"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
11-17-2019, 10:19 AM (This post was last modified: 11-17-2019, 10:20 AM by wander.)
Time is but a construct of hours and months that pass by in a collection of years. Enough of which that she has lost count of them. She is grown, for all that that matters - slight and small, besides the horns atop her head that look dangerous and impressive. Dandelion puffballs decorate her mane and tail, trailing seeds that have managed to come loose like wishes from shut lips and locked hearts.
She barely remembers here. Has tried to forget because her failures have amounted to much more than her successes. So she did as her moniker suggested - she wandered, high and low, and so very, very far away. But something made her come back; something always makes them come back. Like a beacon in the bloodline that shines as bright as the sunrise here, and so, the pale apricot mare answered it.
Of course the snow melt preceded her, so that she is ushered forth on paths of slush and mud. It adds to the road-dust matting her pale apricot fur and dulls the tangles of her dark hair. Wander doesn’t care, she has never bothered much with how she looks and presents herself. In that regard, she takes after her father more than her father and she presumed the lovers are lost in each other’s gazes and a forest or field somewhere.
Funny, she hasn’t thought of them much until crossing that threshold that declares here as home. It seemed all of Beqanna could be home to her and not just the Pampas she grew up in. Wander frowns, it is mildly becoming on her grownup face, because she has not spared this place a single thought during her wandering. Why now, upon her return, does she think so much of it?
Her stride shortens, slows, and finally stops altogether. It hits her in that moment - home, yes but something else too. Something that she has not acknowledged in so long - him, and his name flies into her brain on swift wings and refuses to depart. Wander is caught off guard by her reaction, near visceral like a punch to the gut. Timid, something that she has never been before, her mouth parts and the tiniest softest murmur falls out, “Pteron?”
One might think she’d summon family to her side first. Not her. She calls for her oldest and dearest and only friend (and childhood crush). The pale apricot mare did not look too closely at why she said his name and not anyone else’s. She didn’t want to examine herself that closely. Instead, she fidgeted and tries to graze but the grass disinterested her and so, she settled her gaze on the horizon as if expecting to hear the call of some other adventure in case he didn’t show.
finger trips across my cheek---------------- ----------------kiss me until i can't speak
He’s been following her.
It’s not something he’d usually do, but Pteron had been lost in thought, floating on the spring thermals above the meadow. As invisible as the wind that keeps his wings aloft, he’d been looking down at the little dots of color that are the horses below him. There are as many blues and greens and purples as there are browns and chestnuts, and for every horse without a visible trait there are three with something. It is the addax horns that had caught his attention. Pteron spirals lower, his wings as silent as those of the snowy owl they most resemble. They look like Mandan’s horns, Pteron thinks, and he has not seen their like since he left the Pampas four years ago.
Perhaps the dusty mare below him is a relative he thinks, perhaps she might even know Wander. So he follows her, his aerial view making identifying her impossible, trying to decide if it is worth engaging a stranger in conversation.
In the end, he decides that it is not, not when there are other things that he should be doing, not when he has wasted enough time circling the meadow. He lets the wind pull him back up again, up and north. Pteron glances over his shoulder one last time, knowing it is foolish to do so, and that is when he recognizes her. From this angle, that the apricot mare is Wander is undeniable. She is older, and time has shaped her face into something different, yet there is no mistaking her. He lands before he really thinks about it, and becomes visible with a laugh, cantering across the open field between them, calling: “Wander! Wander!” as he does.
Pteron slows just enough to avoid knocking her over, but he does bump against her, wrapping his piebald neck over hers in an enthusiastic greeting. “What’re you doing here? I thought…” It doesn’t matter what he thought, and he pulls back to grin at her. She is a little dusty, more than a little unkempt, but that does not bother Pteron. “I’m so glad to see you.” The stallion presses a kiss to her cheek, as free with them as he is with any form of affection. “I’ve missed you.”
11-19-2019, 09:30 AM (This post was last modified: 11-19-2019, 09:30 AM by wander.)
Time passes, though she doesn’t count it in heartbeats or the slow measured breaths that she takes. Bits and pieces of dandelion fluff drift by her face, freed by little spring breezes that play with her darkened hair. Her eyes follow the fluff and seed pods; tracking their paths through the air. She almost smiles, knowing that she’ll be able to account for the dandelion-scourge that’ll pop up next year.
It never occurs to her to look to the skies for him. Of course he had started to master flying just before she left but Wander doesn’t think of these things; she’s too earthbound too care. Besides, there are just as many winged shadows racing over the ground as there are regular shadows that roll through the grass. And she’s too entranced by the dandelion bits that go floating by, like her thoughts and time and so, so much.
She doesn’t notice his landing, not until her name grabs at her ears and she focuses back on the meadow instead of on distant adventures. Her eyes brighten as his cream-and-blue self canters towards her and she charges to meet him, laughing and shouting his name, “Pteron!” Wander has only ever felt such rushes of happiness like this when she discovers something new, like a place or a token of such - twig, shell, or the like.
They come together in a gentle collision of color; necks wrapping around one another in an embrace. “You thought what?” She asks him, chuckling and grinning and thinking that she’s never been happier unless it’s scaling the tallest peak of shimmying down the slipperiest dune. He pulls back and she gets a good look at him - grown, handsome, clean and she laughs, knowing she must look a mess but she wouldn’t be Wander if she didn’t look like that.
She is curious about his unfinished thought but it’s easily forgotten in the midst of the kiss to her cheek. It sends a rush of heat through her, awakening that old childhood crush she’s always had on him and only him. Except she’s never mentioned it, their friendship is far more valuable to her than anything else. She just smiles, bumps him with her nose because she was never very affectionate unless it was with him, but she’s a little shy now and that’s new to her.
“I am so glad to see you too and I’ve missed you so much! There’s so much to catch up on, and I’ve got all the time in the world to do so. How about you?” She can’t imagine all the things he’s seen or done, or how they didn’t do them together but that’s neither here nor there. Wander is back for now and she’s in the company of her best friend, what more could she ask for?
finger trips across my cheek---------------- ----------------kiss me until i can't speak
The shyness in her familiar eyes is new, and Pteron teases her for it with a nibble of his dull teeth across her jawline. Wander has never admitted to affection beyond that of the best of childhood friends, but Pteron has never needed admissions to press his charm. He is gracious about rejection – Aodhan can speak to that – but it is a rare thing. Flirtation brightens even the dullest of interactions, and Wander is far from dull.
So much to catch up on, she says, and Pteron buries his nose in the dusty black tangle of her mane, inhaling the scents of places that he has never seen. Even he pulls away, her enthusiasm is radiant, warming bits of him that he had not even known were cold.
“I thought you might not come back,” he admits, and his grin is rueful. She had been his first friend; most of his memories of the Pampas have an apricot blur on one edge; Wander, a constant presence. Leaving the Pampas had meant leaving her, and he has often regretted that he had not come back sooner to find her. When he had, it was only to learn that she was gone, away on adventures that they had sworn to have together. He does not envy her them – if anything, they add to his excitement at seeing her again – and when she asks if he has time to catch up on them, he does not hesitate to say:
“I will always make time for you,” with a fond smile.
He wants to kiss her again, and so he does, a press of his blue muzzle to her creamy cheek. It feels right, as does telling her at least some of what he has done in her absence.
“I live in Taiga now,” he begins, “Mother is thinking of making me her heir.” ‘Thinking of it’, she has said, though Pteron had asked for something with less weight and more combat, perhaps the title of Protector. There is no changing her mind though, Pteron knows; there is only waiting and hoping she changes it herself.
“Where have you adventures taken you?” Pteron asks, “Have you been outside Beqanna this whole time? I went to look for you in the Pampas, but Noah said you’d gone.”
@[Wander]
12-18-2019, 09:21 AM (This post was last modified: 12-18-2019, 09:21 AM by wander.)
His teasing had been something that she missed, as his teeth move across her jawline, tickling just a little and making her grin all the more. She’d never had this kind of camaraderie with the brood of siblings that came after, usually in pairs of two that made her question her parents’ sanity. But with him, it was always something special - that kind of bond that survives growing up and is so easy to come back to.
No, she’d never made an admission to them being more than the very best of friends. She never wanted to lose his friendship because she cherished it above all else, even though his charms and flirtations are quick and delightful. Wander chalks them up to his character - he wouldn’t be who he is without them! But they stir things in her that only adults feel, turning childhood crushes into more.
He is ever so quick to just press himself into her and she laughs at his nosy intrusion into her mane. It is the easiest way to discern what she has been up to, given that she probably needs a good long soak in a hot spring or river to rid herself of all the road dust. Then again, why wash away the marks of her travels? Worn like badges of pride and circumstance. Oh the tales she could tell him!
Oh! His rueful admission makes her heart stutter and the breath stop in her lungs. She’d never meant to cause him any aggravation like that! Wander looks at him, unable to recover her smile in just that moment; “I’d never be able to stay away forever.” She almost wanted to tell him that he should know that but how could he?
Wander knew that she hadn’t even had the heart to tell him goodbye or ask him to come with her. How could she blame him for thinking that? His assurance of time for her is enough to pull her up out of the doldrums of her own making and she smiles at him once more. “Good, I would hate to think you could have gotten too busy for little ol’ me.”
Teasing, light and airy on Wander’s own way as she gives him a quick nip to his neck, marveling at how he’s always been the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. Then he kisses her and it’s like the world sets itself to rights, even if it was just a friendly kiss. “Heir, huh? Do you really want to rule? Seemed to me like you always wanted to fight and fly and explore,” she chuckles, unable to imagine him as a king and chained down by so much responsibility.
She knew he would do it though, and excel at it because that was just who he was. He never seemed to back down from a challenge and he’d view his kingship as that, at least until he tired of it and hungered for a different kind of fight.
“Oh all over and yes, way outside Beqanna. I’m sorry, I should have told you I was going and at least said goodbye so you didn’t worry.” for once, Wander couldn’t meet his eyes. Here stood her bestest friend in the entire universe and she couldn’t even tell him how that quest to heal the whole of Beqanna from the plague had broken something inside her. Something that she had left in search of and still hadn’t found, so the hole was healing up all jagged and wrong.
It still felt raw, bruised, and left her looking wilder than before, even as she turned her face back to him and flashed him a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
finger trips across my cheek---------------- ----------------kiss me until i can't speak
The green eyed stallion’s wanderlust has never extended beyond Beqanna’s borders, but Wander’s always had. Perhaps her parents had known it, he thinks, giving her such a name, or perhaps she’d been driven to live up to it. Pteron has been content knowing Beqanna’s lands, from the frozen north to the flowered south, the grey eastern coast and the tropical west. The apricot filly touches on this, asking if he really wants to rule, and he responds with a wry smile.
”I don’t think I’ll have much choice in the matter,” he replies, but the way the brightness of his eyes grows dim for a moment and the way he looks away are indicative that it is not a topic he lingers on overmuch. And for good reason. Some things are set in stone, and there is no use in fretting.
Wander apologizes for leaving without warning, but Pteron is eager for the stories she might have, for the tales of horses and lands that he will never see. With a gentle nudge of his blue muzzle, he attempts to poke away the dejection that he sees so clearly on her face.
“Just don’t do it again,” he tells her with a smile. “Give me a warning before you go, and I’ll have a welcome party waiting for your return.”
Despite the levity of his words, Pteron’s olive eyes find something less bright in his companion’s dark eyes. The dun stallion is not sure what it is, but he does know that he doesn’t like it. It’s not something happy or light, and Pteron nearly asks. But he remembers, in one quick flash, his own reasons for hurt and instead asks something less direct.
“Have you come back to live in the Pampas again?” He asks, and decides that sounds too impersonal, even with the caution that he knows he must take. He would like to see Wander more often, but is both bound now to Taiga as well as by a possessive spouse. Pteron reasons that Reia had not disallowed him friends – only lovers. “If you want a change of scenery though, you’re welcome to come stay in Taiga too. I’d like to see you more often.” That might be enough, but just in case: “You could meet my wife, Reia.”
@[Wander]
