So he hadn't lost his touch at snow-walking. It was his voice that startled her into motion, not the soft sound of shuffled snow, nor the whisper of limbs through air – his voice, and he wondered how close he could've got if he hadn't opened his mouth. Close enough for an.. accident? He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer either, merely watched, silent now that his question had been asked, as she glared at him through narrowed eyes for a moment; his own remained soft, gentle even, black-rimmed ears flickering forward to show he meant no harm. He was content to keep his distance, to stand as a marble statue as she scrutinized him. One ear flicked idly backward, before returning to its previous position, and he wondered if he had always had this composure – this ability to stand before someone who studied him, without quivering? Without feeling uneasy, or letting his own eyes roam away? He had a hunch he hadn't.. that his confidence was not the boyish sort caused by foolish youth, but rather something hard earned, a journey to find himself, security in his own skin... Surely he'd squirmed before the officers when he was but a boy new to the ways of the world, and surely he'd shoved his chin out stubbornly when trying to pretend he hadn't done wrong?

The memory of dark nights and flickering fires faded away at the sound of her uncertain voice. She seemed to have decided he was no immediate threat, and he was content with that. He didn't want to be a threat, even though he knew a soul or two who would gladly push her over the edge and laugh as she fell out of sight, crushed against the sloping mountainside. The notion stirred something in him, a trace of unease, and he forced it down again. Death had no place in conversations, and yet he was keenly aware of how he'd thought of Aylin's sun-loving brother all those seasons ago.

He let her speak, his eyes not losing their soft kindness. A stranger, a newcomer in Helovia. He tried to remember what it was like, to be lost within her, to not know the dark undercurrents, the way the wind blew.. who was a danger, and who was not? Had tales of the northern unicorns reached her, tales of the danger they posed, the mischief they wrought, and of their two fearsome leaders; one black as the night, the other spotted like a leopard cat? He had a hunch she didn't know. Perhaps no one had told her. Perhaps she lived with someone who didn't bother to scare her off with tall tales.

As she rounded her words off with a humorless smile he chuckled, wondering what had made her heart so bitter. Why, she almost sounded like him. "Fortunately for you, m'lady, I am not," he said with a trace of warm humor. "At least not this time. I came here over a year ago, seeking answers.. and the ones I got, I did not understand until recently." Namely, that blind faith was bad, and that the Moon was a bitch. Slowly his blue gaze went upwards, coming to a rest on the sky. Was it truly so, that it was the closeness of heaven which drew others up here? Was it what drew him?

Frankly, he didn't know.

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