KAJ

the aurelight

Lips twist into a smile as his title falls to give way to his name. He'd never been one for official things such as that, had always told his people plainly that he was one of them. No better than them, simply because he'd been elected to rule. He would fall and falter and fail just as any other mortal would, and he'd never used titles when visiting other herds either. Always names, for names held power but also emotion. She did not know him so intimately as to understand or even be aware of that philosophy, but it pleased him nonetheless. A spark of light in his dark horizon. Her presence alone soothed the ache of loneliness and depression, the gentle beast thriving off her unintentionally proffered aura and spirit. Maybe a stranger was what he'd needed all along. Someone ignorant to his multitude of sins. 

Her smile was like a flower on a barren coastline, a single measure of persistence and beauty, and he could not help but feel the corners of his mouth twisting up in response to her ironic amusement. Laughed deep and soft in his chest, baby blues peering up at her boyishly from their distance. "Your lack of an answer is far more comforting than I had anticipated," he confessed, stray threads of gratitude lifting from the noose around his throat to trace the features of his face, displaying it to her in glimpses. 

She was the first to speak that name, that twisted title that had once been something far more destructive. Storm Bringer. He had summoned enough of them in his years, and destruction was all they had ever wrought upon his life. Never had they helped, aided, or comforted. Always he had been a beacon of agony. The new title had been aware in his consciousness only on the fringes, where whispers and rumors and soft-spoken words lingered. He'd been afraid to believe, to think that maybe...maybe how he was portrayed and how others saw him had changed. Aurelight. And it filled his chest with warmth and tender, tentative purpose, proffered by this strange introspective mare. 

He lay himself beneath her wisdom, eyes quiet and attentive, a child beneath her tutelage. The words washed over him like a soothing balm, quieting his mind. Hush, child. Stepped slowly closer to her, drawn in by her words, the soft foreign cadence of her voice hooking into the noose and both tugging him nearer and giving him room to breathe. Your despair has purpose, then. Trust without sight. Like the wind when you fly. And he could understand that philosophy, even though it was hard. It was so different, so far from what he'd ever known. But he'd never tried to be faithful, either. Was this his first trial?

"I never thought of it that way," confessed from his lips, a contemplative look drawing soft across his visage. "Though, I am horribly new to this, so of course I did not." Eyes danced with cyan laughter, poking and prodding at his own insecurities, trying to find the light that seemed to fill her bones. Was that a gift the Throat denizens were blessed with? She seemed radiant in her certainty and he envied it of her. Smile faded away, eyes cast to the horizon as if his answers lay in the dawn light painted there. "Purpose...it is what I have been looking for. Maybe this is my hurdle, and they will guide me where I must be." Sighed deep, as if trying to expel all his doubts and demons in his exhale. Turned to the mare beside him with a weary but grateful smile. And he found her advancing, offering her soft velveteen muzzle, and he felt his heart stutter with emotion. That she would reach out to him when he most needed comfort - whether she was aware of that was unknown - even when she did not know him well...he stretched forward and down to meet her, bumping and brushing gently, eyes liquid pools of beryl that were soft around the edges with the magnitude of his appreciation for her. Her presence, her wisdom, her physical comfort. "Thank you," he murmured in a soft whuff of breath against her skin, reluctantly pulling away from her and the pillar of light and hope she embodied. 

He stood, appraising her quietly. Uncertain whether he wanted to break the atmosphere they'd created, the bubble of tentative hope inside his ribcage that was bolstered by the physical comfort she had offered. Found only useless words to offer her, in the quiet of the void between one action and the next. 

"Your philosophies are much easier to understand than the others who have attempted to aid me on this path," Kaj noted, wondering if she would take it as the compliment he intended it to be. If it even held weight in her world, with how little they knew of each other. "Though I may have to submit myself to your tutelage far more often," accompanied by a smile, a hopeful glance, an insinuated message. Would you allow me to seek you out? Imagined himself showing up at the Throat borders and trying to explain to Gaucho that he was there not on business, but to have the tiny Priestess scold him and teach him how to be a better man of faith. It was hard not to find it impossibly amusing. 

Though he had been innocent in his offer, he could see something shutter and tighten in her coin-like gems, and felt immediately regretful. In so few moments she had offered him both peace and hope, comfort and temporary serenity. That he had in turn disturbed her somehow made him ache with sorrow, but he could not guess at what he'd done to discomfort her. Therefore he dipped his head, and took himself away on swift hooves to find the herbs he needed. Resplendence had only taught him the basics, but he lived and breathed with her almost eternally at his side - he picked things up as they gravitated around each other. Aloe Vera, he told himself, hunting along the warm crevices. It was the must abundant in this hot, rocky landscape, and best for the itching. They were thick, easy to grasp in his teeth at least, and he tucked them beneath the tight inside of his left wing before hurrying back to Maren. It was rude to leave company unattended, he could hear his mother chiding sharply in his head. 

"It might be a little messy," he bowed his head, embarrassed that he would have to become so intimate with her body even though it was entirely medical. Kaj had always been raised a very chaste gentleman. Wing opened to drop the plant to the stone, one hoof immediately stamping down and grinding to create the thick greenish paste that Resplendence herself had used on him after their spar when Valiance had burned his neck and cropped his mane into spikes. Dipped his head and smeared it onto his muzzle, advancing upon Maren's side and depositing it upon her burns as gently and swiftly as he could manage. It took a few turns, back to the paste and then once more to her hide, but he kept quiet and tried not to disturb her beyond that, retreated as soon as he was satisfied with the treatment. His pale muzzle was surely stained a light green, and he grinned at her as he faced her. "Silly, right?" Kaj hoped it would at least make her laugh, anything to wipe away the tense look on her face.