[open] winter just wasn't my season

[Tarian]

Tarian had grown up watching and studying the winds. Before Beqanna, he had been like most of his ancestors. He could make the winds shift and swirl, calm a gale as it approached, or call a hurricane where there had been none.

But more importantly, his grandsire Valerio had taught there were whispers on the wind. One didn't need Magic to hear them. One didn't need to be able to call or conjure them. They only need to be aware. "The Winds and Fate often blow us in the same direction," he had once murmured. Tarian had thought it a cryptic saying but what his grandfather explained was this: the path taken is the one that a soul was meant to walk, even with all it's twisted and winding turns.

So he takes one now, arcing his wide white wings beneath a summer sky.

The sun is back, in all its shining glory, and even Tarian, who hardly leaves a moment to chance or Fate, takes a moment to enjoy it. With his last border patrol done in Loess and a more invigorated (albeit grunting) nod from recovering Ashhal, the white pegasus took off. It's a rare burst of excitement - an energy that he hasn't shown since he and Liam first learned to fly - and Tarian leaves the Southern Kingdom behind. His flight strokes carry him further from his home but don't take him towards the Brilliant Pampas, where his Queen has requested he go.

(And Tarian will. He just wants to give whoever might be dwelling in the land of wildflowers to enjoy a day or two of sunlight first. Perhaps to feel the burst of bright joy that he does in his silver chest, to know a moment of freedom that they can't be swallowed by the Dark.)

He certainly doesn't mean to fly as far as the Field. But when his hooves touch down and Tarian lifts his proud head, the groups of horses surrounding him are eager and bright-eyed. They look hopeful, an expression he hasn't glimpsed in months (because there had been little light to see any joy; because who had any joy when they were surrounded by death?) The pegasus contemplates quietly leaving before anyone takes any real notice of him. He could be gone and nobody would be any the wiser that he had been here.

Turning around like he intends to do exactly that, two horses catch his attention. A golden roan - a shimmering color that brings back memories of his youth - and a dark stallion who looked as lost as the mare, two horses who looked lost among a sea of shining faces alight with hope. With his wings still partially flared, Tarian feels a breeze pushing past him and grits his teeth. It comes again. Legado help me, he thinks and then turns to approach the pair.

Maybe they were lost here together.
Maybe there was time to convince them to turn around and come back from wherever they came from.

Lacking the finesse of words, he speaks bluntly. "Are you both lost?"

@[Ruthless] @[Osiriis]