[Flashback] Galloping Manic

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

"Dizzy," he admitted, mumbling. He closed his eyes, but that only seemed to make it worse. "Where's... my horse?"

He, at least, had begun to bond with the animal. It had, after all, saved his life.

"I can ride," he said, blinking, but willing steel into his voice. "I need my blade, too." He began looking around for it, not far where it had fallen from his hand when he landed and it went nerveless. Detail by detail, he was trying to pull himself together to make good his escape.

[Caelum]

"Sure, you can ride. With me," Caelum corrected his patient. A quick search of the surrounding ground and he grabbed up the fallen blade, sliding it hilt first into the young man's palm. "There," you're armed. "Your horse is there," an inclination of his chin, "With me. I'm going to tie a lead to mine, then I'm going to help you up. Again, don't throw up on me," he hated be thrown up on. "Next, we're going to run until I deem all is well. Understood?"

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

"Wait," he protested, trying to stumble toward the nearest dead body. He had survival on his mind, and the spoils of war would help him stay alive. So what if he had the girl's castoff jewels to pawn? The great, terrifying future yawned ahead of him, ready to consume him if he should prove unfit.

"Weapons and money and... stuff," he said by way of explanation.

Surely his savior would understand. Sam was only now starting to catch the insult that he wasn't fit to ride.

[Caelum]

Caelum was not, actually, telling his patient that he was unfit to ride. He was telling him that he did not want him to ride. Only he released his supportive hold on the man when he stumbled towards the fallen, taking steps backwards after ascertaining that he was not going to just topple right on over again.

Then he was whirling around, hood toppling back in a gloaming of green and gold and bronze horns, speckled and splattered like eggs or flower petals or the back of a jewel toned tree frog winking away into the underbrush. "Shh," he was humming at the horses, giving them a swift once over, especially his patient's mount.

If the man wanted to strip the dead, that was his business. Caelum would not begrudge him that small reparation.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

Sam took what was readily available: small arms, valuables, supplies. He packed the windrunner's saddlebags as much as he thought prudent, weighing speed against others of life's necessities. He stripped a leather cuff from one of the mercenaries and used it to cover his windmark properly. That would do better.

Leaning on the horse, he glanced back at the fallen, muttering, "We should burn the, but..." He looked up to his savior. "I'm ready."

That said, he climbed back into his saddle, not quite as deftly as he was used to, but then he might have a concussion or something equally entertaining to deal with.

[Caelum]

It was a terribly Drykas sentiment, burning the dead, and that had Caelum raising an eyebrow. Yet without a word, he ultimately swung back into the saddle and cast a final glance about the scattered, looted corpses. His mouth thinned and then the Windrunners they both rode were off, launching themselves like manic birds diving after glints of fish in otherwise glass sea. He bent low over his horse's neck, riding behind the runaway slave in order to keep an eye on him, to assure himself that the young man was not going to take a tumble right out of the saddle.

They flew. It was the only way Caelum really liked to ride: running so fast it was as though they were flying. They rode west, towards the sunset and Zeltiva, and by the time the sun was spitting itself upon the spires of sentinel trees, his muscles ached with the hard riding.

"Ho," he called, slowing within sight of a stream let, the long green shadows of the coming night crawling towards their toes. "Hold up."

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

I am a leaf on the wind, was his silent mantra that whole day, watch how I soar.

Sam had ridden the master's horses to help train them, but the last time he had flown like this was in Cyphrus on the Sea of Grass and then it hadn't been for fear of his life and liberty. It made his soul sing. He forgot to be hungry or thirsty or scared or tired. He bonded with his windrunner emotionally if not quite how he had bonded to poor, dead Hasieran the Strider.

If he wept, the wind whipped the tears away before they could betray him.

When the man called a halt, he responded, herd animal that he was when in communion with a horse. As his mount realized he was tired, Sam's own body began to protest the marathon race away from the newly dead.

His alertness, though, boded well for the knock on his head.

"We should rest," he said. "Or I should." He realized then that his celestial companion was only there for the moment, not eternity. "You'll want to distance yourself from me."

The fifteen year old patted his horse's shoulder, the gesture a promise that he would care for the weary beast.

[Caelum]

"You'll want someone to keep watch while you sleep," Caelum returned evenly. He had not chased this slave through the dangerous wilderness these last hours, indeed, he had not tried in what way he could to help spare the young man from the slavers that had been hunting him, to abandon him now.

The truth was that he could use a sleep himself, but Syna's grace was still instilling his very blood with the necessary nourishment and he could survive Leth's night, he believed, until dawn broke the darkness with a kiss once again.

Twisting in the shadow, he squinted at their surroundings, peering through the waning light in the shadows of trees and listening to the stir of leaves in a cautious breeze. "There," he nodded, turning Vega's head in the direction from which the soft, musical mutter of water could be heard flowing. The density of the trees, the spiny sentinels crowding up against brilliant maples, would offer them coverage.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

Sam nodded, too exhausted to protest. As they approached the maples, he dismounted and led the windrunner into cover. At the likeliest spot, he removed the saddle and began grooming him while the horse began to wearily crop nearby grass. It was bred and trained into him to see to his equine companions before seeing to himself, and so he would see his likelihood fed, watered, and comfortable before anything else.

He didn't imagine they would be attacked again any time soon. It would take time for the mercenaries to be missed and a search party sent, or word to reach back from some traveler who came upon the stripped corpses.

So they could probably afford a fire.

But before that, there were the other horses to see to. They could divvy out the supplies better tomorrow to equalize the weight, and those horses could be sold for solid currency sooner or later.

[Caelum]

"Sit down," Caelum instructed. It was gruffly utterly, golden eyes watching the young man's progress with a frown marring his mouth. "I'll see to the horses, the fire. Whatnot. Here," he unhooked a water skin from his saddle and dropped it into his hands. "Drink this while you're sitting. You're probably dehydrated."

With one eye on his patient, a little concerned he might jump up at any minute and try to do things, Caelum went about untacking and brushing down all of the horses. The familiar, rhythmic work relaxed him, simple goals of equine comfort and shining coats easily obtainable. The horses were hobbled in turn, allowed to graze amidst the fresh, spring grass but not to wonder too far.

These things accomplished, dead wood drops and clumps of pine needles were gathered into a rubbed out clearing for the beginnings of a small fire.

"What's your name?" He wondered aloud once he realized his patient was not asleep. "I'm Caelum."