Grievous, poignant bitterness pervades through mortal flesh, cauterizes a beating, vermilion muscle inside the contours of an elegant chest, burnt, twists his stomach in a endless cycle, illness plaguing his
bodice as a cloud that hung in the harvested skies. The scholar has not clutched such acidicness to his bosom in centuries, ions, and still it pervades, there is blood upon his knees and sanguine that stains his lower flesh, sweat and bleakness rolling off his sinew as rivulets of water from the crevices of the darkened Earth itself. He had been composed, indulgent, meek and mild-tempered for decades, endured the scorn, slander, affront toward his person, ignored the catacomb of voices inside his mind's eye of that whom has piqued damage, there is resentment and sorrow and he remembers now with startling clarity just how close the obsidian and alabaster man had been to killing him.
And for what? What had he done, what had he done that caused such displeasure, such animosity, such distaste? He cannot regret what occured between the Shadow and he, for the childe born from her womb has fixated him with adoration, affection, rolling tides that clash and battle between one another. The young one was innocent, excellence: It took two to create a babe, and it was not all his fault that the youngling had come into the world. The woman had consented, and he had not taken her by force.

Not like it mattered. She had treated him as filth, when mere concern laced his mind, joyous and exalted to see her once more, he was cast from her sight, treated as that of a foe, a enemy, and somewhere within a locked chest remains the sentiment that perhaps, perhaps she deserved to be treated the same, to experience hatred, dislike, distaste as much as he (a even darker part of his mind whispered, maybe, just maybe, the loathing he had received had been due to the pearl horn that juts forth from his brow, had not all those whom had spat venom towards him been winged as the avians? he thought they were).
Would they have despised him, had such aversion to him, if he had come on the wings of angels? Would they have wished for his demise quite so much, if he had not come from the northern lands?
It may have been bitterness that mutated his mind, reformed, rebuilt the very walls in which he stood upon, perhaps it was the lingering feeling of a gritty hoof upon his cheek, the harsh voice that flooded his auditory glands with such emotion, and perhaps the hostility that was so seldom felt would dissipate as the leftover rivers from the rain did in the heat of the Sun above.
But Carnesîr doubted, hestiated, to forgive those whom had so readily acted upon but thoughts. They did not know him. She did not know him.
He did not want her to.

Because then she would know truly how correct she had been, how righteous she had been, when she had called him weak.
She would know how much of a monster he was.

And Carnesîr shrunk from that very thought.
So here he was, wandering, weaving through mindless endeavor, dancing among the growing snow and ice of the Basin, reaching with grasping strings towards the billows of steam ahead of his visuals, and a weight is lifted off damned withers because this, if one thing is to be certain of, is home.
He does not expect to see the girl, still all charcoal and terracotta, glaciers scattered across her rump, disfigured by wafts of super heated clouds rising from the inviting water's, and he tries to remember and— ah, there it is, Frost Frye. But there is something different, something amiss, and he notes a furry ashen figurine next to her. They were not equine, no, most certainly not, and as he comes closer he sees that it resembles that of a deer, mixed with that of a elken creation.
Taken with inquisitiveness, curious, examining before speech attempts to flow forth cracked lips, he is thirsty, craving, and a sad little smile drifts across a sooty maw as he slips into the consoling depths of the Hot Spring. Liquid sloshes against his hide, tail swishing with ease beneath shielded waves of heat, wistful chocolate gaze settling upon her voluptuous frame. She has grown in his time from her, and he drinks in her scent as a dying man may gulp lifegiving water.
"Frost."

A single syllable, sapped from its strength, soft and lilting accent remaining behind a torrent of exhaustion. It has been used well.
For shouting. And crying.
It has been used well for pleading upon deaf harks, too. Fractured as it is, the faintest glimmer of delight begins to thrum within his soul, for were they not friends?
"It has.. been a while, no? Mana— who is this you have alongside you?"