All your vivid dreams and nightmares will now fall down from the sky
when it hits you, the painless jump and fall.

He was the wolf leading the lamb. Frosted hooves walked a certain path north, guiding the spindly, fragile frame of his companion – Argos. She was a dainty thing, lissome and dark, with eyes of vibrant green and wings; large, majestic wings to carry her through the skies. For all that Mauja knew, she was innocent, a stranger who simply happened to end up in the wrong company. There was a certain irony to it as well: he'd approached her with the intent to give her a home, but not this one. Until she had, by some twist of fate, placed her jaws in the mouth of the lion, and turned the knight in shining armor aside, choosing pain over pleasure and life. Did she have any clue what she was walking into? Did she have any clue that the stallion who led her, who joked and laughed and smiled his little smiles, was perhaps not what he seemed? There was a darkness to him, clinging to him just like his shadow did, but he did not let it show, and what little of it that did show seemed as natural as just that: a shadow. And everyone cast a shadow when the sun struck them. Everyone had some sort of hidden darkness, but it was a depth that could not be measured, for it fled under scrutiny. It couldn't be seen. There was no way to know.

He was not some huge, hulking beast with bull's horns and flaming red eyes; he was not black as the night itself, nor did he breathe out smoke when he exhaled. He was pale and graceful, regal and glacial, with eyes of frost, but for all his frigidity he seemed strangely warm. He was one who bore his secrets very close to his heart, a master of games and masquerades, liar to the point where he wondered if he even told himself the truth.

Snow swirled around him as they walked, day and snowfall turning to a cold night, time passing around them – a chance to lure her deeper, snare her tighter, with little half-shown grins, bind her to him and her cursed fate. And finally, in the pale light of a rosy dawn, the Basin walls towered before them; dark, jagged mountains broke the wan horizon, capped with glaciers and snowfall, indomitable and impregnable. "Home lies beyond those mountains," he told her in a hushed voice, a note of warmth lacing the words, a false promise of peace and security – a chance to learn, but only the cruelty of others, wintersouls strewn across the desolate landscape, like hungry, merciless wolves. The little moments of guilt had been since long subdued, swallowed by the flimsy joy of a game, a hunt, and he reached out to brush his soft muzzle against her fine neck, a teasing laugh under his breath before he set off. Could one race a pegasus and win? Perhaps; straight as an arrow, and with his tail flagging proudly, Mauja ran towards home as the first arcing rays of sunlight slipped over the eastern horizon.

The pass was easy to miss if you didn't know your way. Narrow and trapped among the many crevices and false starts it was their natural barrier, but he knew the way despite the many days since he had last set foot upon it. The clatter of his hooves was muffled by the snowy carpet, and he slowed to a walk, glancing over his shoulder at Argos. "Through here," he said cheerily, a warm smile twisting his lips before he set off through it, sure-footed as he took them through its twists and turns, until finally the sun was beaten down on them from above, and the valley spread out before their feet; rolling slopes coated with a thin layer of snow, the dark band of a forest on the horizon, and the shimmering surface of their large lake sitting in the center. Mauja drew in a lungful of the cool mountain air, expelling it in a thunder burst, a cry calling for someone, a wordless summons – he'd taken her this far, but he didn't know what to do with her now.

He needed someone with a bit more of, ah, inspiration.

"Welcome home," he said in the silence after his call. I'm not sure you'll enjoy your stay.