life unfolds in pools of gold
I am only owed this shape if I make a line to hold
He isn’t alone in his deep thoughts for long. Soon, he hears the soft fall of small hooves on the sand. They are at once hurried and hesitant, as if the head that directs them is unsure of where exactly they should go. Or, perhaps they are unsure if where they are going is where they should be, if they are safe in his company. Buck smiles a little at that before turning to see the youngster. “Hey mister. How’s it going?” He keeps his body facing the horizon so that he doesn’t look like a threat. He’s lost none of his bulk built from the range; the dunes are a punishing but effective workout as he climbs up and down them every day. Jagged scars from wildcats hug his shoulders, blunt scars from stallions pepper his hindquarters. He looks rough and rugged, but everything in his posture says otherwise. “I’m Buckthorn. How about you?”
The kid stays back, and his distance draws the males brown eyes further inland. Nayl comes next, languid like one of those same wildcats in her unrushed arrival. He isn’t sure she will be nearly as easy to handle, though. The truth of their shared blood rings in his ears in Heartfire’s voice on the day she said it. It is undeniable, the same patchwork quilt of black and white stretching their frames. The same stubborn streak is there that made her a queen and made him stick to this spit of sand when he should have left long ago. But even if they have the same DNA planted in their cells, it doesn’t mean they owe each other anything. He stays because he wants to know more, to know her. To know himself, even.
Long-held breath whistles through his parted teeth when she draws next to him.
“By design,” Buck answers, staring solemnly at the grey waves crashing ahead of them. He counts his heartbeats until it is uncomfortable, the silence that falls like an anchor between them. Then a slow and crooked grin starts on his lips. He looks at Nayl then, fully. His brown eyes wash nutmeg in the sudden light of the sun peeking through the storm clouds as he searches her gaze. Did she think he meant to join them? Did she mistake his participation in her pits for roots he was setting into unsettled sand? It hadn’t been his intention, hadn’t been his plan (not that he’s ever had one of those).
He lets that go for now, releases her gaze at the same time. The boy still lingers beside them. It is to him he turns next when the colt apologizes and makes to depart. “No worries, kid.” Buckthorn nods and smiles as he moves away, the sound of the ocean finally swallowing his hoofsteps. The two are alone, brother and sister. The Iron-Queen dives into more than perfunctory questions and he is unsurprised. I want to know more about you. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” The stallion leans on his weak attempt at humor (wondering, vaguely, if she is in possession of the tiniest funny bone or if she’d sooner gut him here messily by the water for quick clean-up) before straightening up.
“I know only a little more than you, I’m afraid. Myrina birthed me outside of the Jungle and left me on my own too early. My dad was named Mrydon and that is all she told me about him. Beqanna was never my home. I ran to the… to the sea (a lie, he’d gone to the Beach) and followed it to another place. I kept to the wild lands outside of it, the plains and prairies, made my own family there. I was a weak boy who became a stronger man for raising myself, building myself. Now, I’m not sure where I fit in here. Everywhere is a stranger save for the sea.” He looks wistfully out to it now before turning back to Nayl with a soft smile. “And you? Are you Myrina or Mrydon’s daughter?”
buckthorn