Leading seems to come naturally to @[Lepis]. Or so it apears to Tarian.
The smaller pegasus nods to his brief contemplation on an Empire (he has heard and even dreamed of them but the stallion has never seen one). The dun nods and departs with only the slight signal of an ear that flickers behind. Lepis doesn't look back; she leads like she knows that Tarian, raised an Heir, and then trained up as a soldier, would follow.
Anywhere else but Loess might have made him grapple with that.
It might have even made him question her more.
Instead, she walked on and Tarian kicked up red-yellow dust at a respectful distance behind her. Until they had finally reached the spring that he had been dreaming of. The sweetness of the water drenched his senses and he drank deeply, swallowing the cool liquid slowly. They are both creatures of the sky so when she says that Loess is freedom, he thinks he understands. There should be no place on the ground that could keep them. They have to nest and roost at times but the heavens will always be beckoning with wide, open arms. In the near the decade that he has seen, Tarian has preferred that embrace over anything else.
So when she speaks of freedom, the silver pegasus thinks he understands.
"Home might be dull in a sense," he offers. "But to those denied it, it could taste as sweet as this water." As a youth, he hadn't forgiven his father for not trying harder to recover Paraiso. He couldn't understand why his silver sire hadn't tried harder to return them all to the ancient valley. It wasn't until the years after and alone, the years in Liridon, that he had begun to suspect the truth.
Paradise had been lost.
That there may never be any finding it.
He is dripping water when he raises his head and looks at Lepis - less than regal - but this does not bother him. Tarian has been here for an hour at best and yet he already feels at ease. A peace that he hasn't known for some time. This place is made for our kind, she says and there isn't a shadow of doubt on his pale face. It's a slight furrow of his noble brow that creates another one. "Taiga?" he asks, trying out the word and spitting it back out. "That damp, murky bog?" Tarian can't imagine any of their kind there. Even if the trees weren't so close together as Lepis says, there is the fog to contend with.
The sky is wide and open in Loess. Here, it is waiting for them.
"Far easier to find freedom here, it seems."
Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength
which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are.