Albrecht

Already the snow is beginning to pile up, hiding the last withered blades of Orangemoon grass beneath its damp, suffocating weight. The white flakes clump together into a single cohesive ground cover, muffling all the whimsical crinkling and crackling of dead leaves that marks the end of the year. Perhaps that's why the old stallion doesn't hear the boy at first, his miniature hoofprints making barely a scuffle with their negligent size and carry weight, or maybe it's just that he is so old, his senses naturally dulled by time and wear. In any case, it's not until the boy falters and falls, his voice rising in a wild squawk of dismay, that the stallions ears cup forward.

He freezes, head high and eyes wide, his nostrils flaring to draw in the thin Frostfall air, then fluttering excitedly at what they find. He knows this scent. An invisible tremor, sudden and wracking, rattles the dust and broken shards of memory scattered around the hollow of his chest. He hadn't seen the telltale tinge of auburn sprouting from the boys crest and coloring the very tips of his infantile wings, but he knows the color is there. He knows his own son.

Surely he's too young to be alone, he wonders. Had the mare decided to abandon him after all? Even after he'd shown such willingness to take him himself? Even with the cold and damp of Frostfall falling harder every day? Cruel. His mind shudders, pricking his sides more fiercly than any spur could do and sending him forward in a hurried trot. He stills standing over the boy, his bearded head hanging into the cartoonish foal shaped cutout in the snow, staring down at the haphazard tangle of legs within that is his child. "Are you alright?" He asks, ignoring the cranky and somewhat slurred response of his no-longer-sleeping-comfortably companion.

The unexpected rush of movement had jostled the lazy sleeping python from his self imposed hibernation between the soft, protective folds of the scarf tied around his bondeds neck and - in his opinion - was a clear sign of intentional betrayal. The snake writhes grumpily, repositioning himself in such a way that no icy breath of cold can slip between the layers of cotton, his body balled up and leaning heavily against the exterior warmth of the stallions chest. He refuses to even peek his tiny head out while the horror of the white menace still exists outside, especially if doing so involves the tiny winged horse that so easily stole his bondeds interest and affection from him - and without so much as a moments hesitation! There had been no days, weeks, months of prying into that battered old heart, no tiny, begrudging admonitions of approval over time. The thing had just popped, or more accurately squelched, out of its mothers backside and suddenly the old bastard could care again. It's total bullshit, the snake asserts, not for the first time, and though the stallion flicks an ear and tries to reassure his young companion of his own importance, of his pivotal role in this newfound - if limited - normalization of emotion, the python refuses to be reasoned with. He buries his nose between loops of his own body and resolves to go back to sleep until a time when the world is right side up again.

The stallion sighs, turning both ears to the colt in the snow again. He doesn't try, but even if he had it would have been impossible to keep the edge of accusation out of his voice when he asks, "Where is your mother?"



"Alby talks" 'Strom talks'
OOC // So excited. ^.^ @Saoirse