Noctisardor Bypass laufen

no obligation & whenever! <3

when he returned from duskfire, mahler climbed the sunset shadow-weaving of the high stone path, seeking @Astraeus.
the young prince of stars.
pausing to watch a pair of blackbirds winging against the faded sky, mahler trudged on, into the lope that had somehow remained smooth these long years.
what had the reticent boy become? he hoped to know, and was guilty not to already have this knowledge.

<3

the young ward did frequent the higher paths as he'd found a lee where he'd called home for a long while. very little had changed to be truthful — rather than his social needs as an animal molting off his icy exterior. upon seeing mahler, a rare spark of comfort and excitement bubbled in his heart. "hab' dich lange nicht mehr gesehen," he greets with a faint wave of his tail. internally, his wondered about his father's seculsion months ago, and if his status had bettered.

<3

"wir hatten beide unser eigenes sabbatical," mahler jested of his sickness's seclusion. the lilac gaze flit curiously over astraeus' face; the boy was older now, tending toward a man.
silently he considered that without praimfaya, he did not know who might lead alongside him.
"vhat is the most intriguing thing you have seen on your explorations?" mahler inquired, gesturing that his son should walk beside him.

sauntering to the graf’s side, the eventide prince was queried of his ventures. inwardly, his heart wrinkled as if a vinyl dollhead; pruney and creased after it had mistaken its place on his sleeve. that childhood naivety allowed the artless turn-of-mind and the half-written manifestos of their enherit destiny to justify, to be realized.

it had turned out the blackest parts of him like the corners of a plastic bag, thermoplastic resin and all. so could he swear to mahler, that he was a “good” man? no, there were very few things he had gathered close and his father was the brick and beams of this proverbial house.

resigned, “when tiny cold stars had littered the ground —  winter — to find food it wasn’t a bad idea to follow scavenger birds. sometimes they don’t mind sharing a meal. there are many kinds of terrain too, i remember reuniting with wintersbane and once and him telling me of a bay where he planned to settle, i never did visit … but i suppose he has a glacier now.” it being common knowledge duskfire was an allied state, he’d heard of the tundrian’s success. regrettably, there was more ( even though he was probably asked to share one thing ).

“i met a scared boy who was younger than me, who i thought could save from two strangers he did not know, but i was not as strong as i thought. one of them even healed wounds when unconscious, but knowing i went on thanks to their pity fills me with no gratitude.”

"you have lived a longer life than most boys your age," mahler commented, a colorless statement only filled with the nuance of their relationship. astraeus was son of the gargoyle, son of the mountains and noctisardor. 
but he was also child to agana, and mahler felt he might sense the now slipped-away lines of the woman in the wildwood boy. perhaps it was her steady hand which guided the confident river of words. and it was a deepened voice which spoke.
"vintersbane is too successful at vhat he has rendered. and sometimes pity is vhat you must use to reform yourself."
but he was looking openly upon his son now, observing the lines of the scar and how it had hushed the light beyond only just so.
"you have seen the sort of thing i did not until my second year."

a boy, yes that's what he was. his first twelvemonth, a protracted footrace versus whatever sadistic fates out there. once he was a devil-may-cry type of child, but he was reduced to fissured damascus steel. thankfully, he could still quirk his lips at the way his father rolled his w’s & his sentences forever decorated by rejoinders. the silently nodded at mahler’s reflections, he trusted whatever weight they held, but he was at a lost at what pity has made of him. “and what of the things you saw? i still doubt i have as much wisdom as you,” he smiles.

"that visdom comes at a price. and they are not all lessons i vant you to learn." but his lavender look flicked over the scars that marked astraeus' face now. "but then i tell myself i am only seeking to coddle you, and too late."
a naked introspection from the gargoyle that rarely allowed himself to be observed. were he and astraeus alike in this?

and there had been a time where he wanted to learn about everything, to why slugs left slime trails to why some trees would undress themselves during winter. perhaps that need was still nestled somewhere in him, like a hunger pang. he was not lost on the way mahler appraised the blight on his profile. "mach dir keine sorgen um diese dinge. ich werde lernen, was immer du mir anbieten wirst, um es mir beizubringen." 

astraeus is thankful for the lax but candid air between them, being able to substitute his father's dialect versus common and still be understood. "wir können über alles reden, was sie wollen." he almost had half the mind to ask what his mother like, after guessing and barely knowing from his memory in the womb, but he was practicing on keeping his conversations light.

mahler wanted to answer that it was the duty of fathers to worry always. but the sound of his own language coming from astraeus was satisfying. he had handed down many things after all, as it were. 
mahler was relieved, perhaps, to sweep on, if a bit resistant. 
"weißt du was landwirtschaft ist?" mahler inquired, turning their steps toward the planting grounds.
"es ist nicht etwas, was unsere Art tut, und deshalb ist es lebenswichtig."

"landwirtschaft," he repeats with an inquisitorial hum. consciously turning to meet mahler's trajectory, he meekly shakes his head. something their kind did not do but was vital, it hung on his thoughts like a cryptic riddle.

"das land hier ist dunkel und bereichert."
when they had come to the loamy place, mahler pressed his paw against the earth to show how it clung to the underside. "die umgehungsstraße wird uns ernähren, solange es hier beute gibt."
he showed astraeus a sprawling of lavender nearby, and uprooted it to display the delicate roots.
"und rehe kehren zurück, wo sie willkommen sind."
mahler dug a small hole and redeposited the lavender. "now it vill grow. here in this place, ve vill bring rich grass, to spring up. it is protected here from the elements. when snow starts to fall, the deer vill have more food for a time. and in the spring, they will remember rivenvood, and return."

astraeus nods along to the graf’s words, welling with deep interest. sowing life into the grange that hinds and bucks would return to, led by inherent aptitude in their stomachs — much like the boy and his heart.

suddenly, it comes to him like realizing the slurry of upset food down your chin, “wait, i remember this. in sagtannet, i would find weeds and put them in the ground again. i showed star’s daughter.” he looks up from tousling the topsoil between his toes. where had they flit to anyways? “now i know what it is called.”

“maybe i was always a cultivator,” he jokes with the aftertaste of chagrin, half-proud he was experienced in something in his youth that was not true to others.

astraeus spoke, and mahler marvelled that the boy had become a man before and under his very eyes. he did not know why he could not see the other as more than a hardened child just upon the cusp of adulthood; why his face brought to mind always of astraeus nursing beside thade and phaedra.
he refused to let this time be colored by melancholy.
astraeus was speaking of sagtannet. mahler smiled, allowing himself to be recaptured by memories of the high spire. "marble vas lucky to have you as a teacher," he said lightly. "and now i see that i do not have to instruct you so much in the cultivation. now," the graf went on, pressing forward lest his mind mire itself. "vhat do you think ve should plant first?"
the two would work for some time, speaking softly as they went.