"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
and since you’re the only one that matters,---------------- ----------------tell me: who do i run to?
The days have taken on a routine, and Pteron cannot remember a time he was more content. He has responsibility (but not too much), he has family (but not so many children he cannot tend them all), he has shelter and food and a home in a tropical paradise.
And there is Aegean too, and it is toward him that Pteron moves, winding through the lush greenery of the main island until he comes across the antlered stallion. Though his morning had been spent in vigorous exercise (he takes his promise to train Halcyon seriously), the afternoons are his to do with as he will, and far more often than not he finds that what he wants most is to spend more time alongside the father of his children.
“I want to go see the waterfall today.” the pegasus announces. “You know, the big one at the northern lake.” He’s mentioned it before, having seen the place while in flight, but he has never landed there. Pteron would rather share the sight with Aegean, having found that he enjoys trying to identify sights that the illusionist has not created before almost as much as he enjoys the additions that his lover often makes to the world around them.
I should have loved a thunderbird instead at least when spring comes they roar back again
Aegean grows nearly lazy in his contentedness—so happy is he to spend his nights curled against the pegasus and his days wandering along the beach. Their introduction into the Ischian life had not been what he would have hoped for, he still struggles to wrap his head around the sharp abrupt ending to their greeting, but he has never been one to hold onto such things for too long—let alone swallow them down.
If they were not wanted, then he would simply give a wide berth.
He was, after all, here for Pteron and Pteron only.
So long as his lover was content, then he was content too.
He smiles when he arrives, smelling the salt and the exertion on the other stallion and knowing that he had spent the last few hours training with the young boy. “I would love that,” he says with his dreamy smile, the kind that just barely tilts the edges of his velvet lips, his purple eyes warming under the sun.
“You know, I don’t think I have ever seen a waterfall up close,” his voice trails off in thought as he tries to think of what it would be like. When he focuses again on Pteron’s face, there is a spark of knowing in his eyes. He knew how much Pteron liked to surprise him. He goes along with it though, gladly stepping forward an in time with the other stallion, the glow of him faint as the sun reaches the peak above them.
As they walk, he idly reaches over to run his lips down Pteron’s jaw in a soft kiss.
“How was training today?”
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead (I think I made you up inside my head.)
and since you’re the only one that matters,---------------- ----------------tell me: who do i run to?
“Good,” Pteron replies, reflecting on the day’s session as he moves along beside Aegean. “Good. At this point it’s as much practice for me as training for him.” Halcyon is well past the basics, having clearly made an effort to learn even after Pteron’s absence had ended his childhood lessons in the art of war.
“Which does remind me,” he continues, glancing over at the antlered stallion, “I was thinking perhaps Asena and Aureus could join us soon. That is, if they want to.” Pteron is not entirely sure they will, but they’re old enough now that he should at least offer, he knows. Adarra had not wanted any part of it, so he knows that his love of it has not always been inherited by his children.
They make their way through the lush greenery of the island, travelling a path that Pteron is unfamiliar with. He’s mostly sure this is the right way. Even if it is not though, the sun overhead is warm and bright where it breaks through the canopy, and a cool breeze plays with the pale strands of Aegean’s hair that Pteron affectionately brushes back. It is a good day for a walk, and there is a slowly growing roar in the background. It is not a familiar sound, but he knows it means that they are nearing the waterfall.
“Do you hear it?” He asks Aegean, craning his head as though he might see it through the trees.
I should have loved a thunderbird instead at least when spring comes they roar back again
There is something beautiful about walking this rope of tension and ease. The dreamlike simplicity of walking alongside Pteron’s side and knowing the security in that. There is something to loving the freedom of the stallion—loving the way that he flutters to and fro, knowing that his heart was a multi-layered thing. It is enough to be cast in the warmth of it on such days, to bask in the glow of him as he hears about his day and they discuss their children. As they look to the next day and the next.
“You are welcome to ask,” he answers with a hint of a smile, his purple eyes sliding to the side.
There is a soft laugh that pulls at the corners of his mouth.
“Although I do not think that Aureus has much of a warrior’s heart.”
He does not mean it as an insult so much as a nod to the gentle nature of their son. Aureus took as much after him as he did Pteron, but the boy was a dream more than a fighter. He was somber and stalwart, but only because he was trapped within the inquisitive nature of his mind. He preferred his nightly conversations with the star that followed along his hip than any battle on the horizon.
Still, he rolls his shoulder. His children have surprised him before.
And then there is the tension that comes along on the heels of the ease. The quickening of blood under the surface as Pteron pushes his hair back, the touch an electrifying jolt that turns his sleepy smile into something just a little more. He studies the stallion for a moment longer before he angles his head to the side, tipping it gently as he listens for the roar that builds in the background in the distance.
“Just barely,” he admits. “But I imagine that it is close.”
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead (I think I made you up inside my head.)
and since you’re the only one that matters,---------------- ----------------tell me: who do i run to?
Their path has wound through the deepest parts of the jungle, and the pair emerges at the base of the waterfall, with glittering water will soon spread ahead of them. As Pteron takes the final strides through the trees that separate them from the view, he thinks of Aureus, Asena, Barley, and Torrent. His young children here in Ischia, anchors to the tropical island for years to come. The weight of parenthood is a comfortable one for the tobiano stallion, but it leaves him with precious few moments like the one that passes between himself and Aegean now.
There is a current in the air, like a charge of electricity than runs down his spine.
Pteron swallows deeply, and with a shake of his pale head catches up from where he’s fallen a half-stride behind.
Ahead of them spreads the glittering water. Pteron’s quick pace draws to a halt, and he takes a long breath. Ahead of them is a green-blue pool of water, fed by several natural stories of other pools and waterfalls. He’s not ever seen anything like it before, but he immediately understands why equines with an affinity to water had chosen this place as their home. Tropical paradise indeed, he thinks, and leans companionably against Aegean’s side. He rests his chin across the other man’s shoulders, inhaling the familiar scent.
I should have loved a thunderbird instead at least when spring comes they roar back again
It’s easy, and beautiful, and there is poetry in such things, he thinks.
Poetry in being with his mate as they explore their new home. As their children grow and more come to walk alongside them. It is the poetry of the tide that comes and goes—the poetry of happiness that rises like the sun each morning, casting the world in its warmth, in the golden glow of its light.
He basks in it.
Takes each and every precious moment given to him.
There is a sigh as they come to stand near the pool, listening to the crash and roar of the waterfall as it plunges into the endless depth of the jewel-bright water. He stretches in contentedness as Pteron rests his chin on him, as they curl against one another, languid in the moment, in the electricity that crackles.
“I think it is nearly the most perfect thing that I have ever seen,” he says with a lazy smile, closing his eyes as he shifts to settle into a more comfortable position. With eyes closed, he tries to remember every detail of the moment, as though he could paint it for himself later—committing each bit to memory.
“Do you remember the first time we met?”
He casts a quick illusion around them of the Cove, letting it weakly take hold of the landscape around them before it fades to the tropical paradise that is now their home.
“I think of such times often.”
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead (I think I made you up inside my head.)
