irius has heard of the island that rose like a great monster from the sea, of the volcano that had created a new land in a day. The sailors had called it magic, and cursed it for being so; many ships had been moored because of the sea creatures that prowled the sea, many captains too afraid to set their crew against their superstitions.

He had not told them that he, too, was made of magic, in case they chose feared him then, as well.

Instead he had taken to the skies, to see for himself what the seas held.

He soared now through the skies, his large wings spread to either side of him, carving a pathway through the open air. Below him stretched the ocean, as dark and blue as he had ever seen it, a jag of black rock splitting it in two. Above him was the sky, as endless and welcoming as always. For a while he had spun onto his back, letting himself drift on a draft, his eyes searching the heavens for the stars they hid. Earlier it had been day, and the brightness of the sun had drowned out their light; but now the moon reigned supreme, and she was crowned on every side by the small, luminous freckles of the heavens. Sirius knew their place by instinct, and he traced the outlines of their constellations with his imagination.

He is not sure how long he flies, alone in the light of the stars, before the island rises into view. He can see the volcano, now sleeping, rising like a heathen from the land, refusing to be constrained by it even in slumber. Sirius drifts lower, and lower, and lower still, until the salt spray from the waves below him kisses his face. He drifts so low that one hoof, when he stretches it down, splits through the waves and disappears, momentarily, beneath the water.

But soon he pulls it away, and draws back into the air. The beach is close now, so close he can see the waves lapping like hungry things at its shore.

And he sees something glowing, there where the strange black bridge meets the island, something blue and bright and different. For a second he circles overhead, puzzling it out to be a horse, with something like a strange snake wound about their neck. It waves in the wind around him, bobbing gently like the waves.

Sirius lands not far from him, holding his wings out to either side to steady himself.

”Hi you!” he calls to the stranger, and his voice feels strangely loud here on the island, as if the life and delight has been drained out and they are the only ones left to rejoice. ”My name Sirius!”

he cool-air-above-deep-water caressed the two horses standing on the beach, catching and filling Sirius’ wings as he held them to either side of himself. He shivered inadvertently, feeling the wind drawing the heat from his fevered limbs. After a moment he folded his wings neatly against his sides, cloaking himself in ink-black feathers.

Before him the pale-antlers-blue-scarf man smiles, and his violet eyes dance in the pale light emanating off of his scarf. The color reminds Sirius of the sky when the sun sinks below the horizon, how the colors fade from orange to purple to midnight blue.

He smiled back, and the stars laughed overhead.  His eyes shined back silver and full of starlight.

The soft whisper of the sea filled the air all around them, a constant symphony that flowed in the spaces between their voices, giving body and depth to a song they unknowingly sang in tune with. Sirius cocked his head to one side, ears swiveling slowly to catch the soft strains. The wind danced along his back as he did, catching in the stranger’s pale scarf.

Aeranas, the stranger names himself, and the name rolls like a wave through Sirius’ mind. He counts the syllable, repeats it over and over silently to himself, compares it to his own name. Sir-i-us. Aer-an-as. There was a certain similarity between them, ringing like a bell in his mind. ”A phantom,” he says softly, and files the word away for later inspection.

He wonders then if the stranger knows about the stars, if they whisper to him, too. But then he decides that he wouldn’t, that he couldn’t; a child-of-the-stars would already know what they felt like, what they sounded like. They would already know that it tastes like freedom, and like joy, and like adventure. They sounded like chains breaking and wings carrying him away from danger.

”Like peace,” he whispers, and a smile, brighter this time, nearly as bright as the sun, stretches across his lips. He fans his wings again, lifting them momentarily back towards the sky. ”It tastes like peace, and wonder.”

He shakes his head then, and looks out towards the trees that wave at them across the beach. He thinks he can see a light flickering between the boughs, fleeting, always at the corner of his vision - but every time he looks it disappears, leaving him unsure if it was his imagination playing tricks on him.

”Novus land,” he answers, and gestures with a flick of his tail towards the bridge they had had to pass. ”Although… this place different than the rest.” And a part of him was not sure if it was a part of Novus at all, even if the bridge connected the two lands.

A part of him imagined that one day the bridge would snap, and the unmoored island would sail off into the horizon like a ship.

”What bring you here?”