' Hardly has the universe stretched its wings to span '
Veer is slow to land for the forest looks like a lush sea beneath his wings and trees and rocks and river seem like ants against the width and darkness of his shadow. Over and over he circles, lower and lower each rotation. The forest quiets beneath him, like the trees and animals have taken one last gulp and air of sunlight before the end comes for them. He loves the silence, loves that way that him and the wind are the only things that make any sound at all.
In that between place between fear and air, heartbeat and death, he thrives. Veer is made for edges, for the between, for all the things that sing through the blood like shards of glass. He has come for the things on the forest floor that can sing to this blood too, open up universes inside the perfect cave of his ribs beneath a sky of his skin.
When he lands he's not sure what to make of the almost-stag stallion who stands in the copse of silence where the thing that he has come from is. There's a moment where he pauses, wings not quite furled and hooves not quite on the sand that he can't decide which version of him he would rather be, which monster. The killing one or the lion-lazy one? Both want blood and both want their blood to sing like ichor.
Veer chooses.
He tucks his wings back with a dagger-sharp smile that belies the hooded sleepiness of his golden eyes, The sun glints on his golden edges until there's a halo of light around him when he passes between the tree shadows and draws closer to the other stallion. Sound doesn't return to the forest until he inhales instead of roars like a predator might.
“Are you waiting for someone?” The words sound almost too heavy to be as careless as they sound and his eyes seems too like amber to be completely friendly. Overhead a robin trills a song as if it's saying, there is no predator here, no danger. Only singing.
