G A R E T H
The Courtyard had been an alive thing, breathing, the flow of bodies coming and going. Those who wished only to grab a glimpse of the face of the new Sovereign, some convinced that she would be as short lived as the last. After all, there had been no fanfare with her arrival and ascension to the seat of power. How much of a leader could she be? They whispered and moved in and out of sight, keeping their thoughts to those they felt had sympathetic ears, shaking heads before moving on with the rest of their evening.
The stallion did his best to pay no mind to them. After all, he could not blame them for their hesitations. Denocte had been thrown into such turmoil recently. She had been without a proper leader for so long, and when Caligo herself had descended from the heavens to right this terrible wrong, the chosen leader by her own people had simply vanished. How could they come to expect any kind of stability, to rebuild when all they had seen and heard had been false fancies? He could not fault their hearts for being guarded in such affairs. He knew the hurt that came from opening oneself up to the possibilities of change and growth only to be shot down with an arrow made of fire aimed straight to the breast, burning through all that you had left to give.
Wounds of the heart, of trust and friendship and reliance are always the hardest to heal. Even when the wound could be seen as something so superficial as a change in power structure. For all its seeming simplicity - just toss the crown around at the hoof of another and whomever takes it up can just give it go- the winds of change rippled through a society like a stone thrown into a stilled pond, affecting even those deep below the surface. No bit goes unchanged.
Perhaps that is why now Gareth stood among the denizens who hung so tightly to every word of the ivory pegasus. He had spent far too long now, he realized, thinking he could keep the depths of his heart still and cool by surrounding it with thorny brambles to ward off others from throwing stones. Perhaps it was stones exactly that he needed. He shifted his weight on his trunks, feathers shifting over daggers and brushing the cobblestones. It was during this motion that he caught the eye of a slender figure.
She had been painted with all the colours of dusk, as if she had plucked the clouds from the sky and had them spun as silks to wear. She was delicate, so very small next to him and the brute’s first instinct was to shy away, to make himself less than and to shrink so that she may not find him so overwhelming. That flutter in his heart beat like the wings of a trapped bird as he realized that she had not cast her nervous smile at him for his size. Behind that anxiousness that pulled at the edges of her features, she had seen a sort of comfort and solace in his presence being larger than life. He caught himself, adjusting so that his girth was no longer leaning so far away.
Noor stood to his other side, watching from the corner of his bright green eyes. This had been the first time in too long that he had seen his friend hold himself to his full height and not shrink to comfort others. A small smile tilted at the elk’s lips. Though he said nothing to the stallion, he kept his attention on the two.
Gareth nodded towards the figure of Israfel, speaking quietly to the mare next to him, hoping to catch her golden gaze with the amber pools of his own. “I’ve never been much for politics, but she seems to have a decent head about her shoulders.” His tone was soft and rich like freshly turned earth. A gentle smile fixed itself to his features, hoping to reassure the nervous woman.
