The amusement rolls over my head, in the sort of way a lot of things do. I’m not sure what I’ve said or done to merit such a response, other than badger with questions, speak at him as if he is a gnat humming about my ears. His words make my ears fall back ever so slightly, a deep breath sucked in through my nostrils as I try to process what he could mean by that grin, those words.

Expectations? And what did the world expect of me? I had never been given anything like a list to live by, except for, maybe, mother’s nagging.

“Stand straighter, Rikyn,” or “go wash your face, you look homeless.”

My turn to smile is now, my dark lips tilting upwards in memory of how horrified she’d been to see my mane in tangles, sticks protruding, leaves lingering; I was my father’s son, not hers.

Blessedly, the familiar stranger explains, this Oultik rumbling out that I am blunt, almost rude. He would be the first one to put almost in front of that word before he used it. Ashamin hadn’t used it at all – rather, he’d thrown down a gauntlet, and we’d danced in the snow, words tossed aside for the more obvious meanings of blows.

The stare of the cat is unnoticed as it passes between us, because my eyes are holding this man’s face and searching them for a hint of sarcasm, a hidden barb. That I don’t find one likely means nothing – the genes for knowing people’s thoughts by the motions of their face didn’t pass through mother to me.

"What of it?" I finally decide, after almost saying nothing. Part of me thinks that he finds it a good thing, to be direct, like I do – but part of me worries that there is a woman hidden beneath all those muscles, that I’ll get fussed at for not knowing all the rules in their mystical, ultimately secret, book of regulations. While friendship was easy as a child, each of our minds open, trusting, eager to reach out and embrace, tangle with those around them, I’d realized that it grew harder the older you got; they started seeing you as a threat, a challenge, an obstacle, just another guy unworthy of their breath, not as a person, with a heart, beating. Not as someone who feels very much like an island adrift in the sea.

The stallion presents the dagger proudly, as proudly explaining that it does nothing but tie him to the place of its creation.

I snort, a rough laugh hidden poorly behind exhalation.

Laaaaaaaaame.

I’d never forgotten who I was, where I was from. Xynia heard every story I had of the mountains, of my Princedom, of my friends. I wore a scar from Xynia’s horn on my shoulder now, a memory I carried with me, though it was fading.

I’m too young to understand that a head gets too full of memories to remember them all, as time meanders on. I don’t understand the purpose of a totem, symbolizing home, because my young heart hasn’t had time to forget it yet. Even now, out here in the wilderness, the Basin was still home, though I’d not returned again as I probably should have. They’d take me back. If they didn’t, I’d just kick some ass to make it so.

"Can’t say I understand that much," I answer, smiling, trying my best to move forward with this thick wall of misunderstanding built between us, the bricks slapping onto the mortar, "but it’s a nice dagger. Where are you from that it’s so easy to forget, anyway?"