Falls

He had heard the stories of them一

Those broodish, wild-eyed ladies. The ones with sharp teeth and pinned ears and a taste for blood sweet like orchard grass. He had heard them, he had loved them. They were not Corinth.

Her story was before that, it stretched infinite into the past. He could not reach it, he could barely see it now. How he wished she had claimed the present, the future, all realities and centuries. If only she had remained and he, with his broken heart and dead stare, had been forced to be consumed by the titanic waves of time.

“It’s true, you know,” he says and there is a smile bold on his lips, “and I was in love with the queen of Harpies.” It is a joke, or somewhat the truth. He chuckles darkly, his mouth twists, his eyes glint something unnatural. Gael lifts his head to look at his new companion more clearly and nods, knowing there were so many who would like to eat them both alive.

Gael tries not to remember his own father, it would be a travesty. In the silence between them the thoughts creep in. Blood and screams. Cold. Heat. Flashing blue eyes. The scent of death like perfume. Fear. But then the other stallion speaks again and Gael flinches the smallest bit, his attention brought back from depths he had rarely indulged.

“I know of Cullen,” he clarifies then and the name feels bitter on his tongue. It tastes like bark or moss or flowers too close to wilt. The black stallion shakes his head. “I live everywhere,” he begins and then pauses and takes a deep breath, “which is to say I live nowhere in particular. I have been looking for her, you know, but I think it might be time for a change.”