i've learned to love a little bit of blood in my wine Posted on February 1, 2025 at 04:37:14 PM by Carthage
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He had known Sigurdr to be scarce, but to let someone think they could come and take the rights to Paradise out from under them? It angered him. The fact he himself had been elsewhere as well when the upstart staked their claim further enraged the dark bay. He darted through the jungle, down the well-known dirt tracks he'd helped to shape in search of his remaining mares and children.
He had been searching for an hour or two before the pale forms of Clio and his son Telperion emerged from the greenery. A rush of intermingled pleasure and relief cascaded through his veins at the sight of them. Good, the stranger had not found them yet. "I'm glad you both are safe," he had responded as the distance closed between them. Were these the peaceful times they had known, the stallion would not have hesitated to kiss his affection over the white mare's skin as they met, but he too held back.
Instead he touched his maw to her cheek in a caress, their colors clashing like dried blood against alabaster stone. She had come in search of him, he deduced, after the scent of the stranger had begun to spread. It pleased him, stoked his ego, that she had done so. Her loyalty was in stark contrast with another mare who had wordlessly abandoned her life with him. The tone of her words and their content stirred something heated within him. Her presence often had that effect on him, his pearl.
"Clio," the stallion murmured, breath hot against the skin of her cheek and throat before he pulled himself away from her. "Your devotion is a balm to me, my sweet. Your faith is not misplaced." Briefly, Carthage turned his head toward their boy tucked against her, whuffling the short ivory tendrils of his forelock. He shifted, pulling his form away from theirs to direct them northward.
"We will leave Atlantis and head north to the Meadow and the Falls beyond. I will not subject myself to any man save Sigurdr." He said this because he and Sigurdr were so like-minded. These other men of the islands were weak in his eyes, and he would not debase himself by seeking their acceptance and self-righteous mercy. "Our band will be safe there long enough for a new home to reveal itself to us."
Despite his friend's scarce appearance, Carthage allowed for the benefit of a doubt that the man had been incapacitated or something else of the same severity to allow their home to be taken from them. Yes, if he failed to conquer another territory, he would still follow the chimeric stallion elsewhere.