Her explanation of the different smell which wreathes her creamy pelt breaks his heart.

The Falls? Why would they move there? Had something happened to the Edge, to Kahlua? A dark fear blooms in the depths of ice blue irises, pupil quivering in line with eyes that shimmering with a wetness that rises unbidden, yet does not pool and fall.

It is these emotionally heavy eyes which find the grullo stallion and his white bonded, these eyes which widen in surprise as Resplendence tells of his becoming a great silver dragon. Dragomir had seen Mirage, their golden queen, in her scaled regalia, the power she had held in her grasp awe inspiring, so much so that the stallion held a reverence about her like that which one gives a God. That Lace can become a dragon as well makes chocolate ears lift, some of his sorrow that the Edge likely wouldn’t ever be his home again rising with them.

The mention of the ebonite Queen sends another aching ripple through the painted stag, the same which seems to deflate Resplendence. Gently, he reaches out to touch her shoulder in comfort, as if he made absorb some of the sorrow that radiates from the herbalist.

He misses her, too.

Any divine regard that might have been given the grullo is lost as he explains that it was only a borrowed power, though the former Glazier cannot help but wonder what sort of enchantment had allowed Lace to do such a thing at all, what sort of intoxicating majesty filled one’s being while holding such a mighty form. As if in answer, the dark lips of the warrior crafter kiss upon an amulet which rests on his chest – drawing to mind a similar object in Dragomir’s possession, the question as to what magic lies in it.

Here he’d thought it was only a trinket. Lace’s words make him rethink this entirely.

And then he’s lost in Ranjiri, her sudden deflation drawing concern across his face, a smile gracing his simple yet handsome features as he gathers she’s worried that he will now get sick, too. Reaching out with his dark tipped muzzle, the stallion attempts to nip at the strands of pale hair framing her pale face, wishing to see her smile instead of blaming herself for things fate would likely have delivered him, anyway.

It’s okay, he says, deep bass voice rumbling with a warmth reserved for his closest friends. She still smells like sand and warmth, even with the pervasive stench of sickness, and it sends him back to the last time she’d been hurt and needing someone.

It isn’t wraiths, Resplendence tells him (fretting, as all good healers do, over the wounds his hybrid friend bares – he smiles at her gratefully, oh so gratefully), Ranjiri immediately leaping in with a deeper explanation – new lands, strange Gods, stranger faces, diseases…

It sounded like a terrible idea, if Dragomir was asked. But no one did, the attentions of all present turning to the aureate and ebonite damsel, for which the young stallion was thankful – it gives him a break from conversation, the interactions between the living that he dreads as much as he craves.

A small sun crackles under the kiss of the rain as Lace approaches to inspect Ranjiri’s wing, Dragomir stepping to the side, his massive hooves leaving indentions in the soft earth, crystalline eyes sparkling with the yellow orange light of the encapsulated flame.

Like his mother, he enjoys magic, and its various forms. A thousand questions of its origin, use, ability, how strenuous its up keep may be, how long he has held the power and from where it came, they usher in one after the other in a sweeping flow that steals all words from Dragomir as healer and stranger tsk and fuss.

Ranjiri seems uncomfortable – it makes the painted stag smile to see their positions so reversed. Normally, he’s the one scrunching up into himself, wishing everyone else would look elsewhere, while she’s the center of it all, shining like the gold embellishments which adorn her. He’s looking at her and wondering how much healing could be accomplished on such an old wound when he realizes she’d asked him a question.

All he can do is shrug, a certain melancholy air taking him.

No where, he answers, and its truthful – he had only walked, and walked some more, occasionally stopping to rest.

And it had cost him so much. Regret fills the depths of his rich, sensuous voice.

Most of the Edge has moved to the Falls…

I, uh, well, I just sort of… walked.

And thought, he thinks, but doesn’t say, not wanting to get so involved in his personal feelings when there is a stranger standing there, when he’s never really opened up quite that way to Resplendence before. It makes him feel weak enough to stand there so obviously full of sadness, regret, the pain of lost hope occasionally burning like arcs from a broken electrical line.