On tall dark legs he approached, leaving a swirl of warm water in his wake. While she watched him placidly from beneath black eyelashes, Huyana could not quell the uneasy feeling that swam in her gut. It began as a murmur, vaguely eating at her stomach, but it steadily increased in urgency until she could ear her heart whispering in her ears; was this his brand of death, or another kind of magic entirely? She did not balk, nor did she flinch - it was not time to be afraid. As unwilling as the roan was to admit it, she trusted the Reaper, in a way she would hesitate with others. This seemed like a scene from another world - ethereal, utterly untouchable - the moonlight cast him a faint halo, a thread of light silhouetting his horn, his face. He almost seemed like a phantom, a ghost from her past come to haunt her, but there was something so tangible about him - the way she could feel the warmth of his breath as he came close. I am tired of defeat, he admitted quietly into the humid air, the words falling like raindrops into the water. Huyana studied him for a moment, scrutinizing the impassive features, the eyes which reflected a skinny roan girl, too sad for this world. Then lay down your arms, she desperately wanted to tell him, every word scrawled across her expression; but she bit her tongue as well as she could, knowing it would be futile. As she could not live without her rain, he could not live without his carnage, and that was that - it was under their skin, in their blood, in their genes. They could not simply stop who they were, what they did.

She wanted to tell him it would be alright, that defeat was just another way to learn victory, but what right did she have to those words, when all she did was lose? What good would those words be?

Instead, Huyana kept her silence. She was tired of this darkness, of this lack of life; she was tired for him and all the world. He surprised her by drawing ever closer, until his whiskers brushed her cheek, the warmth of his being radiating onto herself. Skin pressed against skin, and an instinct prepared her for death, for the touch of his magic - but it never came, and his warmth was just as any warmth - wholesome. He sighed quietly against her, more heat between them, and she wondered at how vulnerable this made him seem. The feel of his weight against her cheek was not unpleasant; it dulled her pain, her sadness - it brought her to earth, made her feel. She turned her face into his, tracing his jaw lightly with her nose, nudging the crook of his mandible with her lips. So strong was his sinew, taut and lean - he was a thing bred for war, for athletic feats and victory. They were of similar breeding, but where Huyana tended toward the delicate, Deimos was robust, virile. Would her touch bring him any comfort? Huyana did not know - she did not know many things; it shamed her.

She tilted her face upwards to reach his ear, the water sliding off her shoulders as they rose above the surface. "Remember victory," Huyana murmured, daring to linger close to him for a moment more, dying a little as she took in his smell.

Why am I here? Why am I encouraging him?