[mature] it is always you I find at the end of this tunnel; Nashua

[Nashua]

(and it's harder than you think)
telling dreams from one another

This is something that Nashua is still learning, too. He almost doesn't think (which he is starting to be careful of, because what if doesn't want him to reach for her?) when she is near; Nash just reaches for her because instinct wants her near. Something in him deems impossible to have her so close and not want her closer still. Having her close and pressing his head briefly into the lovely curve of her neck is something that Nashua dreams of during his lonely nights on the Isle.

But he has to be so careful.

Each flight she takes away from Taiga is the one that leaves him wondering if this will be her last (their girls are growing older and better than that, they are thriving). He wonders if that will be the last time that he will see her. And he always tells himself that he understands, that he would always understand. (They are creatures of the sky, not the ground. Maybe they aren't meant to roost.)

Nashua doesn't want to cluster her any more than the Redwoods have; he doesn't want to cage her. (And he has no experience - or memories - of what a relationship might look like. Apart from a few visits to the Taiga, Nashua has very few memories of Wolfbane and there are none of his parents interacting... like this. There are very few memories he has of his parents together at all and as he has gotten older, Nashua has come to wonder how much of that was Lilliana's doing and her attempts at keeping her sons away from their cursed sire.) Even Leilan - a childhood hero and now mentor - had no advice beyond that he should be 'sowing his wild oats'.

All of this was new for him. And terrifying.

None of that fear is apparent, now. His doubts fade away into the darkness surrounding them and as @[Noel] curves into his side, Nashua relaxes in a way that he only seems to do in her presence. The striped stallion turns his head where it hovers over the arch of her pale neck. He watches her as her gaze drops to the still-healing wing that he had tried to keep away from her and Nash smiles. "Better," he tells her (and while not an outright lie, it would heal easier if the pegasus wasn't so insistent on traveling to Nerine and back, on flying while the injury worked to re-heal itself). "How are you?" he murmurs, as quiet in his reply as she had been in her concern.

NASHUA