Hawthorn
a quote goes here
Hawthorn is airborne.
Up here, amidst cloud and zephyr, he is a king of sorts. He can rule a patch of sky and never encounter so much as a bird to go flapping by. Up here, he loses some of the brooding air that is forever hanging about him until he looks unapproachable but nothing approaches him here unless it is a wayward cloud that goes sailing by. Still, up here is the closest to himself that he can get - a freedom that his thick feathered legs can never afford him for all that he is a horse and meant to outrace the wind.
It is a freedom of anonymity because the clouds do not care who his fathers are.
The clouds do not care who he is so as long as he lets them pass by, or joins their slow errant march across the sky.
Up here, the clouds and air ask nothing of him and he is beholden to none, not even the herd he tries to start in the redwood forest that brings him forevermore earthbound. Up here, he hardly looks down and when at last he does, he realizes that is he is far from Taiga - much farther than he anticipated being that day. Hawthorn doesn’t get out much except to fly and even that is usually curbed short by his need to look after his slowly blossoming herd. He angles closer, swooping down in a hawk’s dive until righting himself at the last possible moment to skim a wingtip amidst the sparkles of sunlight on a small river.
He stalls out over the river but gains the bank with a surge of rippling muscle and a quick push of his haunches. Great, now he’s soaked but the summer sun will be quick to dry him off. Hawthorn grunts, as he holds his wings open and aloft to let the sun and the air do its work on the sodden mess of feathers. It’ll be a bit before he can attempt the flight home and he’d much rather fly than walk at the moment. Disgusted with himself for not paying more attention to where he chose to land, he remains grounded to the spot, water puddling beneath him.
Then she goes by; pale and petite and there was no reason for her to catch his eye except that she did. Something about the carriage of her head and the brightness in her face made him stare after her before tucking his still-damp wings in close to his stormy dappled sides and setting off after her. She’d know she was being followed, he was a giant of a stallion and his step was booming instead of quiet until he fell in line with her and gave her a rather curt nod. Hawthorn did not mean to be chilly but he knew no other way, could not find his way back to that earlier softness that had been present in his childhood.
“Ma’am,” he began but trailed off. It was easier to nip and claim and herd her along but something more civilized held the feral beast in him back.
still trying to hold the world aloft
@[Waxwing] forgive me, I'm still getting used to him. <3