Like a Leviathan from the legends of olde, from scriptures the man would never have laid eyes upon, the world had yawned its massive mouth and sucked him into the vortex of its sinful natures. A king with a crooked crown and a painted face, a clown in regal robes. He was tired of the strain, of the twitch that grew and strained in his cheeks with every gentle smile forced to his face. The visages of his citizens got him by through days where hope seemed thin and lost. Even in the blistering heat, the moon rose with a steady ascent every night, mocking the king as it boiled his rage hotter than the sun could ever imagine. It forced upon him a famine, a starved hunger for revenge, for justice, that he'd never cared for previously. So long as others left him and his alone, so he would for them. The Goddess had not touched any of his flock, whether out of oversight or some twisted love for her obedient slaves was beyond his at times primitive mindset. When the heat grew too much, when even Rue could not calm the fiery tempest in his heart, the king fled.

It was not his job nor his habit to flee, but it seemed more often as of late it had been the penned ending to his narratives. It was a fate seen plentifully in Kahlua's book, her sagas of life like a thousand silk spiders spinning tantalizing webs of adventure and abandonment. And though she had accused him of desiring only to remain within the borders, Kaj had often stared down at the pages of his own life, despairingly blank and creased only with the horrors of blood and blade in terms of interesting developments. So he had thrown the leatherbound tome, screamed to the air in the silence of his solitude and shed free the shackles that bound him, home and earthen.

Still, in days of absence, of flight and nomadic wandering of hooves through forests he'd never been allowed to appreciate, he had begun to heal. If only in halves and splinters, but still. A band-aid upon a gaping wound was better than letting it drip and fester, attracting predators to feast upon his westbound flesh. The lapping, rhythmic waves of the Edge had long since imprinted themselves inside the veins of his body, until his heartbeat echoed their useless raging against the bleached cliffs. It was an attachment to the land, to the family it had deigned to provide him, and to have it corrupted so easily by the Goddess he'd held a distant respect for drove the king to solace in the only other body of water he could recall.

Sands glittered cream, near white beneath the vengeful rays of the solar heat, the water glimmering in its cerulean beauty. Unforgiving, beguiling those who thought her heart lay easy and unguarded at sea. It reminded him of eyes too bright for a world too dark, and yet with a dagger he'd never anticipated. For a moment he shut his eyes against the onslaught, allowing the winds to carry him, never fearing for a moment that he would falter or fall. A child of the skies knew best their limits, after all. For a while he circled endlessly, no real purpose or method to his floating, no reason to embark upon the soft granules below. At least, until a familiar ghost fell beneath his radar, flickering just like the wraith his mind compared her to.

With a smooth banking motion he dipped his left wing, allowing the wind to whistle past, stroking through newly growing hairs from his encounter with Valiance. Kaj descended slowly, eyes upon the nameless babe, the one he could never mistake. He hadn't been there to attend her birth, though he'd lingered on the outside of the group, a shadow in all intents and purposes. She'd not deserved to have awoken for the first time to the tension still apparent between he and Kahlua. And though he still longed to fulfill his promise, to help in the rearing of the babe, she'd come about in a time where his shoulders were burdened and his time whittled away unfairly by important matters. The golden stag swore to himself that the day would be hers, however she desired to spend it. With or without him.

As he lands he strides toward the child, her mannerisms whispered about unfairly in the mists, a preparation for their first real meeting. At first he feels mildly queasy, to see her disappearing - or so he thinks - into the water of her surroundings. It's disorienting, but as he rights himself, he finds that it's...enchanting, almost. Finally he spoke, a voice like soft thunder reaching for her ears, allowing her whatever space she desired if she took the time to leave the Edge to find her version of grace and solitude.

"Naamloos," sprang to his lips, soft, unobtrusive. Nameless. "Your magic...it is enchanting. Does it bring you peace?" He was curious to know, though she did not owe him an answer he soon realized. She likely didn't even know his name. "I am Kaj. May I join you?" Would she recall him? Had anyone spoken to her about him before, or was he merely another face in the crowd, his desires to bond with her too late in their budding?