The hunter welcomes her touch as she returns it; he is weak and vulnerable, too much of a victim to his grief to control himself anymore. He is shaking, feeling suddenly so very small as he stands pressed against her. He is still young, he realizes. He is but two years old with so much more life left to live.

But how is he supposed to live it if already, so young, he wishes to die? The question burns, stinging him and filling his chest with an uncomfortable tightness that he cannot explain. He still rests his head across Aylin, but moves now to watch the world around him shift in faint shades of black and green. Orangemoon has come and soon will make way for Frostfall. It has happened before and will happen again, but this time it is to be different. This winter will be colder, lonelier.

Lonelier? Yes, it would have to be. He didn't know when his companion would return to him, and even if she were to return to his side this very moment, he knows he would still feel the pain of her hate. He thinks back to what Manhattan said to him, and realizes faintly how true so many of her words may have been. He does not owe the moon his life, he owes her nothing.

He thinks, as he lays his head to rest across Aylin's warm black body, that he owes no one in the world right now but her. Like a child whose mother tells to him a story, he lifts his head, perks his ears, and watches closely with a curious light in his eyes. The hurt does not quite fade, not yet, but the confusion settles into an unsteady understanding. So it is the hope that someday life may improve, then, that keeps one alive through the suicidal night.

He had not seen such a hope in her, but he sees it now. Even with his head lifted from her back, he stands close enough to touch his chest to hers, to catch his stiff and sturdy leg in the space between her own. She says that he is her light.

He is her light.

A sensation he has never before felt crawls deep inside of him to nest, preparing for the coming storm. He is happy, he is scared. He feels at all, he supposes this is an accomplishment alone. But to be her light, what has kept her alive today, is that a responsibility he can handle?

He wonders, though, if she is not the same for him. He draws his face closer once more, letting his bridled cheek brush against hers and smudge the trails left by tears. "I've never been a light before," he murmurs, bewildered. His words float in deep and even tones towards her ears, resting just beside his soft, black lips. When he pulls back, it is only to look at her. He wants to see the mare whose life he saved in all her glory, if this is what glory even is. "I-I'm sorry to have made you cry," he says, sounding almost meek. From within his breast his child's heart has once again been rediscovered and begun to beat. He feels the blood rush through his veins, feels the heat spread through him and perhaps, even, to Aylin. He stands so close to her, still touching. He feels, well... a little. He feels a little better now. He could pull away if he wanted, he knows that.

But he doesn't want to.