[private] did all my dreams mean one thing?

[Tarian]

His pale skin doesn't even twitch against her biting touch. There is nothing in Tarian that is capable of moving away from her, not when he feels as close to her as he does now. It's a feeling that he has never shared with anyone - one that he thought he never would share - but here he was, tucked away in a corner of Loess with Altissima, and between the two of them, they had created an entirely new world.

Tarian had can feel a fierce drive to protect rising up in him. It had always been in him: first as the future Guardian of his once-home, then on the battlefields of Liridon where he had done his best to keep those under his command safe, and then again in Loess, when he had been named its Champion.

But that emotion in those moments is so pale compared to this one.

It is like a flame, kindling that has always been there ready to spark, and Altissima has brought the flicker to light.

The wing nearest to her still drapes over her and Tarian stands, offering whatever kind of physical support he can give. But his blue eyes are watching their newborns and he is trying to understand this knot in his chest, the way that it tightens and twists as their children find their legs. Both are strong, and it would seem they are ready to walk into the world. But each step they take causes a beat of trepidation in him, and though he knows that he can't, Tarian already finds himself wanting to catch them if they should ever fall.

But that is not the way their world works, he reminds himself.
The tumbling and the struggling are how a horse finds their hooves.

Altissima calls him back to her and she is suddenly there in all captivating shimmer and shine. (He can never really go far; not when she is so illuminating.) She won't be going anywhere this summer, she says, and Tarian laughs; a glad sound that echoes warmly against the red walls of their home. "I will never mind," he tells her, still watching their younglings, but knowing that he hadn't called her Wildling because she enjoyed staying in one place. While he doesn't doubt that she would for their foals, he wants her to know, "But if you do want to go somewhere," murmurs the Champion of Loess who has never (willingly) left its borders for more than a few days, "We could. Take them and show them something of this wild world we've brought them into."

Glancing to her, Tarian feels the start of a grin.

"If you could tolerate my company, that is."

@Altissima