“Control will come in time, and practice,” he offers first, quietly reassuring. “I was only born with my wings, you know; I’ve had to learn and re-learn everything else over the years, and I promise it gets easier.” In theory, anyway, and it had been easier for everything until the magic. The magic had been incredibly hard to learn, but even that the control came in time. “As to the second, congratulations. I am sad to see Wishbone go, I was certainly of a favorable mind about the brief time I knew her, but, well,” he pauses, gives her another little smile. “I may be biased, but I think you’ll shine even brighter.” The last bit, the last bit gives him pause, and his eyes go a little distant. The bay stallion has been in love more than a few times, with varying degrees of intensity and lengths of duration, and it’s always been an adventure. “I don’t think love is tragic,” he says quietly. “Frustrating sometimes, and confusing, and exhilarating, but not tragic. By its very nature, it’s a joyous thing all wrapped up in other emotions, and it at its heart can’t be tragic It always has a silver lining.”
After a moment, she gently turns the question back onto him and he considers it, the recent past has been quite overcast with only moments of bright, shining light. “It hasn’t been the best year or two,” he admits, and waits for the wave of grief to overwhelm him, but it simply laps gently at the edges of his mind and he wonders if the storm has finally run its course. “We lost my daughters, just children, and that was impossibly hard. It’s different, to lose them violently than when I’ve lost people to old age, and it hit me – us, Galilee and I – hard. And on top of those emotions, I had all this extra power to deal with, and absolutely no control over it, and the threat of war with Sylva looming. But the pain faded,” he gives a very bittersweet little half-smile, “And the control just took time. And the future is looking bright again.”