Martin woke with a start, shaking off the afterimages of the dream that had stolen him into sleep. They dissipated like wisps of smoke and already he felt himself struggling to recall what he had seen. His mouth filled with the subtle taste of lavender.

His brow furrowed.

Life was full of middles and endings, the young stallion mused, and sorely lacking in beginnings. He'd had a plan setting out from his ancestral home that had involved a fair bit of knocking down the doors of every god, mystic, and scholar he encountered until someone could give him the answers he sought, but in all honesty he had grossly underestimated just how much space there was in the world. His fifth naming day was fast approaching and he'd spent most of the past year wandering alone through lands with dead gods and names lost forever to history.

There were days Martin questioned his decision to leave, and he found himself more and more thankful for the dreams he'd carried with him out of the vale. At times they felt as warm and real as the world around him: a simple, breathing thing curled just beyond the edge of his mind's eye, its spark ever receding the more he struggled to reach for it.

The landscape changed around him, drawing him almost magnetically along toward some as yet unseen goal. He grew lean and sinewy with the rigors of the road, practiced his forms daily to keep himself sane, and had only just begun to consider the possibility that he'd walked off the edge of the map into some abandoned, unfinished pocket dimension when he broke through the verdant forest into a rolling sea of flowers with a castle looming importantly on the horizon. Interlaced with the heady scents of spring was another, more familiar smell: horses.

Martin's heart quickened in his chest. He bounded a few steps into the meadow before collecting himself again, scouring the landscape for a glimpse of one of them.

At last, a beginning.

---

The meadow was huge, far larger than the plains he had needed to cross to get here. They seemed to stretch out endlessly, a sea of green that waved to and fro in the gentle breeze, beckoning him further and further in, but for now he had resisted. The few steps he had dared to take had made him feel exposed, vulnerable after spending so long in the forest. It made him wish to stick closer to the dark, broad-leafed trees, taking shelter and comfort alike within their canopies. After all this time he'd spent getting here, it felt strangely... anticlimactic, to be afraid now of a little fresh air.

But that wouldn’t stop him from gathering his fair share of information about the new territory. He pranced along the forest edge, head lowered to inspect every moss, lichen. mushroom, and tangling vine he found there. Some he recognized, many he didn’t; he was much farther north now than he’d realized, and the terrain had seemed to change dramatically. The soil seemed richer here, damper and softer, a breeding ground for hundreds of new species of plants. Occasionally Ipomoea cast a jealous look westward, across the meadow. The red flowers, unlike anything he had seen before, brilliantly alluring, but he didn’t dare yet.

He had made quite some progress down the forest line when he stopped abruptly, darkened nostrils flaring. Ahead of him was a stallion, a pale unicorn with such brilliant golden points. Ipomoea nearly quivered with excitement—he may not be the first Dawn Court citizen he had met, but he could be the first to meet while actually in the Dawn Court!

So he threw caution to the wind, bounding forward to meet the stranger, his body rocking in an easy canter. Reservations about entering the meadow were forgotten, head tossed in a carefree manner as his sparrow’s jay took flight, clearly annoyed by the sudden change in pace. For good measure, Po threw in a couple kicks of his heels in delight.

”Hello!” His excited voice carried on a shrill whinny, evidence of his enthusiasm. ”I am Po! And you are?”



@Martin
ooc: i hope you don’t mind my child here ;u;
!!!

---

You know that moment in survival films when the marooned protagonist, on the brink of utter despair, is finally found (as the soundtrack swells dramatically) by a well-meaning stranger whose face is the first of their kind they have seen in a truly ungodly amount of time?

This was...not quite that moment. Martin caught sight of the willowy colt as he burst forth from the  forest's edge, muscles jumping beneath his flesh as he reined in the instinctive urge to balk at the first suggestion of an ambush. The painted boy's exuberant greeting - oozing the sort of easy acceptance the fiery unicorn remembered from his birthplace - dispelled whatever specters of doubt lingered about his shoulders. He turned to properly address the energetic colt, a smile twitching threateningly at the corners of his lips.

Did this stranger live here? Or had he been drawn here from afar as Martin had been, another soul to stamp to some unseen piper's tune?

He traced the songbird's path for a moment as it fluttered unhappily from its prior perch upon the lanky colt, inquisitiveness a palpable thing in his sea-blue eyes. The unicorns of his birthplace had no strong connection with the creatures around them, save an overarching desire for coexistence. They might have forgiven the panther his hunger or begrudged the crow its covetousness, but they stopped short of making friends even with the most gregarious of their number.

"My name is Martin," the young stallion replied as the smile he had been holding at bay crept into the corners of his eyes. "Is that your bird, Po?"

The manner in which he grasped at those words hinted perhaps at the foreignness of the idea that the bird might belong to him, and had it not been for that stellar moment of culture-shock the gilded unicorn might have asked a 'properly useful' question instead. But on the off chance the boy had befriended the little creature, Martin imagined it would be unconscionably rude to dismiss it out of hand.

@Ipomoea
(not at all, he's great!)