I kept my hope just like I hoped to // Devin Pony/Any

[Rhaegor]

I kept my hope just like i'd hoped tp
then sang to the sea for feelings deep blue

After meeting with Levi and Magnus, he'd decided he quite liked it here. For temporary purposes, anyway! The volcanic kingdom smelled literally the opposite of home, and he wonders if that's where mother Solace gets her subtly ashen scent. He'd heard mother Kagerus use the word cigarette to describe it to the Tephran-born Queen once, quietly as if he weren't supposed to hear; but he never gave much thought to the other-world noun, preferring instead to now reside in his dam's kingdom to see what he can make of himself.

Today, the princeling (title temporarily on hold) meanders through the northern island of this western kingdom, the one with the volcano on it. It's the closest he's gotten to the thing yet, though he'd seen right into it when he'd flown in some weeks ago; this huge, dark-cloud-spewing thing, though he doubts it would erupt. Or he told himself he doubts it. People wouldn't live here if it was going to blow, right??

Shaking off THAT nagging thought, the buckskin colt - now a strapping two year old, or almost anyway, with sinewy muscles and the narrow, handsome back of youth - meanders around the trails leading to the volcano. Forests lie ahead of him to the left and right, and while he considers them seriously for some time, he ends up lowering his head to eat instead, enjoying the way the salty grass reminded him of home.

Rhaegor