Meadow

He was the last of their number to venture out of the dunes for respite and exploration, looking to find others, perhaps, that needed their home of sand and sun as much as they did before winter. Winters were comfortable, in a sense, for them. The frozen nights spent tucked together, the balmy days so much kinder than the summers. The oasis’ would not falter in provisions, not like other lands and other plants. The winter was their safe season, after all.

He escapes because he has given Zazu a challenge and he wonders if it were a wise choice to challenge one so strong willed and flighty as her. He had taken more than a shine to her in Mira but it had been outside his fourth-son means to argue for her hand. She was of the wind like he was, colored as prettily as you pleased, and oh did she give him hell for the smallest of infractions. Strange that he should enjoy that, but there is a part of him that hopes to find that she might gentle to him somehow - even if only in private.

He is not one to need doting or preening, does not fancy those sorts who are too high in their own importance as to need coddling and comforting. His would not be a tidy and well-oiled home, but it would be one of ample freedom and ample access to himself. Bountiful because he valued the woman as her most pristine and enriched self, not simply because he wrenched a willful fist in their reins. Rules yes, but never so many as to subdue them or force their submission.

Antares was fair, but he was all nobility. Atair was fair, but he was terribly brutal. Rigel was fair, but he was so letter-of-law as to stifle. He would, he thinks, be fair and pleasing - letting lines be pushed without hammering a fist down on their heads. At least not until his brothers threatened to hammer down on his.

He has been on shore for some time, basking in the part of the Crossing Isle that was most like his home, when he finally seems recharged from the swim and kicks his heels up for the sheer joy of being unbound and unburdened by anyone's purposes and plots than his own. His tail rises, a banner behind him, and his mane bites at his neck as he races in the direction of the wind - blind to scent but not blind of eye in the case of dangers ahead or behind. He runs because he can, because that is his Throne and Gift. He screams a shrill clarion call meant for nothing but the evacuation of the sheer unbridle joy in the race.

It was a strangled cry that ceases his jubilee, his steps tripped up by the sound so that the origin was all he saw as he skidded to a stop, kicking up dirt. A young mare, his age or less, pleading in a language Rigel might have known. He grows concerned and looks at her from behind a thick mane tossed by a loving wind. "I know a medicine woman and my brother is a positive bevy of things to know, shall I fetch one or bring you to them?" Almost no hesitation, not for our boy of blood and char - a single star blazoned on his brow. "It is a bit of a walk and a bit of a swim, but I am refreshed and I won’t let you sink."