I’m not surprised that she knows who dad is – just about anyone walking into the Basin would have to ask what the sentinels were, and how they’d got there, even if they were falling into nothingness without his care. However, why she doesn’t know my dam is answered as she generously shares how long she’s been in Helovia, as well; only a year. It’s not that much time at all, really, but I don’t have much more of it here than she does, despite having been born in the mountains she’ll return to when our conversation ends.

It’s probably good she doesn’t know mother. While my dad isn’t the best at making friends, and is what some would call “antisocial” and perhaps even “crazy,” mother definitely wins in the who I’d rather avoid contest. I’m also not the only one who feels this way about her, to be sure, remembering plenty of looks and attitudes from the past cast in her direction; it is perhaps good to meet someone who can know only her name, not who she was. A Lady, revered and respected, but equally feared, and loathed beyond the perimeters of her glacial haven.

I would only be revered. I think as much when the way her words trail off almost invite me talk more about them, and so I say nothing more than what she already knows, unless she asks.

I lose some of my manly focus as her hooves slip her perfumed body ever so closer to my own, the soft song of her adornments luring my eyes to her playful wink, her fairy’s grin. Somehow I can’t help but laugh along with her for a moment when she proclaims her adeptness at love, rather than battle, mostly because I truly believe her. There are very few marks along her ivory and gilded bodice, and she approached me with almost all her defenses down. Definitely not a soldier.

I should get better at noticing these things right away, not just after someone’s told me…

"It’s fun most of the time," I respond, a plethora of emotions rising to the surface as I think of my adventures – the places, the people, the pain, and the fear, the beckoning of death – most of them pleasant, but a few truly terrible. For the first time, I weigh them together, for the smallest fraction of a second, wondering if doing what I please is worth all the struggle. "Sometimes it’s dangerous though. It is certainly not the life of one who is not a fighter."

I had at least noticed her scent, and perk up a bit (from my dark memories of pain) as she affirms that my guesses at her origins in Helovia are correct. My smile, like hers, is alive with the vibrancy of the game going on outside our own conversation, and I show the newness of my bond by occasionally swaying, twitching, or stepping against my will. This time, however, the grin is my own, because I knew something before she told me.

Unfortunately, it’s timed just as Remy makes his first successful wack-a-polecat appearance, and Duir topples from a top the log, a rather ungraceful sound blurting from his mouth as he becomes all legs, and infantile terror, dropping to the labyrinth floor. It makes my mouth drop open and my eyes widen, as if it’s happening to me, and I’m forced to stomp my right foot into the ground (while Duir laughs in the distance at having fallen, as soon as he discovers he’s fine, of course) to rid myself of the frantic beating of a heart that isn’t mine.

"I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that at all," I exasperatingly admit within the first hour of having made this bond with Duir, shaking my head as I look at him, that same warm rush of emotion flooding me again as his emerald eyes meet mine, "it’s weird."

The deer’s ears flick backwards, his damp black nose snorting in a way that almost says, “right back at you,” before he’s back at stuffing his nose in the holes in the log, looking for Remy (and frustrated his head won’t fit), tail whirling in delight.

"What’s brought you so far south?" I inquire after gathering myself, returning to the lady’s last words (as a gentleman should), pairing my words with a lopsided grin, "enjoying the last bit of cool before Tallsun comes to devour us with its heat?"