As much as he would never admit it or see it for himself, Orphiel was more like his father than ever these days.
He was barely an active member of the Lagoon, socializing just barely, often napping throughout the day when the sun hung high in the sky and wandering the grounds at night. Orphiel had arrived at the Lagoon in a fit of emotional rage, but rather than push it into action he became withdrawn and bitter.
He tried to remember Devi in the Inlet, but every time he thought of the Inlet he thought of Parvati, and it was always now with anger. After she had tried to come for Frey, then came again at the Lagoon and again at the Lagoon for more stallions to collect to the Inlet, Orphiel began to find it unfair. If only they hadn’t shared blood or… if only she’d never found out.
Orphiel would have lied. He would have taken the secret with him to the grave, too desperate for her love and the happiness she gave him. Didn’t she realize the only time he’d ever known peace was in the shadows of the Thicket brambles with her? Days of laughter and games and flirtatious touches, of adventuring with Devi when she was young… he’d stopped dreaming of those memories a while ago, but oh… he missed them.
While he languished in the Lagoon, lost and aimless, Parvati just moved on as if it were nothing! She kept picking at the Lagoon and while a part of Orphiel (the part that did and always would love her) worried that she would bring the ire of the Lagoon against her, a bigger, much more sour part of him was angry about it.
Though his mind was lost in a tangled web of the wretched thoughts that made him sick daily, Orphiel came to a sudden stop at the strong feminine smell that touched his nose. As always his first thought was Parvati, and even if he wouldn’t admit it, a part of his heart lifted with hope. Almost immediately he turned his ears back and snorted, irritated, golden-brown eyes flashing as he tried to find who it was that’d broken his aimless cycle of misery.
The sight of two long silver hairs caught on a bush distracted him. They shone when the light touched them and, as he moved closer with his nose curiously out toward them, they belonged to whoever had just passed through here and stirred him with their smell. Orphiel lifted his head from the leaves and frowned at the path ahead. It was much more likely he would just pin his ears at nothing, turn around and crawl back to the Lagoon shadows to wallow in his misery…
But, for whatever reason, Orphiel started walking forward and didn’t stop until he could see the dark mare with the silver hair. He stopped a small distance from her yet, too far to offer a muzzle and exchange breaths, and raised his head high as he watched her. The only smell she wore was hers, and Orphiel spent so much time around stallions now he forgot how nice a mare’s smell could be. No matter what his heart wanted he was still a matured stallion and with the changing of the leaves that feminine perfume would only grow more and more tempting for him.
Orphiel jerked his head, throwing his thick brown forelock off of his face and decided to move in closer to her where he could offer to exchange breaths, trying to contain his instincts that might’ve made him excited about coming across a mare.
Funnily it struck him as odd to smell a mare who wasn’t cloaked in the smell of other stallions. Even Parvati, as sweet as she’d been to lay his nose against, had always come with her coat lingering in the scents of the last lovers she’d been with.
After he tucked his muzzle back he realized, as the one to initiate this socialization, he should probably say something.
“You shouldn’t be here.” He spoke flatly, too used to his bad emotions to have suddenly checked them. Then, realizing that and what he’d said, Orphiel’s ears flicked back, forward, and he added, “I mean in the Meadows in Fall, alone. I guess.” The islands had been active lately, the herd stallions becoming collectors of their little treasure. Orphiel didn’t pay attention to any of it, nor did he care to. But one of his jobs as a Lagoon bachelor was apparently to make sure no one was acting up on Crossing so… here he was.
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