Ulrik smelled a strange sort of foreign blood drift on the edges of his consciousness, and he struggled to give a shit. Who was he, without the ability to control the flow of electricity through intricately made circuits? He was nothing! Dammit. The stallion wanted to drive his horn straight through the middle of something in his frustration, but depression kept his hooves rooted in the snow, firmly. A soft nicker further pushed at his mind, forcing him to finally take stock in reality, in the present.

What seemed like a statue, covered in snow, began to move, slowly turning his low-hanging head to see someone approach. Dim, bronze eyes stared through the night at a mare, painted in gold, and as he focused more closely, he saw that she was the source of the smell of blood. The golden fur of her legs was burned, it seemed. But not by any traditional means - some form of electricity had caused those wounds, he knew. Shame, that she had come so close to his magic only to be wounded by it, and he sighed a little, a puff of white ghosting past his lips.

Ulrik was not one to notice the attractiveness of another, but he admired the fact that she was tinted in the color of a most useful, conducting metal. She was brighter than he was. He was of a dimmed bronze, and she a shimmering yellow. Even the browns in her fur seemed to give her a lighter coloration, something different and unique. As if earth itself had whispered the precious metal onto her body at birth, it shimmered on her back in a soft pattern. Intriguing, to say the least. Was she like him, then? Did she see the world in mechanics? Did she appreciate the delicate art of engineering?

From the tone of her question and the question itself, it seemed not. She was not plagued by the same emptiness he was feeling. He grimaced slightly, unsure of how to respond. The metal had not injured his feelings. Were his feelings even injured? He supposed so. That must be what the dull ache was he felt in his chest. Emotional injury. Dammit. He was falling apart. The strange light from the Haruspex's cave seemed to make the lake glow and cast soft, blue light upon his new visitor.

"In a way," he replied, the tones of his voice harsh and guttural. "I am unable to mold them anymore..." he trailed, the harshness of his voice seeming to dim into a masculine helplessness.

The bronze eyes watched the way she shifted, the way she gingerly stood on her own hooves. He frowned slightly. Kirchoff awoke from his place on Ulrik's tail and looked up at the mare, yawning and flashing white pup's teeth. A smile moved across his lips and he wagged his tail slightly in greeting. Ulrik ignored him. "You have electrical burns." The stallion stated this as a matter of fact, but the strange glow in his eyes shifted to show the barest hints of a mad concern.

"How did you manage that? I thought all power was dead with this goddamned night never giving way to light?" He asked, bitterness crawling into his tone as he cast another glance at the metal that lay on the ground, unwilling to move at his mental indication. The stallion looked at her friendly face and then shifted his body around to stand at her side. In a way that was patiently reluctant and very curt, he nodded toward himself, indicating that she could lean on him if she needed to. She might not. He was filthy. Covered in dirt and grime that flaked off of him like a snake would shed its skin. Clumps of dirt were tangled in his thick beard, and his mane was spiraled in knots.