there's a devil in my brain with a pitchfork and a flame

[Nashua]

NASHUA

There is a glow in his gaze that draws the boy in further. It’s like firelight and Nashua comes closer, appreciating the warmth that flickers there. He has yet to encounter a horse that doesn’t feel familiar and this one is no different. There is nothing in his young mind that thinks they aren’t friends. That they won’t be after today.

So far, much of his short life has gone this way.

"Yeah,” his smile burns into a grin.

They aren’t actual fire but Nashua doesn’t feel disappointed. They are still a remarkable set of wings and thinking of his own brother, of his own mother - he knows that some horses aren’t as fortunate as he and Elio are. "They're still pretty cool,” he thinks out loud as his green eyes fall to the outer edges of crimson wings, pretending that they scorch the soil where the young stallion stands.

It’s a fun thing to imagine.

"No,” he says with a firm shake of his copper head. "But I’d like too, someday.” Nashua adds. He smiles again and helps close the space between himself and this newcomer to Taiga’s woods. He tilts his head, curious because the way that this stallion speaks sounds as if he has seen them before and it only fuels the wanderlust already flowing in his veins at such a young age.

"You’ve seen them before? Do they live in Loess with the dragons? Or Tephra, maybe?” There had been some stories about the kingdom to the West and he had even glimpsed the volcano once - on their travels to Ischia. Perhaps the fire-flyers shared kinship with its sleeping giant.

He loosens his own wings and casts an appraising glance back to the gold that the visitor has just complimented. Suddenly, the things he had been proud of this morning (the way his wings had started to stretch out, how much bigger they had seemed) pale in the comparison of this blazing, golden stallion. Casting a longing glance back at his red wings again, Nashua looks up. "Thanks,” he says - knowing it's the polite thing to do. And then with a boyish grin, he adds: "I like yours the way they are. If you had fire wings, the trees might not like it.”

and for every king that died
they would crown another

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@[elio]