Change wasn't so much the way her jadeite horns peeked ever the more from her sable crown or the way poise and grace found its way into her every sweep and flourish. It could have been the accumulation of Gembounds which she encountered every day yet like her outward transformation, it was not. Instead change found a way of perpetuating itself into her heart and mind; a seed that was buried beneath the earth left to bloom beneath the cultivation of her paramount experiences. With a slow clarity, she understood the ardent sentiments that propelled her thoughts and inclinations, knew the origins of her passions and vice but such was knowledge that came sparsely. Not unlike a spring day, brimmed with clouds to blanket the blue skies, lucidity was the sun glancing occasionally upon the grounds below. It lit the mind with insight and lent perspective to the vices that plagued her heart.

Unbeknownst to Delphine, change had dawned upon her — aligned itself faultlessly on the passing of her first cycle to greet the dawning of a new age. It had manifested itself in the child who was so much her mirror yet in every way her polar opposite. It had spread through the very entity that made up for Delphine and pressed itself firmly into the space where decay and unrest lived, forcing the blackness into a place of peace and quietude. No longer did ghouls and demons haunt her every waking moment, no nightmares to plague her sleepless nights. There was, in Delphine, a calm that could not be shook and with it, she found herself without the afflictions of a wandering mind, prone to pitfalls that came of passion and love. She basked in this newfound armistice and found that even as she lay here, upon the cliffs of Orion, in solitude, it would not be for long. He would always come. Water to her earth.

( @Meredith )

He were as certain as tide-lock, as charted as the tender curves of the moon — when she wandered, he parted, and when she rested, he leaned upon her sable body and rested too, contended in their gentle drifts and returns. Though the colt knew little of sky and space, and the celestial transit of time, in his heart and bones he felt her loving form curl into the earth, and understood it to mean coming home. For though he itched, and wanderlusted, and cantered with gentle foot through cavern halls, Delphine was where his soul lay, his kith and native lands in the mirror of his own bright gaze. He adored her, as equally as she him, and like a current, he was no beast; merely a slave to his temperaments, seeking out the depths before returning to the sands of his warm and beating shore. To diverge, to bend, to break would be carnality; to seek, and find, and hoard in damp breaths and wild sleeps was nature.

Meredith murdered the distance between them with an ease that was incomprehensible mere days ago — for time begat his newborn confidences and focus, and he scraped his dark hooves to earth with nigh the delight he had to suspend form against tides. Though still cautious and tame, halted by coltish limbs, the pull towards he and Delphines' niche was fiercer than even his basest limitations; and, as sentience stole across his psyche, so too did instincts deeper and more profound than instinctual terrors. In sooth, perhaps it was that this precocious wisdom swept through his veins when he parted from his crystalline womb, for he knew the mare had little love for waters that pressed above her fetlock, and a strange admiration for rock that suspended above high and tossed necks — he, truthfully, preferred the drown. Yet as silt loves upon the murk, so too did the twain converge, their great passions offered, and kept like open secrets, defying the shrieks of their innate horrors, and carving them as individuals.

He was calm when he approached her, folding slender legs under his dark body, and resting his flank to hers without pause or ceremony — all rare states, assured, lain, and touched, for he was a shy horse, and prone to privacy. But as she expressed herself so fully in little gestures, so too did he find it within himself to show his intentions with clarity, for in her he was reminded instantly of that first brush, and the connecting sinew of trust that could never again twine so quick and clean. "Hello, Delphi," he murmured in characteristic faintness; yet this was merely his way; and he grabbed a lock of her mane and gave it a gentle tug in his teeth to illustrate his fondness and trust. Dust rose, and small laughter bubbled within the caldera of his throat. "You've dirt in your fur, again." This warranted another tweak, an amused snort of air wafting gently from his nostrils as he finally let her go.

@Delphine

They were a certainty that was as inherent as the knowledge that to live was to breath, eat, drink and sleep. This was inarguable and so were they. When he came to her behest, she did not stir but her heart did flutter knowing that he neared. His warmth that bloomed along her sides felled the guardedness of her daily routines and just as easily as he, she leaned and melted against him. How frighteningly negligible it was to forget how lovely touch was, particularly when it came from someone who was irreplaceable. She basked in his attention and sighed, low and heavy, when he preened her mane. Even in his reproach did she find herself simpering in the solace of his company. Perhaps it was because she'd been too long in isolation that she clung so desperately now to him or that she was of a nature susceptible to love and affection. Regardless, Delphine knew herself to be truly at peace in times as these and for that, she could no longer imagine sleeping and waking to nothingness. Not now or ever again.

"It's normal-" She mused, close-eyed and contented, "to have dirt on you." It was then that her own head raised from the ground and craned just so so that she could brush her muzzle against his own nape. "Hello Mer." She whispered in turn, voice laden with affection. Although they were of the same origin and species, they were also different in many ways. Opposites, in fact. Unlike Meredith, Delphine was far more inclined toward extroversion, expression and impulse. She was a creature so rooted in sentiment and habit that she would be nothing if not for the constructs of her thoughts and morality, grounded in its totality to a vulnerable heart and tide-swept emotions. So contrary was she to her companion that it was a wonder how they fit one another. They were separate pieces of two different puzzles that very simply found a way to mesh and now, they would create something new and different.

She turned and pressed her cheek along the length of his sleek neck, laughing with mirth when the dampness collected along her face. "And you, you're wet again." It was a gentle chastisement meant more in lighthearted fun than actual reproach for she continued her gentle ministrations until she could bestow a nuzzle just beneath his own visage. "That's not normal but I suppose you can't help yourself, can you?" She shook her head at the thought of Meredith toiling about in the waters whenever possible, it was an entirely likely scenario and one she often refused to partake in. "Tell me about your day, did you find anything interesting?" As she spoke, she rested her head against the floors and allowed her eyes to flutter half-mast. It'd become tradition for them to come together, share stories of what they'd encountered if they chose not to travel in company and talk into the throes of slumber. It was a routine that she looked forward to and now that it was upon them, Delphine was enthused.

( @Meredith )