Time ticks by, and it feels to Cera like sap, slow and tedious and unbearably sticky as it goes on. Being here does not make him comfortable. These aren't the lands he knew so well, had met with his siblings so many times. The members had changed, the leadership had changed, everything had changed. Even he had. But it didn't mean he had to like it. So he stood on the borders, tense and awkward, frame stiff and uncooperative. Waiting. Always waiting. Waiting for his father to come back to him, as the sun slipped down from the sky, leaving him cold and lonely. Waiting for a friend, a chance, a mentor who would not abandon him. Constantly waiting. He is uncomfortable in a very profound way, at the borders of a home that is no longer known to him, waiting for a father who is similarly unknown. Cera has grown to adulthood, and even still, he feels as if Midas is miles away from him. Unreachable. That the fire child is forever running after his retreating form, begging him to stay, only to be left in solitude for the next uncountable day. Always left reaching.

At least in the end he had learned patience.

And it pays off, watching the golden bird come soaring towards him, her song too distant to be heard in more than dulcet tones. But it calms him, to a degree, breath leaving him in a shudder as he forcibly tries to relax his muscles against the tension that electrifies them. Where Fina goes, Midas follows. Now it is only a period of waiting, one that Cera can nearly time down to the last second with how well he knows the distance between Fina and Midas. Ilaria, gallivanting amongst the foliage, hears the call of her bonded in her head, turning with a flick of her tail and running back on quiet paws. Midas beats her to it, but she sees him before his son does, and in jumbled pictures interrupted by leaves and various impediments, he sees his father coming towards him. His heart skips a few beats and he wonders how he should feel. Everything is a jumble inside of him that he can't find the beginning or end to. It was hopeless to even try to untangle the ball that had formed in his chest. Cera no longer bothered to try.

Ilaria reaches him first, in the end. She curls round his ankle to prevent him from moving, knowing if she does not he would be tempted to turn and run from this encounter, from the words on his tongue he so desperately wanted to say, but feared to, for they may kill what little relationship remained between him and the painted stallion. Fina comes next, and though he is not bonded to her, he loves her so fiercely it aches. She consumes him in her fire, warms his body with the coals of her affection, and it is in her that he finds his childhood. It was she who watched over him day and night, singing him to sleep when terrors clutched in in the thick of twilight and Midas was away. It was she who called for his father when he could not stand his own reflection. His emotions were hers to understand. There would always be a love between them, as fierce as the flames that made her the phoenix she was. And her song was as familiar to him as his own words, and he could recite each note for every emotion in his sleep, so often had he heard them. Love transcended all bonds, even those forged by the gods, and Cera was not blind to that.

But where Fina goes, Midas follows, and the brute comes swiftly down from the heavens with a look of age upon his face that Cera does not find foreign. Saddening but truthful, as his father has been old since his title as General had been drawn from Kri's mouth. Cera's ear flicks, concealing his hurt with ease borne of solitude in life when Midas does not move to embrace him. Perhaps Cera is too old now, for such comforts. Inwardly he chides himself for wanting them. He has always been a creature of touch, of affection and fleeting nudges, and to be denied it is to steal a part of his soul away. But he is a stallion now, he cannot indulge in such activities. Not if he plans to follow in Gaucho's steps, to uphold his name and valor as a soldier, to bring the light of his Lord to fall upon his enemies in the name of prayer and loyalty. He must be strong as the earth below and fierce as the flames of the solar above. So he must let it go from his life.

"How fairs thee?"

Cera grits his teeth and tries not to let himself burst at the seams. He had practiced this speech, so why does it now fail him? But he clears his throat and finds his tongue, speaking slowly, emeralds never wavering from Midas' face. "I don't know anymore, Father." Honesty, at least, is the best way to start. Slowly his gaze drifts up to the heavens, taking strength in the guiding light that warmed his back, reminded of the kindly nature of his Lord. "Courage is important," he had spoken, and so Cera would take those words, gifted to him personally from a deity so far above him, and he would follow in Onni's path. He would take the path of light and sincerity. He would not falter. He owed that much to his Lord for the quest he had been granted. "The God of Light has given me a quest for magic. He has set me on the path I've always wanted. The Throat has been, and forever will be, my home." Throat convulsed in a swallow he felt like he was choking on.

"Father...please tell me. Why did you lie to me? Why did you say you would never leave the Dragon's Throat willingly, to abandon me by turning to the side that helped invade us and our brethren?" His ferocity dies down, for it had spiked in his words, and suddenly he is that lost babe again, helpless and forlorn. "You left the magnolia, the oasis, the beaches and the cliffs. You left me." Oh how it would hurt, to know Midas would miss the former instead of the latter, for the sentence that bubbled in his chest would have to reveal such matters. "You left me, and our home, for the one you refused to go to when Ktulu, Hototo, and Ranjiri lived here. So why now? Why?" And his injustice hurts so badly, like searing metal branding him with the mark of a loner, forever driving those away whom he only wanted to keep and cherish.

"Why is it always them? Why am I always second best? I am no son of a God. I am no beautiful, kind-hearted, perfect filly. I am no leader of a herd, no powerful wielder of magic!" And his cry is sharp, like broken glass, and it cuts his throat as he yells them because it hurts him as much as it is sure to hurt Midas. Years worth of broken glass. It was time to either try to repair it, or to sweep the shards away forever. "I am nothing in comparison. Is that why you find it so easy to abandon me, merely for the title of Leader?" And disgust and defeat are so strong in his lyrics he can taste them, sour and desperate on his tongue, and he hates them. He hates them, but he cannot handle keeping them inside any longer, for they will kill him with their poison if he tries to be a good son any longer.

@[Midas]