Anaan is, if anything, one with a light heart. He has lived long enough but been dead for longer. He is a ghost, but his scars haunt him even in this strange sort of afterlife. What, he thinks now, as he watches this badgered-bay, is the point of thinking on the sorrows of that time?

It isn't that he wishes to be ignorant. As his gaze tenderly cups hers, as his ears cradle her words, he know exactly what he could say in response. He, through Knox's understanding of companionship, could tell her of the wordless eternity of a bond. He could tell her that those burdens can be lifted with effort, and with time, and with the help of another. He could tell her that none of it matters and none of it is worth her worry and that scattered look, that sudden glance--too sad for her features.

The ancient protector turns his gaze and lets it settle on the white wolf at shore. His tail, heavy with wet, flips up and carries with it a splashing of water--he brings it across his back, striking Manhattan gently and rousing her. He knows, he thinks, what this bay mare needs. He knows it is not more of his words, wise as they might be. And he knows, too, it is perhaps no more of her own. He has listened to her words, caught her gaze and sent his sympathies as best as he could in silence. Anaan is quiet, now, giving them a moment of nothing in the air, a moment to reside peacefully in that quiet of understanding, of I feel what you are feeling, I understand this pain, but have no words to speak. He can only hope she understands.

Go to shore, the protector insists.
Manhattan is unsure--her true master senses it, concurs: Go to shore.

And so the black dog descends from his back, sliding faithfully into the water and paddling, slowly, to shore. She drags herself out of the water, shaking suddenly, quickly, and gives Romul her attention. In his eyes she seeks an explanation of sorts. She has never before seen Knox do anything like this. She must remind herself, as she looks out over the water, that this is not entirely Knox. This gentler ancestor is his own being--his actions, too, his own.

Is she always... The retriever's question is a fragment not directed to her master, but to the other companion on the shore. She looks into the eyes of the larger wolf, wondering what he can say to her, wondering what she can finish saying to him. Her gaze trails out over the water and she watches with bright blue eyes as Anaan turns to stand before the mare. She watches as he extends his neck, outward and graceful, towards the company. He is whispering something to her, something that Manhattan hears echoed in her mind as "Just come into the water," something like, maybe exactly, "Come here." And Manhattan cannot tear her gaze away as he turns into the water--swimming slowly like a leaden leviathan towards the center of the falls, the water reflected beams across his scars--looking for all the world like a ghost. She cannot look away as she feels him dive, eyes shut and breath caught, thinking of how the emptiness of nothing touching him feels, again, like death. She is caught in the scene when she feels what the protector feels, his face reaching out to brush the mare's chest under the surface and then striking up for air, creating the echoing sound of a crash and threatening to soak what little is left of the badger-faced one that is dry. She looks at him even as he neighs out a laugh, offers a smile. Manhattan looks at what she could hear, what she could feel through their bond, and she cannot turn away. Her gaze trained outwards, her heart full of love and despair at misrecognition, she finishes the question: is she always there?

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[[Essetia]]