The moon decided he would not be left alone in his numb, detached state. It breathed upon warm hearts, tugged at their bodies as it did upon the tides, and drew them to the shore where sky and sea and earth met. Had fire ever danced upon the restless wave, a union of the four archaic elements? Surely not; Mauja had never seen water burn. It was one of the few things spared from that harshness, able to swallow the flames and smother them instead. Wet things, did not burn. In that brief moment of whimsical thinking, Mauja envied them.

The second stranger to find his way to their meeting point, just somewhere along the vast coastline of Helovia, was just as uncomfortable on sand as the first. He, too, was determined; awkward, but determined. His arrival seemed to have interrupted the mare, who remained silent as the other came closer: he was tall, perhaps of a height with Mauja, but thicker, much like the mare. The bright moon painted him silver, caught all the straying strands of his ample hair. Where Mauja was refined, with a cascade of silken white hair, this creature was a beast, all wild and maned, but for all his fuzz his eyes seemed kind. Three horns caught the moonlight with near-perfection, bleached to dull beige. Mauja wondered what he'd look like in sunlight—which colors would the sun strike in his horns, his eyes, his hair..? Would he find veins of gold throughout his mane?

The stranger bowed. Briefly Mauja delayed, too caught up watching the seamless motion of his grizzled mane, then inclined his head, too. White moved like a thick curtain to fall around his face as his neck arched.

Truly, this newcomer was a gentleman, such a contrast to the mare who had simply turned up and stared at him (if, with a dreamy air which sort of lessened the rude factor), well-mannered and polite. If a bit odd. He was lost and wanted directions but mentioned not where he wished to go, and something in Mauja's soul hungered to latch onto that, cock a 'brow and make up some far-fetched tale of directions which surely would lead to nowhere, but alas... Perhaps he was prickly beneath his gentleman's manners and abundant hair. Provoking strangers was potentially disastrous—a lesson anyone who met Deimos learned fast. "No worries, brother," Mauja replied smoothly, near-gray eyes bright in the relative darkness of the world. "Where is it you wish to go?" If the stranger would not tell them, Mauja would do his work for him; he knew Helovia more or less like the back of his hoof, and would surely be able to point him in the right direction.

[ You're welcome to hop in any time again, @[Maeve]! ]

Mauja