It is Romul that the stallion sees first, reflected in his own deep blue eyes. The protector cannot contain the excitement of the sight--his lungs rattle with a heavy exhale, his forehoof curls and strikes. He bows, he quivers, he straightens and pulls himself forward.

Manhattan stays behind, seated at the entrance to the caves. This is not something she can follow him into. Just as her mind and her weary heart are her own troubles to bear, his aching for the companionship he finds beside this mare is not hers to intrude upon. She locks eyes with the white wolf, her blue eyes snapping to attention and striking the metallic sincerity she finds in them. This time, she has nothing to say. She has shared too much with him already--more than she was taught to ever share.

Meanwhile, Anaan's bold figure, sturdy but no taller than the mare before him, has traveled further from one flame and closer to another. His eyes are bright, his lips lifted into something indicating a boundless joy. Though his fear of her abandoning him was not quite so pained a one, it had still been real. But now she too is present, and with her appearance his heart settles with ease.

Somewhere in his chest, the hunter rolls over and snorts in a puddle of his own tears. The marks still stain Anaan's cheeks, but the subtlety of flame is drying them with torturous efficiency. Here by the fire he will never be comfortable, not completely and not even in this stranger's company. He wants to suggest they travel into the cave but there is too much to say already, too much to say before and aside from this request.

"It's you," she says, as if it could be anyone else, as if there are any other hearts beating beside the protector's. He doesn't know how right she is.

He smiles--reaches out his neck to touch hers. Anaan considers that perhaps she has decided to address him this way because she doesn't know his name. His ears fall, a habit that seems to have passed down to every generation, as he thinks of her name. He doesn't know it but he doesn't really feel he needs to, either. He imagines it is something that sounds more innocent than it should, as if she were named as a child by someone who would never see her as anything more than that: a child. That name, it is in the way she carries herself. In the way he can see her think of her sorrows, even when her face is a reflection obscured by ripples, or a set of embers trapping the light of distant flames.

Anaan wants to tell her he does not think she is a child. He wants to offer his name to her in confidence and trust, want to acknowledge something, but Knox is aware enough to kick at the notion. No names, his mind hisses, the words like the sound of his tears hitting the hot stone by the heart. No names, Anaan, no names! Faster, more furious now, the warning comes. No names, no names, no names no names no names no names!

This is a different story and quarrel with the self. Anaan will not abide its attempt to ruin his night. His tail flickers, his heart beats steady as if it were his own, his mind clears, and the insistent call fades into quiet, wordless sobbing.

"It's you," she had said.

"Of course," he replies, as if there is never anything else he could say. Of course I am here, for you.

[[@[Essetia]]]
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