They say salt water is good for healing, but who are they and what do they know? All the grumbling old stallion feels is wet and unpleasantly cold where the coastal winds swoop in to leech warmth away from his dampened coat. Even more irritating, the rhythmic push and pull of each wave as it washes across his fetlocks and is sucked back out to sea drags the sand from beneath his hooves with it, forcing him to shuffle around like some unhappy mixture of crab and horse or risk slowly sinking into the beach itself. His joints creak and click with the repetitive movement and his tail flicks in annoyance.

He’s stood here gently rocking for the better part of the afternoon and well into the evening, and still his body aches with overuse, to say nothing of the deep, radiating pain that throbs with its very own pulse in his left shoulder. The tending he received from the Weaver, the cream colored mare, and Lena the Songbird has done a remarkable job of accelerating his natural healing, but the effect of their ministrations seems limited to superficial ailments. They'd soothed his ribs somewhat, allowing him to breathe easily so long as he walks or ambles (which is really all he cares to do anyway), and the Songbird's melody was able to close the horrible, gaping split across his left shoulder, but the more substantial damage to bone and cartilage beneath refuses to be hurried by any magic or good intentions. The hairline fracture to his humerus will heal when it's good and ready and not a moment sooner.

Bored, but not yet ready to return to the Basin, he stares idly out at the horizon where mirrored, seemingly endless blues slowly separate into one expanse of cool colors and one of warm, dazzling orange, yellow, red, and pink. His ears tip forward, always appreciative of beauty in the world, when a quiet clink draws his attention down. Something metallic, shiny – gold? – wraps around his right front hoof, pushed there by the ceaseless shifting of sand and water. He reaches down to grasp the small chain between his teeth and notices as he lifts it from the water that an oval pendent of green stone hangs from the chain, not transparent like emerald, but opaque with wild, swirling patterns across it.



OOC // Open to anyone. :) Alby’s found his Earth Amulet. It’s an oval pendant of malachite on a gold chain.

Thin chain still clenched between his teeth, the elder shudders sideways away from the whoosh of air and muffled thud of hooves slamming down onto the sand of the beach beside him. When he turns, finding a stranger staring nonchalantly back at him, he scowls severely at her, ears melding into the black hide of his mane-less neck. “Being sshcared to death, apparently.” He mutters unkindly, tufted tail flicking across his hind legs in agitation despite the fact that no fly in all of Helovia could withstand the steady winds blowing in with the rhythmic push and pull of the tide.

“What are you doing?" He shoots back, jutting out his chin and waggling the small oval of malachite on its jewelers chain. Wanting to free his mouth for further rancor, he tilts his head to glance down at the tiny golden links, but the chain is one continuous loop without a clasp and much too small to slip over his head and backswept horns, so instead he tucks the necklace into the folds of his sweat-stained scarf, spinning it around on his neck so that the ends are knotted at his withers now instead of in the center of his chest.

“I know wings are kind of the thing with you guys, but I don't go around goring everything so maybe you could not go winging into everywhere at top speed." The words are mild enough in themselves, very nearly diplomatic compared to his usual, but the tone he uses and the venomous gleam of his eyes takes any illusion of civility out of the equation. He means for it to be insulting, the pain of his injured left shoulder - exasperated by his sudden lunge to the side - whipping his temper up to a frenzied pitch in record time, whatever good the days salt water soak may have wrought undone in a matter of seconds.

OOC // @Sohalia I really didn't mean for this to be so vicious, but he's out of control even in my own head. xD

"Hmph." He snorts, never swayed to the point of forgiveness, but always somewhat tempered by a show of concern for his general well-being, however abstract. Only the stoutest of characters when in their greatest mental and physical health are able to maintain personal values like manners and respect for the elderly in the face of his constant and entirely deliberate unpleasantness. He's become accustomed to - and secretly enamored with - testing the crowds of Helovia in this manner, only a select few passing the trial and standing (invisibly) favored by the old man, none of which can be described as a snow white pegasus mare, thanks to her next clipped comments.

"Maybe it's you who needs to pay more attention." He snaps, then pauses to let the water wash against and around his aching legs, nose gesturing slightly at its frothy surface as it stills and begins to reverse direction. Demonstrating, he lifts one foreleg with a sharp sucking sound, revealing a hole created by the sand beneath his hooves being drug back out to sea with the tide. "I move with purpose, not fear."

He shuffles aside then, eyeing the mare more analytically. His critical mind wonders if she's ever bothered to set hoof in the ocean before or always just spread her wings and soared away before reaching its edge. He guesses her older than most of the barely matured natives around here, though far from his advanced state of decay, but perhaps she still lacks the stillness to rest in one place long enough to observe the world around her.

"If I was wounded though," He consciously forces his gaze to stay level instead of dropping to the puckered skin of his left shoulder, lips pursing in their denied urge to rub at the deeply throbbing pain there. "What assistance would you offer?"



"Alby talks" 'Strom talks'
OOC // @Sohalia

He's unimpressed and wholly disinterested in the more mundane components of her explanation, though he does follow the mares gesture to the large unidentifiable avian hovering nearby. There's an obvious mysticism to the creature and having lived in Helovia for more than a year now, he knows that the likes of magic and dragons - and just as likely princesses trapped in massive stone towers somewhere - are much more than imagination and children's stories within these borders. The unnatural is more common than the natural here and so he guesses that the bird is nothing overly extraordinary despite its majestic appearance, equating it to a feathered version of the glowy, deer-like companions he's seen here and there. The black and gold asshole has one called 'Duir' and the Basins old Haruspex had had two of them.

"Crystal?" He asks, picking out this one detail as worthy of interest among the rest of the word vomit the mare emits, but an unexpected apology and the suggestion of her leaving quickly follows. The stallions weathered head cocks, watching her emotions, or at least the outward expression of them, change so rapidly from one pole to the other. She comes across as genuine though, so he cocks one hind hoof up on its toe and lazily turns an ear forward to her, as much of an invitation as she's likely to get from his sour old features.

Resting alone in his cave, submerged in the hot springs, or leaning against the smattering of trees in the Aurora Basin makes for dull and lonely days, though to be fair he's spent a great deal of these past few weeks sleeping heavily, letting his body put all of its effort into healing, but now that the mare is landed and planted squarely in front of him he's loath to send her away and return to his solitude so soon. He lifts his muzzle to point at a small charm affixed to a silver chain just peeking out from between the long strands of the mares mane. "Did you make that?" He asks, bringing her back to the subject of his interest while mentally comparing the small floral pendant to the more robust oval disc tucked away in his scarf.



"Alby talks" 'Strom talks'
OOC // So I stalked her profile a bit and saw that she had a crystal rose necklace. I wasn't sure if she wears or not but I hope this is okay? I can change if not. @Sohalia.

She'd seemed eager to talk before, readily answering and elaborating on his questions, but now suddenly the mares expression closes off. Her eyes won't quite meet his as she reaches down to touch the small pendent, and a sheen of moisture glints in them when she turns her head, though she holds whatever flood of emotion she's experiencing at bay. "Oh." Is all the stallion musters in response to her whisper, awkward and wary. He's old for sure, but not blind. He may have asked her questions once, tried to see as much of the situation as she would allow, but now he shrinks from her reaction, just barely holding his own baggage stacked across his back and shoulders and unwilling to take even another straws worth of weight.

"Do you take requests?" He asks instead, watching the mares companion gently groom the knots from her mane, jealous of the soothing, repetitive motion. He bristles, ears pinning for a moment, wondering, remembering, and instantly pushing the thought away of the last time he felt such a touch. Tangere and Johnny share the occasional nose or shoulder brush with him, but even those are fleeting and reserved, either for fear of his prickly personality or in disgust of his general filthiness. Even now, having let the ocean clean the dirt and the blood and the mess from the lower half of his body, grime and refuse still cling to his top line, dirt and who-knows-what-else smeared and dried across his neck and face. His beard is a mess of tangled, frayed ends and his hooves are chipped and worn, his whole appearance one of decrepitude.

He doesn't care anymore, truly, but moments like these remind him of a different time and place, one where he'd die of embarrassment to be seen in such a state, and the quick flash of self consciousness is a rude and unwelcome accusation from his former self to his current self. He shakes the feeling away, dislodging a small cloud of dust with the movement. "How about a senior discount?"



"Alby talks" 'Strom talks'
OOC // @Sohalia