A soft voice cut through the heavy silence, barely a whisper over the hushed rustling of leaves overhead. His ears swivelled back toward the sound, but he paid it little mind at first. It was not uncommon for him to hear voices calling out his name, or taunting him from the treetops. Perhaps he was going crazy, or perhaps the loneliness had finally taken firm hold over his mind. But the trees had always been his friends, and they had always joined in on conversations when he had had no one else to speak to.
However, there was something hauntingly familiar about this voice. Slowly, he turned his head, emerald eyes searching the darkness that lay behind him. A large shadow blocked the path he had entered the forest on, the curves of its body outlined by the pale moonlight that filtered in through the dense canopy overhead. It took him little more than a second to recognize his new company, as his gaze drifted upward toward the thorned crown upon the shadow's head. A strange feeling began to spread in his chest, a sensation that he had long forgotten. He wasn't sure if he believed in ghosts, but he decided for the time that there was no such thing.
"Chernobyl?" He felt as if he could hardly find air within his lungs as her name left his lips. He never dreamed he would ever find her again. The first time she had left, he feared he had lost her. When he departed the shores of Helovia for other lands, he was certain they would never meet again. There was never a moment when they were apart that she didn't linger in the back of his mind. At night, as he slept in whatever cave or refuge he had found, she would visit him in his dreams. They would be back on the frozen steppe, teased by the wind as they chased each other across the snow. Or she would be standing beside him at the cliffs overlooking the ocean, always patiently at his side. When he woke to see the sun, he would curse it for taking him from her side.
He rushed toward her eagerly, the mist that tangled about his feet swirling away in his wake as he closed the distance between them. His muzzle was stretched out toward hers, reaching out to try and gently bump against her nose and trace his lips up the side of her cheek. His whole body seemed to tremble with energy as he leaned close to her, pale wings unfolding from his sides as he lifted them to embrace her. He wanted to wrap her up within himself and pull her so close to him that she could never leave again.
He lifted his muzzle toward her ear, tilting his head in close to hers to feel the warmth from her dark coat. "I thought I would never see you again." He had become convinced, many times, that she had simply become a part of his past, as so many others had. He had always clung to memories, whether they were of allies or enemies or adventures he had in his youth, but he had clung to none so tightly as he had to her. "I will never let you out of my sight again," he whispered, nudging the glowing feathers in her mane that had once belonged to him. "I will always wait for you."
"talk talk talk talk "
|
.svg/2000px-Google_Chrome_icon_(2011).svg.png){kind=icon}
