Nature is always beautiful, he would have answered if she’d asked if his other places were lovely, too – even the darkest, most desperate places in the realms of Loorien held their own mysterious grandeur. That this place is lovely and one which inspires happiness rather than a soul deep sorrow, that she seems to love it, all this is evident in what she does say, and it makes the paint smile happily; a smile which broadens as she jests, a small part in himself doing a back flip that makes him pause for the most split of seconds.

What was that? He thinks to himself, as he replies to the cheerful hybrid with whom he has been sharing so much of his time.

"As secret as such a place can be," he grins, the most like his youthful and vibrant self that he has ever been in Helovia, having at last founded a relationship of enough depth that he no longer spent all his time hiding behind blinds of shyness while in her company. While it surely still lingers, the child of the cast away King prone to awkwardness and social ineptitude (his childhood filled with himself, and his family, no other travels having graced his company), he feels an easiness about the winged mare that, when he really pauses to inspect it, surprises him.

The part of himself that had worried what Adalwulf will think has worn down in his time away, and while he seeks to honor his father’s teachings, he is not sure that being close to a hybrid violates them or not – and, further still, he wonders if he isn’t painting their relationship in a halo of white light, one that would slip away to strangle him if his dad ever found out what his son was up to.

"It takes shadow, to see the light," he says quietly, surveying the grove ahead of them and the serenity of the fields, feeling the wind pull its wild fingers through his mane and down his spine, "though it would be nice for there to always be such a peace to run to."

He is no optimist, our maker of things, no matter how kind and gentle his heart.

"It has always been pleasant here, however," adds the stallion in a warmer light, looking over to Ranjiri with a smile, his yellow and pink flowers wobbling in a way that makes him mildly self conscious and squinty, "maybe it always will be."

The conversation carries away as conversations do, leading into questions that bring back memories that are both wonderful in their warmth and clarity, but also overshadowed by the knowledge that he will never experience these things again. He thinks of Alysanne and Resplendence, and their tidy little garden, his furthest memories of plants bringing to mind a gray mare with bags (not unlike his own) who had been named Smoke.

He had never got to finish their glass for them, had he? It makes him even more sad, but he tries to keep the previous air of cheer available in his voice – all while his heart feels small fractures of loss lining it like a crackled glaze.

"Not a whole lot," he says with a slow and sad smile, an ear tilting back at a partial angle, "but I learned some while I lived in the Edge, mostly from Resplendence – that mare you met in the Threshold."


@Ranjiri

Dragomir</style>
I hope tomorrow you find better things.</style>