The mirth of the other man drew even more pleasure into the heart of Dragomir, his grin honest and easy as he blinked the relentless rain from his sights, oblivious at the moment to just how drenched he had become. The shout of "finally!" struck the young man as one of elation, and he could entirely understand the feelings of his newly found brother in arms; he himself could have danced into the path of the stranger after hearing the name of his and his father's God proclaimed aloud, a writhing mass of enthusiasm for having found a soul who could understand just how deeply his spirit bled in the absence of the culture on which he had been raised. That he had just met the guy mattered very little to him at this point, the boy within him crying out in joy for having found a being who would understand him, who would not judge him for the actions of his family in a land he had never even seen.

For the first time since arriving to Helovia, Dragomir felt he was in the presence of one of his equals, not a shadow hovering around the outskirts of the ideals that Mirage had presented to him as the heart and spirit of the people of this unknown land. It was not that his fellow Edge dwellers had even meant to belittle him; in fact, they'd been warm and receptive, offering him chances to learn and grow as a man. Despite their compassionate attempts to make him feel as part of their family, the painted boy found himself unable to truly connect with any of them or their three faced Gods. But for Kahlua, the most beautiful woman he had ever met, and Mirage, a fine leader by her own right, he felt nothing for those who filled the forest in which he made his home. They could not love him for who he was unless he was willing to throw away his racist Gods; Mirage had made that perfectly clear.

But he knew nothing else, and change never came easy to those who had been firmly set into a path as he had.

His own eyes flickered nostalgically as the buckskin's teal, inspired by the words of fellowship that slipped from his blackened lips, remembering his own lessons in bigotry (though he did not consider these ideals to be so) from his father. The pain that normally accompanied such thoughts, however, was absent, leaving his pale blue sights clear and sparkling with the fond recollections of all the legends of his people and the first of their blood. His curiosities peak as the conversation moves from an endless search to the source of the inquisition; each word is weighed, the hidden messages that he heard slightly unnerving.

Did this stranger intend to leave a wake of blood in his path?

It was not that he hadn't heard of all the violence that made up the daily life of Isilme; but the stories that were shared with him were painted in such a way as to glorify the equine people, demonizing their lesser cousins. Perhaps his father would not have paled at such allusions to death and dismay, seeing the glory to be earned in such a path; Dragomir, however, was not Adalwulf. His mother's blood had softened the long lineage of warriors with her compassion, leaving her youngest son with a heart that desired honor and a mind that sought the most logical trajectory to achieve a goal. He could stand behind the desire to create a kingdom comprised of only earth-dwellers, but to kill them? His gut tightened as Semira's face rose unbidden to his thoughts, smeared with blood, her forelock splayed across the crimson earth.

Did something so beautiful truly deserve death for being born as she was? And what of children, innocent and not yet as horrifying and wrong as the adults of their kind?

Ricochet's voice pulls him from his thoughts, his faded smile coated in a veneer of rain as he attempts to recover his confidence that had been in place before the wrench of potential war had been thrown into the easy flow. Outwardly gazing down upon the man and inwardly looking up to him, Dragomir was caught in a strange mesh of thoughts and emotions that he had come to find rather common place; in ways, he was perfectly Adalwulf's son, and while he did love his mother, it was the pride of a father that drove the boy in all his actions. Requiem would have kept him on the isle all his life, protecting him from the confusion that now assaulted him from all angles now that he was on his own. But his father, a true man if there ever had been one, would never truly honor a child who hid under his mother all his life.

And so here he was, speaking with a man known as Ricochet, son of Gunslinger. He felt as if that name was familiar to him; unable to place it, he moved on to grasp at the figurative hand that had been offered him, despite the undertones of death that had been implied. A part of him believed he could influence a more peaceable movement, too naive to understand that wickedness did not come in a reduced fat formula, too desperate for a connection with anyone to deny this opportunity to stand alongside a man who knew the name of his God. "I don't see why not," mumbled the deep tones of the boy as he raised his eyes to meet those of Ricochet, the vivacity returning to his features and pale gaze in light of the cheeky smirk on the face of the Incendiary, despite his reservations about agreeing to the blood-thirsty stallion's plan. "I will join you," he stated more resolutely, almost as if to assure himself that no harm would come to him from the pact shared in the midst of a summer rain.