His attention is on Asterion, in the way that he too looks to the cliffs and the waters below. This was truly the first time that Rhone had lived near a beach - at least an ocean beach. He had been born in a jungle, raised in a volcano, and lived out his prime on a lakeside meadow. The sea was new to him and he was quickly learning just how beautiful and dangerous it could be. Asterion didn’t have to tell him about the dangers of the water, he already knew.
And when Asterion speak, Rhone is silent, listening to the way he talks of the cliffs and the water below. He understands what he means when the water can be serene and calm, much like it is on a day like today. He also understands the dangers it presents when the waters are rough and angry. Such times the waters are dangerous and the cliff side even more so. It is at the beginning of a storm that is most dangerous, when the wind picks up and the tide rolls in. The waters can claim more lives during this time, rushing a person into a rip tide and then thrashing them against the cliff. He had heard of deaths in these cases, the bodies mangled and unrecognizable. And yet, Rhone chooses to dwell on the beauty of the cliff, the way the sea seems to call his name. The way the wind whips through his mane and the saltwater stings his eyes. It’s comforting, really, in a way Rhone never thought it could be.
Rhone understands when Asterion claims that the cliffs teach him. He understands, even though he’s not sure how to voice such a thing. If one was quiet enough and studious enough, a lot of things could be taught. So many times Rhone had seen the younger generation rush through life without stopping to smell the roses, to feel the wind in their hair, to admire the silence of a winter evening. There were so many things they could learn from nature if they just listened.
It is Asterion’s laugh that makes him smile. The way he so easily loses himself in the conversation. It is truly refreshing. "I believe it’s safe to say we all have a lot to learn. There is so much we can be taught if only we would stop and listen." Perhaps he is a little old school thinking in the way he looks at life, but it seems to fit.
But then Rhone is sighing. It’s not a sigh of defeat, but a sigh of almost relief. His eyes rest on Asterion and he offers the man a simple smile, a simple thanks for stopping to talk to him when he could have been doing so many other things. "You have told me a little about your own upbringing, so I suppose I can at least offer you the same." He had so much history that it would be hard to pick and choose the parts that seemed important. In the end, he supposed he would start off with his own birth story - about the band of women that raised him. "I was born to a herd of women who tucked themselves away deep in a jungle. My mother, bless her, raised me as best she could. I learned a lot from those women, from the jungle too." And yet, despite all the learning he had, he was still prepped to go back to his father, to join the band of stallions as one of their peers. When his life had been so carefree in the jungle, he had no idea what his life was destined to become. The hatred, the love, the heartbreak, the hope. So many things had come of his life that the small boy raised by jungle queens had yet to even comprehend. "But that was only my beginning. Life has taught me many lessons, and not all of them pleasant." There were things he wished he would have done differently and yet, he did not regret any of them. They each had a hand in shaping him to be the man he was today.
@Asterion
