The thick boughs of tropical trees sway gently overhead, the green leaves dancing in the ocean’s breeze as they cast shadows down below them, the patterns playing across the dainty lines of the mare’s face. Rohan watches her silently, his gaze lingering on the scabbed wound just behind her ear—evidence of the brutality only days before—before it moves to trace her features, so supple and relaxed in her slumber. He is careful not to rouse her even as he stands, muscled flanks rising before he maneuvers his body away from hers, thrusting himself upwards with a breathy grunt from his nostrils.

Enna needs her sleep; he has not seen her rest much since she had urged him away from the Earth God’s battle, and he would venture to say that it’s been that way for many months now. The little mare has been forced to endure pains and sorrows that his prideful heart could never understand, even if he had tried. Still, he has felt a restlessness festering within him, a desire to be alone with himself and his thoughts (even if but a moment, as he is not anxious to leave her side just yet). He had waited until she drifted off before wandering away, telling himself knowing that she would not want him to go.

Reaching down to brush a stray lock of curled hair from her forehead—a whisper of a caress—the antlered stallion pivots, picking his way gingerly through the tropical underbrush. He stretches as he moves, extending his thick neck and arching his sore back, his muscles stiff from battle.

The skin along his spine and flanks is still scored; the scabbed burns from the crocodile’s blood are all but healed by now, although the flesh from the most recent conflict isn’t quite as restored. Someone’s blasted dragon had caught him in a line of friendly fire (or what he would assume to be friendly fire) and had severely singed the length of his spine and hip. He would be far more miserable if it weren’t for Enna’s healing ability; despite her own exhaustion, she had insisted in helping him until he relented, allowing her to take away the worst of it. Now the wounds appear days old rather than fresh, the skin already toughened in its healing.

Closing his eyes in a long blink and relishing the relief of not feeling like his head is going to implode, Rohan soon finds the island jungle thinning around him, the pearly sands of the beach peeking through the foliage ahead. Pricking his rimmed ears forward, he follows the ocean’s waves until the ground gives out gently beneath him, the fine grains glistening softly beneath dawn’s glowing light. He comes to a halt a yard or two away from the tree line, where the salty water laps periodically at his feathered fetlocks.

It is a quiet morning. The battle has come and gone, leaving the archipelago of islands in a weary and hushed silence (like a held, hesitant breath). Sometimes it is difficult to think that the violence raged so close before, when it feels like months. So much has happened, so much has changed, and yet—nothing, at the same time. How can this be? What, exactly, has changed? It is a slow and gradual adjustment, one that the Warlander can hardly recognize himself, and yet it is profound all the same. He ponders on how he had felt, seeing her collapse, how his heart had lurched and his mind had screamed its protest. Surely it is nothing, he thinks stubbornly as he shakes his head, resting his weight.


notes; eeeeeeeeeee!:D
“Speech.”