Chaser [Any]

[Warrick]

like the sun swallowed up by the earth

It seems that the darkness of grief and sadness has enveloped them like a cloak, refusing to alleviate and disperse with the sun’s rising - a subtle change in the dark sky, warmth and brightness just on the horizon - but not for them, and not for Diable Rouge. The tears flow freely, staining the sharpness of his cheeks a rust-colored brown, darkening beneath his eyes and glistening in the first morning’s light as the Tephran sun begins to rise above the nearby ocean’s waters. Warrick’s ears flick backwards slightly in sadness, his heart breaking for the fellow man next to him, and cannot help the way his muzzle finds the roan’s shoulder, pressing a gesture of encouragement and hopefully understanding into the other stallion’s flesh.

The blue-winged stallion allows him his confession, listening patiently as all of the emotions and guilt falls from his lips - Warrick can tell that Diable Rouge has been holding onto these thoughts for a long while (far too long) and despite the harshness he plagues onto himself, Warrick cannot help but wonder if now a weight has been lifted by his confession, or if somehow the darkness did not seem as unclear as it did before. Patiently he listens, though the blue of his eyes darken with the bitterness of Diable Rouge’s “should-have” statements. Warrick pulls his chin to himself, finding his gaze wandering through the sunrise soaked ocean - a bleary grey and pink sky stands before them, smoke from the volcano causing a hazy fog to hang low on the horizon.

“We all grieve differently.”

Warrick states this solidly, his voice unwavering.

“Solace understands this.” An ear flicks to Diable Rouge, his peripheral gaze shifting towards him.  “Though she may wish to understand more, just as I now understand.” A suggestion, not a command, to reconcile with the buckskin and white mare, to ease the strife and guilt that shadows his darkened mind. “Your apology does not belong to me, Diable Rouge. I harbor no ill-will towards you or what happened that day.” The stallion tosses his head, a sharp snort leaving his nostrils as sunlight begins to stretch across the shoreline, illuminating in golden rays along the sandy beach.

Diable Rouge inhales deeply, and Warrick finds himself drawing in a long breath as well, exhaling slowly. “You can spend your life trying to sift through what you could have done better, but what good do ‘should-haves’ do? You are stronger now; it doesn’t matter what you were before, not anymore.”

He pauses, the sunlight reflecting in the blue irises of his eyes as it sparkles on the rolling waves, a new day beginning. “If you find her, Diable, will you tell her that not a second has gone by without me thinking of her?” He turns to look at the stallion that he feels he can truly call friend, with the deep and heavy conversation that had lasted them most of the night, his kind eyes pleading. “And that I will see her soon.”

Warrick

@[Diable Rouge]

I saw that Diable is in Hyaline now (yay!). Warrick still has yet to find out that she's gone there and is now ruling, so maybe we can do another thread soon where Diable lets him know where she is, so that he can go visit? <3