❀

The spring was bright and kind and the sun smiled on the world; El Toro smiled back. He had status now, and a name worth knowing, and when they stared he knew they were not thinking of the black bull or of his wingless shoulders but of the Champion, the shining marble stallion with a lion at his side, tracking ice and fire step by step. 

He decided to take a small vacation from Solterra; the sun burned hotter every day that passed and soon he would be huddled beneath a cloak. Try as he might, his skin would always get burned. 

What Hajduk spotted Toro did not know, but it sent the young lion charging off. The glee that sparked through their connection sent the white stallion right after him, galloping across the plains. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done so with a light heart.

It is then that he sees her: a lovely golden mare, cutting the breeze like sunlight across the grasses. Hajduk falls back to bound alongside Toro as they approach the mare, and soon they are running next to her. ”Hello, sunshine!” he calls, grinning. 


@Elena

the sun I breathe awakens me
and she’s divine

❀

He thinks of Her, of that scarlet, winged beauty. How she danced just out of reach, how the knuckles of her wings beat against him and how his teeth scraped against her, how she laughed, how she succeeded, grew, and in the end, could only shake her head. He wasn’t enough, and never would be. Not for her.

He hasn’t thought of her in a long time. She doesn’t dog his thoughts, or sit at the edges, or beat against his skull with her wings every time he sees a pegasus. His hate for them has slowed from a boil to a simmer, if only because this world doesn’t seem to care about the same things he does. It’d be a miracle, if he could care about the new things, and not what he carried on his back through the mist.

She’s even prettier up close, this girl. Beautiful, even, all gold and ivory and sky blue. ”Well hello to you too, Moonbeam.” Toro likes her smile; he likes how everything about her says joy and means it. He smiles back, and Hajduk flops to the ground, sides still heaving. 

”Name’s Toro. This is Hajduk. Elena is a beautiful name,” he says, a flirtatious smirk pulling on his lip. ”Can’t say I see too many girls as golden as you.” He’d be strutting like a peacock, were he going anywhere. Hajduk can only sigh and lay his head down.

@Elena

❀

He likes to make them laugh. Girls could be complicated and far out of reach, but they could also be silly and simple and not like to make anybody think too hard. ”He’s just tired of me,” Toro laughed with her. Hajduk huffed. Something dark passes over her expression, just briefly, and his stomach tightens as he wonders - just for a moment - if this is going to be hard. But then it’s gone, and she’s laughing again. ”They might all be gold, but I’m sure you’re the brightest among them.” Toro liked the way the sun glimmered across her face, trailing down her spine to her hip; such a coat incited only a poor man’s envy and awe from anyone else. ”Are you the ‘white sheep’ of your family, or is there a matching set?” Toro’s grin faltered; on the edge of his mind the abyss loomed. Hajduk opened one eye to watch him. ”You could call me the white sheep,” he said, pulling his smile back up as she giggled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. 

”Aren’t you ever worried about getting sunburned?” 

”All the time. I live in Solterra, so as you can imagine I spend most of the year under a cloak or looking like a hot pepper…” He trailed off, watching a breeze try to pull her sunlit mane with it. ”If I’m not careful, you might give me just as bad of a burn.”


@Elena

O see the pulse of summer in the ice

❀

She asks then if he’s difficult to manage - yes - and he laughs a little. He can hardly manage himself, and he’s certain that everyone else has it figured out. He tilts his head and grins when she calls him charming - this is going well, isn’t it - and says, ”I could say the same of you.” Not once did he think of whether she had Someone, or more than one; his heart beat for this moment and this alone. For now. He laughs at her joke but thinks: You, I could tell apart. Hajduk sighs exasperation through their bond. Unlikely.

His stomach trembles when she bumps his nose; what touch has he felt recently, save that of a sparring partner, a stranger passing in the market? His loneliness curdles, a sour bit of ocean water that never became a wave. Her words are almost lost on him but she says “wave” and he nods, absently, and then more vigorously. ”In their own way, they do. They move, sometimes. The wind rules them as it rules the ocean. There are storms, like the ocean, too, and there is absolute stillness like ice. You may know it better than you think.” And there is a softer smile, to the rescue. ”If you keep heading northeast you’ll reach the desert, or perhaps crest some hill that will let you see it. South of that you’ll find the oasis. It’s a paradise. But we’re not close. I could show you, if you’ve no other obligations. In this weather the journey will feel like nothing…”

@Elena

the sun in my palm;

❀

This is going well, he thinks. This is going well, and she likes me. She’s beautiful, and she likes me, and this is going well. He is so giddy he is hardly listening; the hope is louder than her words, pounding in his ears like blood - or is it his blood, and not hope - and she laughs, and he’s not sure that she said something nice to him or not. He hopes he’s winning her over, now, with all his description. He thinks he is. But she says:

“No.”

Every part of him wilts like a sunflower (if, perhaps, the sun were beneath one’s feet, at the center of the earth, unreachable, obscured by miles and miles of dark, impenetrable stone and magma) but he pulls his smile up with all the strength left in him, which is not much. She reiterates: “I can’t.” Can’t as in, too busy? He hopes, but it’s - it’s an I don’t want to. “I’m sorry.” If you get hurt, find me. Well, you’re here now, is what he might say, if he knew how to recover from these sorts of things. And he did know. He used to do it all the time. But he’s too lonely now; every flirtation, every subtle look carries the weight of the world on its shoulders and every rejection feels like that world, the only world, has been dropped on his toes. He can’t return her mischief, her grin, and even as she kisses him on the cheek he thinks: alone. It’s a bee sting, not an apology. 

“I’m going to run again, and this time, don’t catch me.” No, he thinks. I was a fool for thinking I could the first time.

He watches her go, and says nothing, and Hajduk says nothing, and together, they say nothing and watch her go. And when she is gone, which takes a long time, when the world is so flat, they stand there still, until Hajduk nudges him in the direction of the setting sun.

@Elena

how violent the hope of love can be