The boy was looking out towards the sea.

Lost in his own thoughts, young Thèo was enraptured by the sense of smallness that he felt, when he stood on the oceanic borders of his home. He hadn't left the Throat yet, for wings were still in the process of growing both the muscles and the feathers he would need in order to fly, and he didn't want to be an imposition upon anyone who had a key for the fiery bridge. But that was alright, there was more than enough land here to keep the young boy's mind occupied. And today that object of that occupation was the sea.

Thèo's pale green eyes, so unlike those of both his mother and his father, surveyed the vastness of the ocean with a child's wide-eyed wonder. The tribrid let the waves roll and crash before him, not shrinking away even the slightest as the final pushes of the wave raced towards his cloven hooves and buried them in the sands. It made him feel as though the ocean was a living thing, a thing that moved the earth where it wanted, and even playfully sunk small boys who stood at its circumference too long.

At the sound of her approach, Thèo turned his horned head in her direction. The filly was a beautiful creature of natural colours and markings, so vastly different from his own.

"Hello-" He called out to her, his youthful voice confident and cheerful. It almost sounded as though he had a trace of an accent, which he had likely picked up from his mother's communal parenting method. Thèo bounced around from herd member to herd member, learning what he could from them, and picking up their accents and ways of speaking, along with the lessons they had to impart upon the fatherless boy. "I was just looking out at the ocean." He continued, each word softly punctuated, with his t's sounding slightly more like d's. "Would you care to join me?"

A boyish and eager smile broke across his ashen muzzle as she agreed. For the first time he noticed how similar her eyes were to the colour of the water. The colour was blue, of course, but not just blue. It was a deep colour, without necessarily being dark. There were points of sunlit sparkle, just like the waves, that lined her eyes in a way that if asked, he wouldn't have quite been able to articulate.

He nodded in eager agreement as the cited the ocean's beauty, and then turned an inquisitive gaze towards her as she mentioned whales. Still being quite young, there was so much in the world that he didn't know about. As such, the expression of awe on his face wasn't accompanied by surprise. That such vast creatures lurked below the surface was amazing, but not surprising. The world was full of wonders, wasn't it?

"Whales-" He muttered, more to himself than to her, as he let his green gaze return to the sea, as if he was sampling the word. As her question drew his gaze from the sea, back to the naturally coloured contours of the face, the boy paused a moment to smile. In his short life he had not learned to be bashful or ashamed of his feelings, nor had he associated any sort of appreciation of beauty with the need to be masked by some other motive. And so, he allowed himself a moment to smile, and drink in the sparkling baubles that sat against her hair and chest, and the way her eyes mirrored the sea.

"I am Mathèo." He said, that bizarre accent sounding even stronger as he pronounced the accented sounds in his name. Some called him Mats, others, Thèo. Rarely was he called by his full name. He wasn't entirely sure why ... But for the moment, the thought didn't bother him.

"I don't believe I know your family-" He began, each syllable somehow subtly allowed its own space in between, especially in family, making it sound more like fahm-ee-lee. He only mentioned this because of the way he had been raised - by the Dragon's Throat as as herd, rather than any one particular parent. Thèo had bounced around from herd member to herd member, learning what he could from them, and then moved on. "My mother ... ahh, she believes in having me learn from as many members from the Dragon's Throat as I can .. and I am sure if I had met your family, they would have mentioned having such a lovely daughter." Flattery came easily to the boy, but it was also genuine, and rolled off his tongue naturally.

"The pleasure is mine." He returned easily, the smile that was upon his lips and cheeks, easily finding its way to his eyes. Thèo listened with a genuine curiosity as the primal, but beautiful filly, answered his question. At her mention of Sohalia, the boy made a small O with his lips, which gradually moved to more of an ah shape. Of course she was Sohalia's daughter. He might have assumed as much if given the time to think about it. Who else on these sands would have created a child that was both graceful without appearing as though she would break?

Thèo tried to make his reaction to Vinati's next sentence as masked as possible, but he was still just a boy, for all of his charm and curiousity. His cheeks remained where they were, holding the smile on his face, but the light in his eyes had gone out entirely, drowned by a sort of meloncholy that made his youthful green eyes look entirely too old. 

"Ah-" He tried to begin, groping for any sound to try and articulate what it was he was feeling. "No, you are quite correct. I do not know the Wildfire. He died shortly before my birth." He said, trying to get a hold of the sudden uprising of sadness that pressed down on his shoulders. Despite this, the light around him actually seemed to intensify. Unlike his talk with Iskra where the boys simply left their sadness behind and dove right into the playfulness that brought them together, this sadness almost seemed comfortable in Vinati's presence.

Perhaps that was because he know knew her to be his sister. But even that realized had a hard time finding its way onto the smile that was still on his lips. "But what you say is good news-' He continued, swallowing and raising his eyes to find hers once again. "For although I did not know the Wildfire, he was my Father too." Unlike the gruff articulations of many of Gaucho's children, Thèo's pronunciation was soft, befitting the strange accent he bore. "Which makes you not just a wonderful interruption to my day, but my sister as well."

Sunlight glittered down upon the boy, drenching him a warm light, that finally did manage to reach his eyes once again.

Immediately and perhaps unsurprisingly, Thèo spun around almost instantly as his sister said that their Father stood behind him. Even as he moved on slender and long legs, the boy could feel his heart thumping in his chest, ignoring the illogical nature of what his sand-sister had said. Gaucho was dead, he knew that. Hadn't his Mother burned his body? And yet ...

Yet..

Perhaps it was because of his age, his naivity, but part of Thèo believed that he would see the impressive Wildfire behind him. However as his sea-green gaze finally rotated fully within his regal skull, he was greeted only with a pristine view of the desert. Thèo's mouth felt dry and suddenly his eyes felt very heavy. He exhaled a breath that was more of a sob, and turned back to face Vinati, wondering what cruelty could have led her to trick him so.

Immediately she explained, and though his anger immediately dispelled from his body and his face, the sorrow and disappointment in his heart lingered a little longer.

"I see." He said with a shaky smile, casting a glance over his shoulder once more, as if still hoping to catch a glance of what his sister could see. "How very lucky for you then. Death does not rob you quite as much as it does for the rest of us.." His voice trailed off, sadness unmistakably colouring his oddly accent words.

"What... is he like? What does he do, when you see him?" Aithniel rarely spoke of Gaucho. She spoke of his bravery and dedication to the Throat, but those things told the ashen boy very little of what his Father was actually like.