Tarian isn't sure what it is about the boy that makes him seem older than he is. All the awkward angles are there. A too-lean frame, a higher hip, limbs that still need to be grown into. Everything (physically) about Isakov very obviously proclaims that he is a boy, barely a yearling. Adolescence curves his cheeks and there is none of the weariness that Tarian had become accustomed to seeing in his comrades (and perhaps that why he thinks he sees glimpses of innocence shining through the youth's golden eyes).
A soldier's life is rarely a happy one. (They are not meant for long ones.) But it has meant that the gray pegasus has learned to make quick judgments, swift decisions that could potentially save or claim lives. The older stallion has always been quick with his irritation. Lines that wrinkle the corners of his blue eyes can attest to that. Anger is an emotion for later; anger has always been an emotion for after.
He'd been quick to anger with Isakov but the boy earns merit for withstanding it (not that he needs it, the pegasus thinks). The boy, he thinks again and then corrects himself. This is Isakov; this is @[isakov] of the stars and he seems to have some of their celestial fortitude for enduring. A timeless quality that lends to his appearance, which helps make him seem older than just a child.
I have never known the stars to be cruel. Those words are the ones to finally make the edges of Tarian's dark mouth lift. He snorts quietly, wondering how to explain Orani and her existence on this plane of living. "I don't think she was intentionally cruel," the taller stallion says, pulling his pale wings up around while continuing to study the shadowed adolescent. "But the stars, if they come to care, claim to do so differently." At least, the one he had known had.
How does he explain the girl he had known? How does he explain that Orani's laughter was far brighter than any starshine? That he would have gone to any corner, of any galaxy, if she had asked it of him? That he would have conquered worlds and moved heavens for her?
How does he explain that the girl (the star) asked him to let her go?
Isakov claims that he has never known the stars to be cruel. And Tarian finds himself hoping that the boy never learns to accuse them of it.
"How did you come to know them?" the former soldier asks, "or have you always carried them with you?"
Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength
which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are.