GARETH
There's some kind of light at the end
When touching the edge of her skin
The festival had been an exhausting, if fulfilling venture. Gareth had stayed late to help the last of the Deluminian hosts load things into caravans to be taken away. The work had been simple, but after having helped to disassemble more tents than he had cared to count, pulling heavy poles behind him, his body ached terribly. Pangaea had not been able to coax him any further in their journey home than the distinct river that ran through the Dawn Court territory. While they had usually spent the night chatting away until sleep overtook them, the stallion had succumbed almost immediately once they had bedded down.
It was only the uncomfortable breeze that came with the dewy spring morning that pulled him from his slumber. He groaned, turning to bury his muzzle into creamy, curly locks, only to be met with flattened grass, still warm. The stallion blinked his amber eyes open, taking in the now familiar scent of the saurian woman who had, until recently, been sleeping at his side. Swallowing the rising panic in his chest at her absence, the medic lifted his heavy head and looked around, twisted locks tumbling from barely maintained buns and falling loosely to his thickly muscled neck. She couldn’t have gone far, and it had to have been very recent if the ground still clung to the warmth she left behind.
Weary, the medic pushed himself to his hooves, pelt shaking off the morning chill as he listened to his surroundings. The sound of birds in the trees above him played a melody of lovers, singing sweet nothings as they passed between leaves. In the distance he heard the sound of the Rapax River, and logic dictated that Pangaea likely made her way to the waters for a morning drink before they started the long journey home again. At least, that is what he had hoped. There was still a part of him that believed she might disappear one day, without so much as a goodbye.
It was a foolish thought, he knew. Considering how the first night of the festival had gone, it was absurd to believe that she would leave him without a trace. Still, with the hurt of Salome still so fresh in his heart, there was little he could do to soothe those fears save to look upon the mare’s face and be reassured that she was there. He didn’t want to admit it, but the sorrow he felt at the loss of his childhood love dictated much of how he had approached this connection with the saurian woman. His conversation with Luvena when he had come down from the mountains after his last meeting with the vampire woman had been a disheartening one, though it had been what he needed to hear. Salome had been dipping in and out of his life, and in the deepest recesses of his heart he knew that things would never be as simple as they had been when they were children.
Nothing is ever as simple as that. Nothing is so pure, so free, so unburdened by life as the wishes of children. He’d wanted to believe that she would return to him, having finally spoken aloud her love, but there had been doubt. Noor had voiced it to him then, but his pride had prevented him from seeking guidance in his bonded. The elk had understood, and when Gareth had returned from his visit to Luvena, he had not said a word about Salome. He could be brash, sometimes cruel with his words, if he felt it was for the better, but Noor had never wanted to see his friend crumble at the hands of a woman in the way he had done under the repeated offenses of Salome.
If the elk had been honest with Gareth, he would have told the stallion that this was part of why he had distrusted Pangaea. Perhaps the medic knew this, too, even without his friend having to say anything. Nearly being eaten had played a bigger role, naturally, but they had seemed to be on better terms at the turn of the season. While the elk likely would never approve of the stallion’s affections, this was certainly an improvement, and the mountain man would take it.
Still, that lingering fear and heartache sat in his chest, and so whenever he woke to emptiness in his bed, there remained a sinking sensation that Pangaea had finally wisened up and moved on. The tumult quieted as the stallion pushed his way beyond the foliage surrounding the river and saw a familiar face.
Well, not so much her face, anyways. The gold-coloured woman was floating in a sea of cream, the pull of the river tugging her curls away from her body in various places. If Gareth hadn’t recognized her lyrics or the distinct structure of her wings, her supple body, he would have hardly believed it was her. Upon reflection, the stallion was fairly certain he had never seen Pangaea’s hair unbound, and the raging torrent of curls was something to behold. It obscured her vision as she tried to separate the tangled strands to create a window, causing quite a bit of fuss.
A deep rumbling laugh erupted from his chest, before the equally deep colour of red rushed to his cheeks. Though it was no secret that equines roamed the lands “baring it all” as it were, and he’d had plenty of opportunity to explore all of the more… delicate regions of the mare when he had been aiding her hind limb, to stumble upon her in the middle of a bathing ritual felt incredibly lecherous.
He stumbled over his words. “I… ah… how?” Gareth averted his gaze, watching the river caress the furthest strands of her tail.
By Caligo’s Night, her hair was lengthy. No wonder she kept it bound the way she did. The woman wouldn’t have been able to walk two feet before getting caught up in a tangle of locks. He couldn’t even imagine trying to brave the air with tendrils streaming every which way and catching every known bug in existence along the way.
