It remains stubborn, like the firm plant of her hooves in the dirt.

“Spark,” he says around a mouthful of hair and teeth.

She ignores him; shakes him off and slouches out from underneath his brotherly attentions.

(He could be rather irksome at times, like now, she thinks, annoyed.)

Irksome and persistent. He thinks he can wear at her like river on a rock, until she gives over to the tumble of time and his desires. Spear would like to keep roaming, never looking back over their shoulder towards the sunrise. Spark though, longs for that place that echoes in every beat of her heart as home (and maybe a name too, murmured in the lapse of lung and breath, that is too sweet [like starshine] in her mouth to say).

This is why he wears at her, and she avoids him.

They face a fork in the road that neither of them is prepared to face again; it happened, once - already.

In the end, he heaves a sigh of exasperation and follows her, casting one last look of longing at what he thinks is his freedom ebbing away on the wind’s rollicking laughs through the long grass. She has already turned, pointed her head towards that bit of land already cast into the shadow of sunset and begins the trek home. He has no choice but to follow her, so he thinks, and his head hangs in pure defeat. That would always be the way of it - she could defeat him so easily with a look in her wild eyes that he could not defy her, not for very long, and in time, his feet too, matched the rhythm of hers.

“Thank you,” she breathes to him, somewhere along the way.

He doesn’t acknowledge her, but she knows that he has heard it and this is his way of rebelling against her. His spirit is strong but his love for her was far stronger than that, and his spirit was easily dominated by something as simple as a brother’s love for his sister. She knew this, and tried hard not to abuse his affections but she was not meant to stray too far from the places that she had always known.

Spark tries to jostle his shoulder; he ignores it.

Ignores it long enough to spin back, lash out at her with a nip, then dart ahead in his heavier stride. He knows she’ll catch up to him in a matter of moments - mere hoofbeats actually, and she does, leaning over to nip at his neck until their laughter twines up together through the air in twinned strands of delight at their homecoming. It never occurs to either of them who might still remember them, if any do, and some part of them knows that it does not matter - they have each other, always each other.

(Dimly, she thinks of Giver.)

(Distantly, he thinks of adventure.)