It had been their beauty that first drew Tarian to the glowing wildflowers that grew along the rocky Loessian coast.
The flowers hadn't taken root in the gentles of some meadow, or in a place where they could easily thrive, like the Brilliant Pampas. The wind could whip wildly against the shoreline. There was nothing of the soft, rolling hills that Loess was known for against this craggy shore. And yet, they had bloomed here, against all the elemental adversities. Tarian had taken great care leading Altissima here - grateful to his lunar light for once as it showed the loose stones and any missteps that could result in injury. The pair of them shine like the moon and the blue flowers, but it is neither of those things that hold Tarian's enraptured gaze.
It is Altissima.
He watches her reach for one of the flowers, and it cements something in Tarian in thinking that these two wonders were alike. Both held a delicate appearance, both should have been swallowed by the darkness, and yet here both were, glowing bright against all the odds. The gray stallion says nothing, instead cradling a breath that he wasn't aware of. Tarian has never been the best at conversation, and with Altissima, that is why he falls so often into their usual banter.
It is easier to do that than to pretend whatever this is exists.
That he and she might be something more than a few stolen moments.
That he will miss her when she goes, that he has thought about her when she is gone.
Tarian says nothing because, for the first time in a long time, he's afraid. He's afraid that he's ruined whatever fledgling trust they've built and to speak will crumble the newly-discovered ground beneath them. He knows her well enough - has felt her against him - well enough by know and the silver stallion can see the way she visibly tenses. All that easy freedom that she carries with her leaves and for one horrible moment, she looks trapped. For one horrible moment, he realizes that he's the one that's done it.
The last thing he ever wants to make her feel.
How can he tell her that despite how fragile the flowers seem, their ferocity beside the sea is beautiful to him? That they made him think of her, not for the obvious reasons, but that these flowers seemed to dare every kind of existence? The tides to wash them away, the wind to uproot them, the rocks to tumble them down. And yet, each year despite the forces pitted against them, they bloomed here. That was what he thought of when he thought of Altissima.
"It's a pretty name," he tells her instead, hoping that these lighter words might be the ones to take the heavy weight from her.
TARIAN
@Altissima