Meadow

Taurus' days had taken on a monotony that was as familiar as it was infuriating. He woke, walked to the watering hole to drink, grazed until the sun grew too hot, napped in the shade, and finished sating what was left of his hunger beneath the evening sky. It was not a bad existence, and he was not wholly ungrateful, but it was not particularly exciting.

Nor was he unaware that his solitude was not contributing to making his days any better.

The palomino was not a creature given to long, drawn-out conversations. It was as if the bubbliness that had so attracted his father to his mother had skipped right over him in the same way that his sire's obsessive social calculations had as well. He'd learned how to play the game like a dutiful son, and then had promptly eschewed any strategies his father had forced him to memorize the moment he struck out on his own. He had no desire to move between Kings and Queens, orchestrating their success or failure, let alone tolerating the sort of nonsense his father had as a younger stallion.

Losing Anwen had changed him further, and while Taurus had told no one of what had happened, her loss still wrote itself plainly across his face each time he saw children. The arrival of spring foals in the Hills had spurred him further away from the sandy island, and he found himself on the southeast shores of the Crossing without really making a conscious decision to take a break from Salem. He had no intention of running; life with Marceline was quiet. She didn't ask much of him and he felt no pressure to offer more of himself. She didn't seek his affection or his time, merely his presence: a notion that was as depressing as it was freeing.

The pale stallion stepped from the surf with a quiet glance back at where he'd come from, and moved gratefully out into the warmth of the weak spring sun. He had no winter coat to speak of after so long in the desert, and the combination of ocean water and a brisk breeze was biting at his thin skin, driving ripples of goosebumps across his body. It reminded him of his first day back on the islands, when Marceline's arrival had interrupted his self-indulgent moping over everything he'd lost. At least this time he wouldn't risk meeting someone new with half his body caked in mud.

He shook himself off to clear the rest of the water and then sauntered a few steps forward into the bright afternoon light, and then lowered his head to graze while his eyes adjusted.