"Found a new place" she whispered across the bond, her mental voice as always carrying undertones of snow-capped mountain peaks, brilliant gems sparkling in a hundred colors and blinding white flames burning above bone-pale ashes. Over the long years Lace had been linked to the dragon he had come to understand that words was a very equine thing, something she always considered to be superfluous and redundant. Fajira rarely spoke in his language, and whenever she did the words were few and simple and always, without fail, accompanied by flashes of imagery that explained, enhanced and multiplied the meaning of what she wished to communicate. A simple 'yes' could be delivered along with a torrent of memories, emotions and reflections that threatened to drown him if he wasn't careful, lead him away on endless side tracks until he forgot what he was doing entirely. Sometimes it was a relief to be able to escape into the vivid mind of his companion; it was a complex and beautiful thing, a labyrinth of ideas and compulsions, of desires, dreams and impressions that always left the stallion with a sense of overwhelming awe. But at other times he wished she would keep all those visions to herself, so that he could keep his mind on things that seemed more important to him. Like moving south, rather than flit across the entirety of Helovia according to her whims.

"Good for you. Planning to come any time soon?" the grullo grumbled sourly as he pushed himself through the underbrush, course set on the desert of the south and with little interest in further detours. It was bad enough that the little White had dragged him all the way up to the Deep forest in her insistence that she wanted to hunt, he definitely wasn't in the mood for sightseeing. The sun stood high on the sky and beat down upon the creatures below with a persistent cheerfulness that didn't agree with the old stallion; it seemed like a summer day made for bathing in rivers, grazing on lush banks or lounging in the shade beneath vast oak trees - not struggling to find a path through a seemingly endless woodland with few trails and little to see that was of interest to anyone.

"No" Fajira replied simply, once again barraging him with images; silver-glittering fish splashing beneath green-tinged waters, a breeze playing across leafy vines and a multitude of colors dancing in the shade within a large stone structure as light broke through a material that was neither crystal nor stone. Lace blinked, the vision vanished. The mind-link was quiet, an expectant silence hovering like bated breath as the cunning dragoness allowed her grumpy soul-mate to make up his own mind...

With a sigh the gold-backed vagabond gave up and turned to go after her, refusing to admit even to himself that the place indeed looked both inviting and interesting. It was just to make the infernal pummeling of imagery to stop, he told himself, and not the promise of water, and shade, and a reprieve from the many buzzing, humming, flitting and biting insects that kept swarming around him. Just a quick look, and then they would get going again, to do what they had promised to do...