Light Up, Light Up

ASHE nothing can keep us apart you are the one I was meant to find    The evening was dry and cool, the mild temperature likely a farewell before heat began to overtake everything. Ashe wasn’t sure what to expect when the season changed once more, each one so far had brought something new and strange. Man-eating flowers this season.. Or would-be unicorn eating flowers.    Her fire blue eyes were watching that unicorn from where she perched on the roof, his golden ram horns glinting in the dying light of day as he tossed his head. He moved at loose trot around Theea down in the paddock, nickering at her cackling taunts of ’can’t get me’ and ’i’m gonna get you’. Ashe was smiling, stretched out on her back with a leg dangling down as she watched Percy play with the three-year-old. Any other equine, and Ashe wouldn’t have left the toddler to run after it and shriek and play on her own. But Percy? The old stallion had never nudged a hoof out of line with her, following after her more often than not and caring for her as protectively as he cared for Ashe. Theea let out a laughing squeal when Percy changed his direction and lowered his head to her with a snort - like a ram readying to charge. He tossed his nose at her and pranced after her when she turned to run away, and warmth radiated through the bond between rider and unicorn.    A new warmth rippled down from a different bond - one that ran deeper, one that was thorough and consuming. Ashe turned her head without rising, her eyes finding Kalt without holding back the loving caress of her own intangible thoughts. She watched him place his sketchbook down only for his guitar to replace it, deft fingers plucking a tune that had steadily become familiar to the wolf. She smiled at him, stretching an arm out so her hand rested comfortably over his leg, just to have contact. It didn’t feel strange or foreign or scary anymore to have this quiet, this sense of peace. There would always be the shadows that clung to her, to them, but the healing had begun.    She pulled herself up to sit closer to him, folding one leg under herself and letting the other stay hanging off the roof, bringing her near enough to rest her head over his shoulder as he played. She glanced across him to the sketchpad just on the other side, her eyes narrowing as she tried to make out the lines and smudges he used to create his sketches - always exact and never a line out of place. ”All done?” she thought to him, turning her eyes upwards before looking back down to Theea below. ”Bored, or is it finished?” With those words came memories he would see of his sketching in the past. This was typical - he could never seem to do one task a time, flitting between them while she would focus deeply on her projects: her paintings or writing or honing her weapons.