"... But it will be beautiful while it lasts."
The words surprise Eik, and the plain truth of them resounds in him like a bell. "Indeed," he murmurs in response, and it feels like a secret, for it seems to him that true Solterrans do not talk about beauty unless they are speaking of weapon.
He does not speak of it, of course the beauty of the snow-covered landscape has not escaped Eik. If anything, it summons him here each morning just as much as his anxiety does. He spends most of his time on the ramparts waiting uneasily for the snow to melt, but there are moments (sometimes scraps of them strung together until they become long unblinking minutes, tucked away into the folds of time forgotten) where he lets himself be lost to the beauty of it. "We'll never see a sight like this again, if the gods are good."
A silence sits oddly in the air. It seems to jeer have they ever been good, or anything but
wicked
"Do you think that makes it more beautiful?" Eik thinks it might, he thinks that in a hundred years they will talk about the way snow fell in Solterra but no one will know what it looked like except for those here and now. They're living history, Eik and Saphrax and everyone around them, and it makes him feel a little inside out, a little like he's watching his life unfold instead of living it. His left ear flicks uncomfortably, and then he is still.
Saphrax seems truly pleased to meet Eik, which is something the grey finds mildly baffling-- but he offers a smile to the other stallion, small and a little weary, but kind. His own introduction to Solterra had been an alienating and confusing experience, and since then he's tried to do right by others. His quiet calm doesn't sit well with everyone, of course. Some people just want a fight, just want a fire, and there's plenty of both of those here but not in Eik unless you dig like a dog for it.
"Here, and there, and everywhere" sounds like a place of its own, or three places, or like a song he knew as a child and then forgot. "Here, and there, and everywhere." His ears perk in interest. Eik has always been restless, and there has always, always called to him more than here. "You're just passing through, then?" He looks back to the snow-swept landscape before them. There is another question picking away at the inside of him, before the first can even be answered. "Do the gods here mean anything to you?"
I have let myself go where the dust
E I K
Has the color of nothing
art by Footybandit
@Saphrax sorry for the wait, love
Time makes fools of us all
