[private] but its wonderful to see that it never phased you

[Tarian]

Tarian can't recall the last time he entertained anyone, especially one so young.

What has made him so melancholy lately? Perhaps it had been because of the new Pampas leader, the young stallion who had been so eager to throw his weight and title around the Loessian Champion. It had irritated him but what had been worse was after Tarian had returned to Loess.

The silver stallion could easily recall being that young. After losing his home, after his family left their mountainous corner of Beyond, he remembers being young and ready for whatever the future would bring him.

He certainly remembers not having the patience to wait for it.

That was how he came by a jagged scar on his shoulder, when Tarian had been full of anger and ire about the circumstances beyond his control so the adolescent stallion had picked a fight with a much-larger Guardsman from Liridon. It was how he quickly learned that the princely fighting style of his youth -  that the ebb and flow of true battle was as natural as a tide, as precise and lovely as any art form - was not the preferred style of mercenaries and soldiers-for-hire.

It had given him something to do, though. A way to pass the years, to fight back, even if the fights and causes were a far cry from the chivalrous stories of his childhood. Tarian had proven himself to be tenacious enough that the Guard could sharpen him into something else, until the Guard had been no more.

"Four," Tarian starts to answer @[Cheri], managing to look over his winged shoulder at her. "No - five years." Five years since the death of Lepis. How had time gone so quickly? Beqanna still felt as foreign and strange to him as the tales told him as a colt. He turned his attention back towards the trail that he had started them on, with his blue eyes seeking a particular spire. Not quite as tall as some of the others but it wider. There had been a small cave on one side of it with a view of the east that could rival any spot in the Land of the Sunrise.

"So why Loess?" he asks after some time, if only just to keep them both from dozing while they walked.


all of those are fabulous threads so all parties are forgiven