[private] I can feel the paradise before my world implodes

[bolder]

Bolder sometimes got into fights.

Sometimes he lost himself to the wolf and fought for a place in a local pack. Sometimes he became a falcon sitting on a branch, ready to strike out at another for an easy meal. Sometimes he was just merely agitated, and whatever shape he took, he let the frustration out through the smack of a bear’s paw or a leopard’s fierce leap. Sometimes it got him into trouble, and there were a few scars on Bolder’s copper hide that remained as a testament to the few times that he had gotten carried away.

And while Malik was his usual choice for a sparring partner, the scars along his neck aren’t ones that he has placed there. Bolder eyes them with quiet suspicion, but when his cousin doesn’t mention where they come from, he doesn’t prod. He only flicks those slate-gray eyes up inquisitive before glancing back at the water. It laps quietly not far from their hooves, and Bolder considers something while he continues to listen.

It wasn’t like Malik not to be forthcoming. Perhaps not with a direct answer, but then his cousin never usually avoided a direct question. He had wanted to get out of Hyaline for a while, and that Bolder can understand. He does so frequently during the colder seasons, preferring the more tropical climates of Tephra and Ischia to the harsher winter one by the lake.

"Well, why don’t we go down there?” Bolder asks, finally looking up. Mazikeen had said that she wouldn’t mind learning what was down there, if the rumors of Baltians were actually true. He wouldn’t mind learning himself, and after a last glance at Malik over his winged shoulder, he dashed out to the water and disappeared in a splash. A few moments later, a gold-striped swordfish soared over a wave, as if to goad a nearby Malik in.

@Malik