He had thought that he was alone, alone with the thistles of lavender bowing to the gentle breeze. He had thought that no one was near, that it was only him and the open sky. But what did it matter what he had thought, when he was wrong? Perhaps he had been alone before the mist thickened to fog, but he wasn't anymore. A dark shape materialized in the veils of gray and silver, and he nearly flinched at her sudden appearance; a twitch ran across his hide, through his muscles, as he prepared for flight but never acted upon it. Something in his memory told him he knew the dark shape approaching, that he knew the strength of her heart and the dedication of her soul. She had been gone, lost, disappeared, blown away like smoke in the wind, but here she was, a shadow in the night, a specter in the fog. No wonder she had found him, the way he shone in the dark. At night, the white were the first to fall to hungry teeth, for they had no means of hiding. He knew that, but it was hard to bear any other color when he had been bred for the snows. There, the white survived.

The tip of her spiraled, striped horn led her way towards him, and with each step she took closer her black coat became less grayed out; the tall grasses and thistles swayed to the rhythm of her trot, and for a moment he let his gaze drop to her knees as they forged a path. She possessed the same graceful blood as he, and for a moment it made him smile.

Then he looked up at her face again, trailing her blue, gray in the night, eyes as her head lowered. There was no need for that. Perhaps once he had been glorious, but now he was tattered, ragged and tired.. but he could not let her know. Could not let anyone know. In the dark he smiled again, the small, curved smile he had worn a thousand times before; sparse warmth, like the pale sun in winter, lurked beneath his skin, twinkled in the corners of his eyes. "M-my King..." He wanted to whisper hush, for there was no need for such titles, and had never been; Mauja had never been a King to shove his position down the throat of another. As mortal as the horse next to him he preferred to walk among his subjects, and be their brother, as well as their guide. "I was gone," he told her softly, his voice like the touch of moonlight. "But not anymore." Gentle and silent the snowbeast drifted forward, not at all the jagged, cold creature some knew, but each part of him was the softness of snow. His dark muzzle extended through the fog, droplets of water clinging to the edges of his hairs, and brushed against the scar on her left shoulder. "Delinne..." Her name slipped out like a murmur against her black skin and ridged scar, and he tried to recall if she had gotten it in the battle which had separated them.

To his surprise, he drew a blank; he had not seen her after the Qian war. What had happened to her? She did not even smell of the Steppe or the Basin, that warm valley nestled in the cold which they called home. Had she abandoned them? Had she been abandoned by them? Or had she just lost them, in the chaos after he had realized they were defeated and called for a retreat? "Where have you been?" he asked her quietly, peering sincerely at her blue eyes. Perhaps she wouldn't know of what he asked, as he was the one who had been gone, but at that moment, he did not reflect upon his question. He could play the game of being himself, but his thoughts did not run as deep as they had.

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