out into the rain despite the chill. The steady beat of his hooves as he moves along the black sand fills his thoughts, and he thinks of nothing as he runs beside the sea.
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