we are one in the same
you take all of the pain away

How it was that Cera almost always ended up late was beyond him, but it frustrated the youth nonetheless. It seemed he was always busy, and yet continually lonely despite that. Ryuu had disappeared, and it had haunted his dreams nightly, what could have happened to the gentle boy. Ranjiri had returned, but she seemed to slip from Cera's grasp stubbornly, evading him at every turn. He worried what Ryuu's disappearance did to her, completely blind to the knowledge that what had destroyed his sister and kept her so far from him was something horrific and tragic in known ways rather than nightmares Cera summoned up. A knowledge he would have to face the moment he found his sister, but to which he was blind to without her expressing it to him.

The climate was cold, helping to numb and fizz out the thoughts buzzing relentlessly in the boy's brain. It seemed he had grown up far before his time, and yet he had no real regret in his life for it. The stallion was confident that his path would always be lit and guided by his Lord, and that faith transferred to himself as well. He was not so naive as to believe the Sun God looked out for him continuously, personally, and so he instead turned that faith inward. Spirituality had given Cera a peace he had always longed for, had never quite attained as a colt stumbling after his father's steps, trying and failing to love a god that was introduced to him already hoisted on an impossibly tall pedestal. The Sun God was flawed and faulted, and so Cera loved him ever more, because in him he saw himself.

No matter the grip of the frost where he tread, his soul would always be warm through his devout nature, and so Cera happily trudged on further into the tundra and the Arch's domain. Ilaria had been left home, her distaste for the northern climates forcing her from Cera's side, a rarity. Though she was more than adapted to colder regions, the Arch was simply too far into the lower temperatures for her to go along happily. Instead she remained in the magnolia tree that had been passed down from Midas to Cera, father to son. Their tree, their resting place, even when Midas was long gone. In ways Cera still didn't know.

A voice called out to shatter his thoughts, further proving that he was late. Admonishing himself quietly, Cera called back out cheerily, aware of the youth in the voice. It must be Aakesh. Though he didn't know the boy by anything other than name when he had been assigned as a partner to the colt, Cera knew their other companion was an older stallion - Ryuu's father, as Ranjiri had told him. "Hello!" he called back, approaching the darkly painted boy with a sunny smile on his kindly face. "Sorry, I'm a bit late. Is this your first patrol?" It was not said with malice but with genuine curiosity, rather than attempting to undermine the youth by poking fun at his physical age.

@[Aakesh]