after the fire drove out the sparrows; any

[magnus]

magnus

howling ghosts, they reappear
in mountains that are stacked with fear

This moment brings Magnus back to the first time he saw Tephra.

He had been exhausted, muscles strained from the trek up and down the mountain. It had been a long few days—too many hours spent awake and searching, too much fear stretching him thin, the chaos of the land sending him and those around him in a tailspin. He has experienced much during his life but there are few moments that can stand amongst the days after the Reckoning in regards to stress.

But then, the faeries had heard Offspring’s and his pleas and granted them their request.

And they had taken the long journey down the mountain, ushering their friends and families into this new haven. In that moment, that split few seconds, he had been nearly cleaved in half. Part of him had been exhausted to a point that he had never experienced before. Part of him had been ravaged with grief and the loss of everything that he loved. But still, there had been part of him joyous in possibility.

Tephra had been delicately blanketed with fog. She had smelled of sulfur. The volcano watching over it all had towered with possibility. And yet—and yet—she had been theirs. She had been a place for them to stand watch over their loved ones, to protect and begin to build their lives again.

That same love pierces his heart once again and his golden eyes soften as he looks at them both. At Lucrezia’s prompting, he laughs, the sound warm in his mouth, and he breaks away from them both into a leggy trot, shouting over his shoulder. “Race you guys there!” With a devilish twinkle in his eye and a youthful snort he pushes off the soft loam and breaks into a gallop, laughing into the wind and relishing this moment where he can relinquish his demons and simply enjoy the company of those he loves.

but you're a king and I'm a lionheart