"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
Having spent the majority of her four young years within the place, she’d grown familiar with every nook and cranny. From the best spot to catch an afternoon sunbathing session to the worst place to look for fall ripened apples - she had come to know it all. Or anything of significant importance, she thought. But honestly, there weren’t many other things in life better than napping and eating were there?
Wanderlust had started to rise in annoying frequency, and for the first time in well, ever, she started to feel the press of her surroundings confining her. Uncomfortable and not agreeable, it was one of those itches that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t reach it. Not by her usual methods anyhow. No, the only thing that miraculously kept the tingling at bay was movement.
A change of scenery and new faces is what she sought when she crossed over the imaginary lines that divided the Forest from Loess and Loess from Taiga. A legion of redwoods greeted her there, regal and imposing amidst the low hanging fog in the early rays of daybreak. It swirled as she moved, parting and curling back to nip at her heels with every muted step atop the beds of pine needles. This place was eerie and somehow still hauntingly beautiful. When discontent urged her to keep going, she obliged, turned westward to use her shadow as an absent guide.
It’s not long before the fog begins to burn off, and the random turn she makes around a rocky outcropping brings her face to face with a poor passerby, nearly colliding with them. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t know you were there!” Collecting herself, she takes a step back before searching for her surprise companion’s line of vision. Unable to believe that the face looking back at her is one she recognized from her past - one that she hadn’t seen since she was a young girl - she gasps, “Pteron? Is that you? What are you doing here?”
finger trips across my cheek---------------- ----------------kiss me until i can't speak
Pteron wakes around the same time every morning, a habit that does not break regardless of when he’d gone to bed the night before. Some days – like today – that means that he’s gotten very little rest. Yet as he yawns himself to wakefulness, he traces the amber spots on the pegasus that still dozes against him, and the memories of what had kept them up so late is worth the weariness that he needs to shake away. Reluctant to wake her, Pteron extracts himself from Lainat’s embrace slowly, and by the time he stands at the lip of his nest he is fully awake.
The sun is just beginning to rise; he can see the growing brightness even through the dense canopy.
Spring has just begun to creep into the north and as Pteron descends his breath his stills fogs in front of him. It disappears when he reaches the ground, lost in the heavy fog that has seeped in from the sea. The dun stallion takes a deep breath of the salty air, and releases it in a startled snort as someone nearly collides with him. The fog had hidden their scent and the rocky outcropping he landed near had kept them from view. Blinking in surprise, it takes Pteron a moment to identify the mare in front of him. When he had last seen Catcher, she had been a bright chestnut filly, and the greying mare in front of him is briefly unrecognizable.
But her voice is the same, even though he is no longer dreaming, and a smile of recognition grows on his handsome face.
“Catcher!” he says brightly, reaching forward to brush her nose in greeting. “I should be the one asking you that!” Pteron tells her with a grin. “I’m the one that lives here, after all. What brings you to Taiga?”
“Hi Pteron,” she manages to squeeze in before he reached forward.
Unprepared for the contact, she goes rigid, blinking stupidly down her nose when he barely touches her. Other than embracing her parents, she’d lived a rather sheltered life against contact and touching. It just wasn’t something she typically endeavored to do - or more accurately - ever endeavored to do. Was that the way of kingdom life? Being automatically touchy? But Eyas had never tried to touch her right away...or had she? The greying overo mare was having a hard time collecting her memories at that point and probably for the best as it would not alter anything now.
And if she were to be honest with herself, the contact wasn’t all that bad.
“Well, I was just assuming that you were still in Loess,” she finally answers his fair question. Laughing lightly, she looks away guiltily before looking back with glistening charcoal eyes. “I suppose I understand that saying now, ‘if you assume, it makes an ass out of you’. Dropping her smile like it was on fire, she gasped lightly, clearly reading into too much of how that might’ve come across to him. “N-not you, being the ass I mean. What I meant to say…” she was struggling at that point, fumbling for simple words that evaded her, “I meant me.” Please, please stop talking, Catcher. You’re making this so much worse, she begged herself, her stormy eyes going wide and dark with embarrassment.
There’s a heavy moment of silence and then just because she couldn’t stop her lips of flapping she said, "I’m the ass."
“So anyway," she said, stepping slightly away from him as if her faux-pas never occurred. “ I got bored and so that meant it was time for an adventure and since I’ve never physically been in Taiga before, I thought, why not?” Someone else might not have caught on to what she had been in regards to physically being there. He was one of the few that knew of her dream walking abilities. That happened to be the last time they’d seen each other, and while he was easy to recognize for being relatively unchanged, she’s impressed that he was able to recall her so quickly. Catcher’s fire had started to turn to ash, and her body had filled out some since the last time he’d seen her as a scrawny teenager.
“Why the change to Taiga?” she asked curiously, now finally able to look him in the eyes again.
finger trips across my cheek---------------- ----------------kiss me until i can't speak
Pteron’s own comfort with physical affection comes with the knowledge of reading those who are not, and so after his brief greeting, Pteron draws back, settling for a smile when he might have offered a hug. He takes no pleasure in making other uncomfortable, especially not those with abilities as powerful as Catcher, but his embarrassment at pressing her boundaries soon becomes nothing to what he watches Catcher struggle through.
Pteron grins despite himself, perfectly aware of what she had meant the first time, and the expression only widens as the overo mare digs deeper and deeper into her frustration and flustering.
‘I’m the ass’, she says, and the tobiano stallion nods knowingly without successfully hiding his grin, and tells her with every awareness of the innuendo: “But a very nice ass.”
The change in topic comes as no surprise (though he does watch from beneath a hank of blue forelock for her reaction to what he had said), and the dun pegasus shakes his own head as though clearing away the memory. What he does remember is the likely reason that she has never physically been in Taiga. That is why he has recognized her so easily, after all; she is not someone he could easily forget. Pteron’s manifestations of Beqanna’s magic are such small things compared to her power. Asleep in her presence, he had been able to come nearly close, shaping the sleeping world as easily as she had. The power had been enthralling, and he recalls it with a slightly racing heart as she stands in front of him.
“I came with my parents,” he answers easily. “I guess serving in the Loessian army just wasn’t enough for me, and I wanted to check Taiga’s off my list as well.” Pteron is not (especially) vain, but just as he notices the changes in Catcher, some part of him hopes that she has noticed those in him as well. He’d been nearly grown at their first – and last – meeting of course, but he has added muscle now, and the crest of his pale neck nearly rivals his father’s. His wings shuffle just slightly at the thought, pulling at the muscle of his chest and shoulder in a way that often draws an admiring eye.
But she has not come here just to admire him, and Pteron wants more than just that anyway.
“So tell me,” he says, taking a step away to sweep one white wing out into the fog. “Is it better or worse than in your dreams?”
Clearly he was unfazed by her rambling, even amused by it.
And the first comment out of his mouth earns him a swiveling ear and a blank expression. A nice ass, she scoffs internally. Was he mocking her?
But Pteron keeps grinning and Catcher stares at him under delicate scrutiny, sizing up his words with his demeanor, trying to get an authentic read of him. Somehow he made her feel comfortable in just holding onto that goofy grin - it was practically the same charming one he had started this whole conversation with. Despite her fumbling inelegance, it had remained unchanged and there was a certain genuinity that it held. That meant this look he was giving her now was not one spurred from thinking poorly of her - that this was all just in good fun - and she’s incredibly grateful for that revelation. It made the recovery time between her embarrassing incident and now practically nonexistent and she began to relax back into her own cheeky, quirkiness.
And she can’t help but reflect a smile back at him, finding it surprisingly easy to do now.
“Worse”, she says snobbily, though the disarming twitch of her grinning lips contradicts her statement. “The air is too clean, the trees are too beautiful, and the residents are prettier than I am,” she said, slowly dropping her head so that the tip of her horn would point directly at him while she raised a slender brow in unspoken accusation. She’d offhandedly called him pretty, but a little voice was telling her that he more than likely wouldn’t mind it. It would be impossible for the overo mare to deny she had noticed how well he had filled out since their last encounter, just as she had. Catcher could appreciate the sturdiness of his build and the broadness of his chest, or the way the his downy wing caught the stray tendrils of light when he lifted it.
Tossing her head to free her sight from the still-ginger forelock that had fallen there, she laughed brightly, “In all honesty, I’ve only just met Taiga, but I’m finding her enrapturing so far. I can see why’d you fall for her.” Then with a sudden incline of her lips, her grin becomes a great deal more mischievous. “And thank you, by the way,” she says, alluding to his mention of her being a ‘nice ass’, I think you’re a very well-rounded guy yourself.”
finger trips across my cheek---------------- ----------------kiss me until i can't speak
It takes her some time to adjust to him, but Pteron is a patient creature, and when at last she smiles back, it feels like a final puzzle piece settling into place. That she extols the virtues of his home as though they are flaws brings a dancing light to his olive gaze, though the dun stallion does his best to draw his blue mouth in a disapprovingly thin line. It’s a paltry effort though, and one that is fitting with the guilty shrug that follows Catcher’s accusation.
“You found me too early,” he tells her with what might be an apologetic shrug. “I usually try to take a mud bath before greeting visitors.” A rueful shake of his head precedes the next words, the mock seriousness begins to splinter. “Please do forgive me for not dirtying myself to the appropriate level, lady Catcher.”
They share a brief moment of solemnity, one in which Pteron follows her gaze out to the trees. There are few of them visible this time of day, when the fog swallows everything more than a dozen yards away, but overhead the charcoal grey canopy stretches impossibly wide. The pegasus enjoys this time of day despite that. The way the low-lying clouds swallow any sound (why she’d been able to come up on him so quickly), the way they soften everything. He can feel alone this time of day, even surrounded by his family and friends. But Pteron does not often desire solitude, and he is grateful for his unexpected company this morning.
He misses the way her grin grows mischeiviosu, and glances back just after she thanks him, but in time to catch the allusion.
“Oh, you think?” Pteron asks innocently. “I can’t have you doubting. Would you like a closer look?”
