[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

What insecurities Nashua has from his short past propels him into the future.

His father had been a terrible creature that left nothing but destruction and pain behind him. Nash had grown up under the shadows of the terrible crimes his sire had committed and it made the flaxen-haired stallion strive to be better; a drive to be something good in the wake of something horrible. It explains his deep loyalty to the Isle and Leilan and his family that dwelled in Taiga. (It also explains why Nashua had wandered so far, searching for a silver lining of redemption where it concerned Wolfbane.)

Those insecurities have made Nashua a stallion who lives by his actions, and what he doesn't say (what he struggles to find words for), he hopes that the moments like this with Noel speak for him. The pale mare reaches for his chestnut cheek and he presses it gently to her, glad for her warmth and even gladder to have her so close. He can't help but smile when she says that she is happy to be so near. He could lose himself here, in the graceful arch of her neck. In the lovely curve of it that he reaches for, in the wisp-like softness of her cloud-colored mane.

For a moment, he wishes that they weren't on the ground. He wishes he could see the wild rush of wind as it tangles her mane. He wishes he could the proud span of her wings as they carry her towards the waiting blue above them.

But then, she pulls him back from his thoughts of the sky. The striped stallion smiles.

"I'm glad your here," Nashua tells her. His green eyes go searching for her dark ones, watching for any signs of uneasiness. There is a moment where he wants to ask her how it makes her feel, what she thinks this feels like (he wonders if it anything like he feels, a force of gravity that brings him to the ground, that roots him so deeply to her and their children that he could be a Sequoia). "The girls will be happy to see you," he murmurs to her. Their adolescent daughters complain that their father worries too much. Not like @[Noel], who seems to understand their desire to explore (which Nashua should, given all the places he's been).

Distracted by the loveliness of the white pegasus next to him, he traces the slender outline of her neck with his mouth.

"Do you know what Ellie called me the other day?" he half-jokes (not that their daughter realized her father was so close, otherwise she wouldn't have dared). "Old man."

NASHUA