The academy is a good place if only because – compared to the reef – it is noiseless. There is no pressing matter of his lover, no upcoming angst to spice up their lives, no dancer-queen in need of advice or wounded mares in need of rescue – only the rustle of leaves and the silence of mockingbirds singing. Now, in winter, with the earth cool beneath his feet and uncompromising, with the leaves turned to ash, it is even more peaceful – almost deathly so.
Her words make him smile, a low chuckle bubbling from his throat and into the cool air. For all his (rather real) physical strength and curt manners, Wyvern was still young – and it showed in the way the tension slipped out of his shoulders like a cloak, leaving him relaxed and almost happy. “Now I feel special. You spoil me,” he says with mock-seriousness, throwing his head back and rolling his eyes. her voice – so familiar – was like a balm; he wonders if she knows she was his first friend here. Now he had some more, slowly moving out of his shell, but it didn’t stop him holding Magnolia into sweet regard.
“It’s a good place,” he comments then, stretching his muzzle to rest against the cold marble – it’s icy under his golden nose, speckled with white and strangely comforting. “I couldn’t ask for a better teacher,” and he’s absolutely honest: although he has ‘enrolled’ with Nicodemus, there is no law that he cannot be taught by two ponies. Especially if it helps them get their nifty titles. They are unimportant to him; but Magnolia probably cares. “It’s settled then. So, who do I have to kill?” he asks, cocking his head lightly to the side, in a way that makes his forelock pool like a golden drape over one eye. “This is kinda cool, though. I wonder which element I’ll pick. How did you know you were wind, Magnolia?”
And just because he wrinkles his nose at her again.
