They said we'd burn so bright.
We burn this city and go.
Paradiso was grateful for the warmer temperatures of summer, even if he knew just how fleeting they were. The young stallion had survived his first winter on Tinuvel with great success, thanks to the community of the Bay herd. He liked that he felt useful here, that he had to carry his own weight for the greater good of Mariel's family. Mariel had a way of making each individual member here feel valued, and Paradiso was beaming with self worth lately, a relatively new sensation for the otherwise self-conscious, meek boy. That said, Paradiso's gut churned with worry about his own kin, Shamwari and Evaline, strewn on other islands and his sister, Vita Nova, whom apparently lived just on the other side of Tinuvel. He couldn't shake the thick cloud of guilt that hung over him ever since Shamwari showed up on the Bay's shoreline.
He'd taken to exploring more on his own lately, now that the weather was mostly agreeable to it. When he arrived on Tinuvel, it was too cold and the thick snow made it difficult to journey too far away from the caverns that the herd mostly clustered around. While the earth here was hardy and steep in places, the appaloosa stallion enjoyed the daily, challenging treks he took, sometimes with companions and sometimes completely by himself, to find new and interesting vantage points across the Bay's vast terrain. As such, his frame was beginning to fill out. He looked more and more like his father, Valentine, than he'd ever know. His muscles rippled underneath his colorful, spotted hide.
The young stallion was making his way back toward where he'd last seen Maziel, Mariel's sister whom he was absolutely smitten with, when he spied the mare and her sister on the pebble beach. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the pair, not wanting to interrupt what appeared to be an intimate moment between them. But feeling anxious about being spotted or smelled, and then seeming awkwardly lurking in the background, he apprehensively decided to approach. The pebbles shifted under his dull, chipped hooves as he marched across them, the stallion's speckled lips parting to emit a friendly whicker as he strode near. A friendly smirk was plastered across his face and he bobbed his head eagerly, coming to stand nearer to Maziel, but but keeping his distance somewhat. Nerves got the best of him and his icy blue stare darted from Mariel and to the waves lapping not far from his feet. "Hi there." He says cheerily, bumping Maziel softly with his nose. "I hope I'm not interrupting."
Stallion | Evaline x Valentine | Smokey black pintaloosa | 15 hh | Photo © Carina Mailwald | © Vinyl |
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