Hot, arid wind caressed the pale tendrils upon the Prince's crest, tickling them gently across his skin and offering a brief respite from the heat he had lived in the entirety of his life. His rank did not ask him to patrol as often as the warriors of the sand, his duties restricted to merely patrolling in the wilds when he was called upon for each season. Cera had always taken it upon himself to do them nonetheless, if only to excuse the warriors from the tail end hours of their duties. He understood their desires for time alone, relaxation, but he always privately hoped that instead they would seek out their loved ones with the spare time he had afforded them. They are not Midas, Ilaria reminded him softly from his shoulders, tail flicking idle even as she projected sad understanding upon Cera's psyche. Cera sighed softly, aware of the fact that she was right, but it never stopped him from patrolling anyways. As if he had anywhere else to be, anything else to be doing. Ranjiri had disappeared just as silently as the boy they'd taken under their wings together, leaving Cera bereft and orphaned once more. There was nothing left but his duties and his faith, and so he threw himself into them whole-heartedly. You can't dwell with sweat pouring down flanks and head buzzing from orders, after all. 

The curve of the ocean cutting up the earth and sand is familiar, as are the jutting shadows of the statues he had not helped create. But standing on the shores, an inky shape hesitating past the shallows, is a figure that is clearly out of place. Frowning softly to himself, Cera dipped his right wing towards the crystal waters below, drifting closer to the shore where the land bridge had once existed. The closer he came the more he squinted down upon the solitary figure, dipping the bridges of his wings and allowing the wind to slice over them, dropping his altitude as he fell from the sky to approach the solitary figure on the sands. 

Only it's not some random face appearing out of the glare of the sun, it's his sister.

He would know Ranjiri by touch alone. He would know her deaf or blind. He would discern her soul from the way she laughs and carries herself, the shadows of her heart and the weight of the demons he has carried for her. He knows her here and now, when she is but a blend of colors against the sand and surf, and there is nothing on earth or in heaven that could keep him from going to her in that moment. 

Ilaria's fear and joy rides alongside his own like bloodthirsty hounds braying and racing against one each other, and the wind slices over the curves of his body as he lets gravity pull him bodily back to his sister. The only center of gravity he has ever needed, finally restored with her return. Cera lands in a spray of sand and sharply protesting limbs, Ilaria scratching his shoulders to hell as she clings to him through the bumpy ride. There's no time to shake out the sting of his landing because there is too much space between the siblings in that moment. He races towards her, angelic wings arcing to envelop her joyously and lips eagerly searching out her face. 

"Ranjiri," he breathed sweetly across the crevices and valleys of her beautiful face, a benediction. "You've come home," he notes softly, heart crying with relief at her safety. "Are you well? Where did you go?" Why did you leave me again? But Cera is so very tired of asking his family that question, and so he does not let it form on his tongue. The answers always hurt him more than not knowing.