"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
Tamlin doesn’t let his own smile falter (forgetting for the moment that it’s invisible to her anyway) - but he feels his heart ache when Aero’s expression falls into a frown and she apologizes for her perfectly good question. Tamlin considered it a personal mission to make sure that no one frowned in his presence and he was going to add ‘no one feels the need to apologize’ to that list too. Clearly, he and Aero were just going to have to hang out so much more until she was both all smiles and completely sick of him.
That was his usual method when it came to family relationships.
Besides - it hadn’t been a dumb question at all! All things considered, he hadn’t been minding the whole darkness. For one, their home was illuminated both by the magma rivers and the birds so it was only a little dark. The biggest pain was just being stuck as a skeleton.
He was incapable of worrying about whether this would last forever so, even though they were in the second year of it, he still felt pretty confident that it was temporary.
But he’s not really thinking about the state of the world right now - he’s too busy doing his best to be the dumb goofy older brother he wants all his siblings to see him as. “I’m so jealous you can shift, you know. Shift AND glow, you’re so lucky. All I got are my shiny hooves.” He tilts his head, his smile showing in his bright tone. “I miss having flesh but other than that, I’m not doing too bad though.” He looks behind him to where his pack is relaxing, thanks in part to the steady stream of calming thoughts Tamlin is sending their way.
His skull head tilts to the side in a puppy-like movement when he turns his attention back to Aero. He doesn’t return the question - not because he doesn’t want to know, but because he’d rather do something that might make her smile again. “The wolf I named after dad is pregnant again, wanna come meet her? You're dressed for it!”
