S
olterra has nothing for him. His wings take him there, regardless, as if they possess a will of their own. When Aeneas flies to settle his dreams or clear his mind, his route spirals aimlessly from Terrastella’s dark spires. He dives from the cliffs and toward the sea; and rises up, up, up until the burn in his pectorals is a constant, searing heat that spreads into his shoulders, and then his back, and then his brain until he thinks of nothing at all.
And then—
Then Aeneas flies over the fields, and past the fields, over the swamp (so old and heavy it seems to possess a life of its own).
Aeneas normally stops there, at the ethereal border where the swamp gives way to the steppe and he can see Veneror Peak—shrouded in ghostly blues—to the north. He typically tilts his left wing and banks long, hard, curving back toward the swamp.
But not today.
Today he keeps going.
He flies until the steppe gives way to a river cut from the mountains. He flies until the trees and altitude drop sharply; the pines become junipers, scraggly, and then nothing at all. He is in the higher altitude desert to the west of the Elatus. He should go back, now.
He should not keep flying, fast, hard, into the land of the sun and sand.
Into his father’s land.
The more time that possess the less he remembers of Orestes. And the less he loves him. Children, it seems, are unforgiving; and Aeneas, beneath his mild demeanor, has the makings of a man of polarizing extremes. And so what was love becomes caustic. What was love becomes bitterness, and bitterness dances the line toward hate—
It is a blessing, then, when Aeneas spots the dark silhouette below. It is a blessing, then, that the young Prince does not pursue the same avenue of thought. Aeneas tucks his wings to perform a steep, sharp dive. At last, in a flash maneuver, he flares them out to land several feet from the stallion.
“Ah—do you know, how far to the city, from here?” Aeneas wants to know—and yet, in the asking, realizes:
He does not want to know.
He needs to go home.
Not chasing after the ghost of his father.
the boy who looks all soft and angel doesn't make it out alive
