06-09-2015, 02:36 PM
Thorunn was rarely without her father these days in the way most children who idolize their parents are. At just over a year old Thorunn shed her lanky legs for something a little more stable, something more sturdy. As she matured she looked more and more like her mother - the same color, the same sleek build, the same muscle patterns. Her face, however, was entirely her fathers - orange eyes, vacant look, always looking a bit inconvenienced. She doesn't follow him like a duckling, more like she is always aware of where he is. He gives them lessons - her twin sister and her - every few days. Lately, though, the lessons are shorter. He is less likely to step in, preferring to vocally dictate them. Thorunn doesn't know about death (not yet) or age (not yet) so it never occurs to her that something so ... final ... could be happening to the 130+ year old horse. But it is.
Covet is all too aware of what it means to have your immortality up and leave you. He feels every ache in his bones, every injury from the last decades, every bone spur and scar. He looks old, too, and not in a good way. His scars look like pockmarks, his eyes are glazing over with white fog, he walks slower and with more of a limp. He prefers the cool summer nights to the warm summer days, even in a place like the Valley that never truly gets hot. Well, not like other places he's lived.
It's the dead of night when he feels the shift against his skin. He's lived through enough disasters to know that there's no such thing as a "natural disaster." All disasters are created by someone more powerful, someone with an end game. Covet feels the shift and leaves his position to investigate, finding himself staring at a fire-colored mare with similar orange eyes to his own.
Another sister? Thorunn thinks, tracing her fathers steps through the swaying grass, following the impossible origin of the mess in the sky. She is not so versed as to understand it's coming from the mare, she can only stare at the orange eyes and assume what she's learned over the last year - her father gives most of his children orange eyes. She must be a sibling.
"Hello," Covet greets, his voice the same quiet noise it's always been. Now, however, it shakes a bit with age. "I'm Covet, this is my daughter Thorunn," he nods to the filly a few lengths behind him. "How can we help you?"
Covet is all too aware of what it means to have your immortality up and leave you. He feels every ache in his bones, every injury from the last decades, every bone spur and scar. He looks old, too, and not in a good way. His scars look like pockmarks, his eyes are glazing over with white fog, he walks slower and with more of a limp. He prefers the cool summer nights to the warm summer days, even in a place like the Valley that never truly gets hot. Well, not like other places he's lived.
It's the dead of night when he feels the shift against his skin. He's lived through enough disasters to know that there's no such thing as a "natural disaster." All disasters are created by someone more powerful, someone with an end game. Covet feels the shift and leaves his position to investigate, finding himself staring at a fire-colored mare with similar orange eyes to his own.
Another sister? Thorunn thinks, tracing her fathers steps through the swaying grass, following the impossible origin of the mess in the sky. She is not so versed as to understand it's coming from the mare, she can only stare at the orange eyes and assume what she's learned over the last year - her father gives most of his children orange eyes. She must be a sibling.
"Hello," Covet greets, his voice the same quiet noise it's always been. Now, however, it shakes a bit with age. "I'm Covet, this is my daughter Thorunn," he nods to the filly a few lengths behind him. "How can we help you?"