Cagney
who can say when the day sleeps, if the night keeps all your heart?
only time
The stallion is meandering along the beach when she catches his eye, and he changes directions to slowly approach her. He has not met this sister, having only returned to his father’s chain of islands quite recently, but Brennen had given him enough information that he has no trouble placing her name with her face, when he comes upon her on the beach, and his dark brown eyes wander over her face as he comes to stand beside her, offering a quiet smile with an equally quiet greeting. “Hello,” The boy thinks he sees the hint of what might be tears in her eyes, just the beginnings, but he politely ignores them. “I’m Cagney, and I’ve been told you’re my littlest sister. Well, until the even littler ones arrive in a couple of weeks,” There, he offers her a tiny little chuckle, inviting her to share in his half-amusement half-exasperation at their sire’s very nature.
He is at once more like her than many of their half-siblings, and yet just as remote as they. Cagney, too, was left with Brennen by a mother who had no interest in him; he understands the strange duality of being unconditionally loved by prominent sire but yet also occasionally wondering how life might have been different if he had two parents. He wonders how much worse it feels for this little sister of his, who grows up in the shadow of Galilee having settled on Ischia alongside the rest of them – his mother he never met, but at least Brennen had not had any other children and their mothers living together with him. But his father had also shared concerns with Cagney about Astarael having a hard time fitting in with some of her siblings, for the lack-of-mother-issue but also the lack-of-fancy-traits-issue; and that is where Cagney is uncertain how he can help, except for that he spends most of his time letting everyone in his life assume he, too, is plain. But he is a good listener, and so Brennen had shared perhaps more of his younger siblings’ secrets than he had any intention to, and the roan boy now feels the need to check up on the girl.
After all, gods know how lost Cagney would have been without the family Brennen had provided him. Now that he is not lost in the fog of loss and the webs of time, perhaps it’s time for him to start contributing to that family again.
Who can say where the road goes? Where the day flows? Only time.
