there is never a day that goes by (Corruption, any)

[Hurricane]

If age were a barrier to joining a kingdom, Hurricane should have been barred long ago. He has long since surpassed merely old and now exists somewhere within the realm of ancient. If the man wishes to try his hand (or rather, hoof) in the Tundra, Hurricane would quite readily welcome him amongst the ranks.

He is thoroughly grateful that the darker stallion seems to have no inclination towards wasting time. As the other man gives his decision, Hurricane dips his head slightly to the two mares before turning to lead the way to the Tundra. Dark gaze fixing onto Corruption, he unfolds his wings from his side.

”If you’ve no objection, I thought we might fly. Faster that way.”

That said, he turns away, leaping into the sky, pale wings beating strongly to gain the necessary altitude. He glances back briefly, hoping the other man has followed his lead.

The landscape falls away beneath them, the horses dotting the meadows shrinking into the smallest of points, the trees and hills disappearing into a distant mass of white interspersed by shades of brown. The wind whips around them, stronger up here, tangling Hurricane’s pale locks, ruffling his thick coat and downy feathers. He nearly smiles, though the singular joy of becoming one with the sky does not quite win out over the sternness of his features.

The land changes rapidly below them, the fields and meadows giving way to more mountainous terrain before finally, gradually, falling away into the flatness of the northern lands. Ahead of them looms the massive wall of ice, the distinctive structure bordering the entire southern edge of the kingdom.

He makes his way unerringly towards that colossal edifice until eventually they pass over the top of the wall marking their entrance into the kingdom. He begins to drift downwards then, the plains below them vast and snow covered, the only distinctive sights within the entire kingdom being the wall and the hills containing the kingdom’s caves rising in the distance. In the summer months, a river could be seen wending its way towards the sea. In the winter months, that very river is frozen and covered in snow, barely distinguishable from the rest of the flat landscape.

When he lands, he settles his wings against his sides once more, waiting until the Tundra’s latest newcomer has come close enough to hear his words.

”Welcome to the Tundra.”

There is never a day that goes by

that is a good day to die.

Hurricane

@[Corruption]

[Corruption]

Night has always pushed up day. You must know life to see decay.
But I won't rot, I won't rot. Not this mind and not this heart.

Would that he could be immortal like this man. Except, Clock has grown gray, and Corruption too, far away from each other. And when she goes, he’d sooner follow close behind (or, right beside, if there is any kindness in this life to afford them), than linger on this earth enticing more hardship to weight down his mind. He wonders if the Tundra is the place that he can hold her close. Keep a watchful eye on each other, and banish the forces that split them apart at the seams as if by instinct, time and time again. But she never had the heft of flesh and fat that the big stallion has, she would need more than just the cloak of his feathers…

He is reticent to admit the stiffness in his wings. Of the qualities he still has left clinging to his old bones and feathers, pride is close to chief among them. And so when the grey stallion suggests flight, he nods his stoic head and moves away to free space for his massive wingspan.

And the whoosh of air feeds him.
That initial drive, against all odds and gravity. Elevation.

Despite everything, it takes him back easily. For all the cobwebs that landing had strung from secondary to primary feather, he moves with the king like a youthful crow. From their wintering home he sees a flock of birds in the distance. A great, tight formation – military, protective, all the things that they had given him, and he them. He wonders where his blackbirds are now, and then realizes with a sinking feeling that the Tundra is not their home, and never will be. They still bow to the drive of instinct and habit.

He is shedding much on this trip.

But the cold rush of wind against his face, pulling his mane and tail, and the speed given to no one but those that know this dizzying height, erases everything. He flanks Hurricane, pushed by habit to something of a formation and synchronization. The world that shifts below them grows sparse, and then rugged with resilient pines and weather-worn brush. And then even those dwindle and disappear, until what is left is the cradle of something hard and fierce.

He lands with efficiency. Heavy, for his massive weight, and not graceful. He tucks his complaining wings by his side again, and looks around – and he cannot imagine her here; it is too wild and too merciless. Even if she could make it (and somehow he thinks she just would by some miracle), he’d be burdened with the guilt of making her.
But for him, it will hold. He has been battered by too many-a wintry storm-wind.

“It is as you said it would be.” He has never been a subject, but perhaps if he had to be, this place must be it. Untamed, and uncluttered. He can feel the vestiges of loyalty and survivalism in the echo of ice caves and the brush of cold breeze. He has many questions, an old hat with a new world foisted upon it. “Of the war the mare mentioned, what is the Tundra’s place in it?” If any. It is a good a place as any to start.

Corruption.
I won't rot.

[Hurricane]

If immortality had not long ago frozen him into ageless eternity, he might have once been in Corruption’s very place. They are of a similar mind, the white stallion and the black, and both once caught in a story as old as time. But Corruption, at least, has a chance for a happy ending. Hurricane will live on in interminable agelessness, his heart as frozen as the Tundra so that it could not remember the warmth that had once bloomed there. A mare with sunlight in her veins had thawed that ice once, but it had returned all too quickly when she had left, taking the warmth with her.

Perhaps, if things had been different, he might have been what the darker stallion is.

But they are not, and he is here, welcoming him into his frigid realm. A realm that had long ago claimed all that is left of his heart. A hard place so befitting of a hard man. The Tundra has become such a part of him that it has become much easier now for him to recognize the call of the kingdom in others. Perhaps Corruption is not meant for this world much longer, but he feels comfortable in the knowledge that the man would likely give the last of his days to this place.

He is distracted for a moment in his inspection of the Tundra, ensuring that everything is as he had left it. For a moment, just the briefest second in time, he is caught up in the beauty too. In the raw and rugged allure that is his home. But the other man’s question brings him back, drawing his steely gaze to Corruption in an assessing glance.

The other man doesn’t realize it, but what he asks is a rather loaded question. One Hurricane cannot answer with any certainty. But then, life is always full of uncertainty. Hurricane had long since learned one must take each day as it comes, even if (or perhaps especially if) one is ageless.

”None, at the moment. We have yet to make any alliances.”

He considers the other man for a long moment. His question, when he asks it, is one he suspects he already knows the answer to. Still, he hates to assume. Even at his age, he is still capable of being surprised.

”And how about you? Would you wish to go to war?”

There is never a day that goes by

that is a good day to die.

Hurricane