The wait dragged on. For a time the cracking and thudding of the approaching horse grew louder for each passing heartbeat, but after a while they began to fade away once more, slowed down, grew hesitant. The expression on the stallions face grew harder by the minute, until he finally heaved an irate sigh and rolled the eyes.

"The idiot lost the tracks, didn't he" he muttered to himself, the thought passing on to the dragon as well; Fajira made a trilling giggle where she flew and folded the wings into a roll.
"Don't be harsh. Not all are trackers like you" she reprimanded him lightly, though seemed unable to hide her amusement completely. "Go find it, help out. You have time."

Snorting at the dragon Lace shook the head violently and turned around, muttering grimly to himself as he began to retrace his own steps. It didn't take long until he arrived at the point where his hoof-prints merged with the long, deep imprints of the stranger. Following them for a while at a steady walk, he could see why the stranger would have been confused; not only had he passed over dry and rocky terrain just there, but by habit the silver-maned equine had stepped on the bare patches of mountain that jutted up through the layer of humus and earth, thus effectively hiding his own tracks. They picked up again a couple hundred yards further on, but only after he had made a seemingly erratic turn in order to change the course.

Maybe he shouldn't blame the unknown beast for being inattentive, then. As Fajira had said; it wasn't the strangers fault that Lace was a paranoid veteran with a habit of making it very hard for pursuers to follow him; it was such an ingrained habit that it almost had become instinct to take hard routes, choose the difficult terrain and cover his tracks.
It was much easier for him to see where the other were. With Fajira following him from above and providing a general sense of direction, Lace was able to follow the path of the stallion through the underbrush by reading the marks on the ground, the broken branches and follow the scent of sweat, musk and confusion left behind. The other must be more lost that they'd first thought; his path led them in circles, back and forth and back again, until it finally seemed that he had stopped trying to follow Lace and instead gone off on his own.

Quickly growing tired of this cat and mouse game the former glazier went along with it for a while, but eventually came to a halt with the ears turned testily backwards on the poll. Instead he threw the head up and let out a loud, vibrating call demanding that anyone present should come to him. While the White was right in that he weren't in a rush, he still felt that there were far better things for him to do than to run around the Threshold chasing outcasts and lost idiots. Again he let his voice ring through the stillness, and then he settled down to wait; head held high and tail thrashing irritably around the hocks.

Dim vales- and shadowy floods-
And cloudy-looking woods,
Whose forms we can't discover
For the tears that drip all over!
Huge moons there wax and wane-
Again- again- again-