He stood just outside the rotunda, the light flickering from the candles above drifting across his chocolate and ivory pelt in dreamy ripples as he observes a set of markings before him. The stallion himself is still as stone, lingering while he ponders on the shape of the moon that stands at the top of the ceiling, and all the markings that come below it.

It seems like a story in some way, and he tries reading it although he doesn’t know any of the words, as if by studying the artisan’s lines he can simply see the film of the past played out before him. He knows it isn’t so, but the symbols themselves, while crude, are incredibly interesting and beautiful in their own way.

After all, there wasn’t much to do around here besides wait around for something to happen.

He held an ear on the entrance to the cavern, waiting for the sounds of any warriors or potential saviors dragging in another one of the infected for a quick bath. He’d seen it happen once or twice, hanging around in this room; after all, many of the kingdoms inhabitants had fallen to the disease, and from his experience with the blue mare and the hybrid foal and their friends, there were many who sought to rescue them from their fate.

He was not one of these. The only mission he had taken had been taken for Kahlua (perhaps the Edge, as well) and a twisted sense of redemption through valorous action; it had not been worth what he had thought it would be.

The aftermath of it all has left him feeling much more inclined to discuss the situation with anyone in the world who seemed they would listen and offer good advice on how to simply feel better about what he had done. He hadn’t seen Mirage, which was perhaps a good thing; he is of the opinion that her knowing gaze would see the guilt on him if she was presented his face in a one on one situation.

There was something about the dragon within her, the undying soul of the great golden creature; she knew more than she should, or at least seemed to. It was part of the woman’s character that had quickly endeared him to the Dragonheart, and won her his loyalty despised the hard truths she had presented him with about life and this land.

For some reason, it seems the story he is staring at should have something to do with Mirage, or at least the forest in which she had made her home. The mare was obviously in great favor of the Goddess, even tinted a shade of the evening; he had seen the gift that had been given her, the band that brought the stars and darkness in her wake. Mirage was Queen of the Dragons, keeper of the misty wood; she was as much the Edge as the sea or the ancient trees that housed her children, and it inspired him to become a child of the Moon as she had.

The only problem was that he didn’t know much about the night bringer, or her gifts; his people had been of the Earth, wielders of stone and nature, not the cold wind of the lonesome eve.

But he could understand it, at least after all he’d been through so far, and the story made it all that much easier to slip into the dream that one day he might belong among them, rather than linger along the outside.

[ Set before the Edge has gone back up to the surface for the sake of my sanity. <3 ]

@[Oberon], @[Voodoo]

The boy tilts an ear towards the subtle sound of hooves that near him, not quite ready to look away from the etchings in the stone but also not willing to be caught off guard. Waiting a polite amount of time for the other horse to speak, his mind gently gropes at the symbols for a while longer until he realizes that whoever has approached him is only standing to observe him as he stands still as death in this dimly lit hole in the ground. Most days, it would cause discomfort to rise to the front of the young stallion’s pool of responses, but there was no uneasy prick of his flesh from the on looker’s eyes and so he felt no immediate thread to himself or his well being – only a tinge of curiosity, a wonderment as to why it was someone had arrived to stare as if a mute at his silent studies.

He turns his simple features to look at whomever it is, finding a black unicorn that seemingly melds into the shadow of the cavern, a deep red set of eyes watching him from beneath his equally gruesomely toned horn. Dragomir takes a moment to stare silently at the stranger himself, noting the white dog (young, so very full of new life) behind the stallion and most notably the horn spiraling upwards from between his eyes.

Of all the breeds he had been forced to deal with, the only species more nerve shattering than a unicorn had been Semira and Amaris – and he had never heard of dragon hybrids before as he had the wearers of the sword. Perhaps his eyes linger too long on the vicious point of the man’s head spike, broaden in wonder at the sort of damage such a wicked device could cause, or perhaps it is too dark at all to notice such things. Either way, the silence has stretched long and uncomfortable as the boy observes the strange stag, his pale blue gaze searching the features of the black and red man for any signs of hostility, his own heart pounding like the beat of a thousand drums inside his chest.

He hears the cry of Ricochet, through the rain. He sees the bloody streaks along a pitch black pelt, a macabre memory that flashes like a streak of lightning through his thoughts. He can smell the stench of the fire as it consumes everything in its path… and then, as quickly as it arrived, the memories fade away, leaving him with an acute sense that the staring has gone on quite long enough.

He stills the trembling of his flesh, steels his will to obey his desires to appease the Queen of Dragons and his beautiful Glazier. This man is only a unicorn, after all – a good kick to the head would remove him of all marks that deemed him as a lesser creature.

"Are you in need of something?" he asks, not really sure why else someone would stand so quietly and so unobtrusively from the sidelines until finally fed a scrap of attention, but after the words hit the air the stag knows this is not the case. There is a lack of anything in the red eyes that watch him from a respectful distance, they do not flicker or burn as the spirits of his brethren’s within the Edge seem to, and he senses, though he is not sure how or why, that this is a lonely soul, one who wanders from one empty place to another.

His head shakes no in answer to his own inquiry, a smile alighting on his face in the revelation of what he believes to be part of this one’s character, for they share a similar fate among the myriad faces of Helovia. Dragomir is often alone as well, and it is rare that he has found another not surrounded by friends and loved ones, drawing from him a sense of connection between the two even as he rebukes the unicorn’s presence for being what he is.

The son of Adalwulf will never grow talented at these awkward, life lesson mauling moments. He is a mind of two paths, and stubbornly he tries to make either one bend into the other. "Dragomir, of the Edge," he says, though he dallies on the title of his home – is it even still there? Not to mention, he hadn’t seen Mirage or Kahlua or Destrier or any of the other familiar and staple faces of the land down here, and never was the pain he felt when wondering if they were alright as intense as it was whenever he thought of potentially losing the only friends and family he had this far west.


[ OOC: Sorry it took so long! I was waiting to see if Tailor would be able to make it. <3]
@[Voodoo]

Voodoo, says the stranger after a long and strange silence, continuing to introduce his companion who wags her tail sweetly in response to the notice given her. His own head nods in time with each name, trying to be good company with a sense for timing and wit.

Perhaps wit was asking too much of reclusive Dragomir; that he knew he was supposed to nod at all is quite impressive. He usually gets so caught up in his own panicked thoughts while dealing with others that he forgets to show the usual signs that he is still listening, increasing his sense of panic, looping the tail end of the problem right back into the mouth. People, to say the least, were not his specialty.

This other stallion, judging from his revelation of having two homes and belonging to neither, was paddling down a similar stream he was. It wasn’t to say that Dragomir did not love the Edge and the friends he had found within, but he knows he was not made from the same cloth as the rest of them; he’s already done things too dark to mention to a one of them, things that surely would make them shun him from their numbers or at least their hearts.

They were good people, his herd. He did not see them leaving any to die on their own, no matter how horrid their crimes. And he hadn’t killed anyone, at least he didn’t think so…

"I’ve heard nothing good about the Basin and no ill of the Throat, if that helps you to more firmly allocate yourself for the duration of this conversation, at least," he says a bit late to really be polite, deep voice friendly in the face of his natural aversion to horned and winged things and perhaps a bit rushed in his hurry to get it out before the other man assumed he was going to be ignored.

His next words are a question, and the painted stallion lights up at the mention and turns back to the wall of symbols, looking at them with a wide expression that tells all one needs to know about how much he loves a good mental challenge, especially ones that hinted of magical origins. "I think…they’re silent words," he states, slowly, still staring at the section that he had been trying to convince to read its tale aloud to him in whatever fashion it would do so, "but I don’t really know. They haven't done anything for as long as I've stood here."


@[Voodoo]

The stallion seems indecisive when confronted with the knowledge that the painted equine knows no good tales of the mountain unicorns, something Dragomir quickly brushes off as another anomaly, a member of a society with a heart less rimmed in razors than those he walks alongside. His mother was one of these black sheep, a woman come from a land of no magic and only equines, no racism running deep in her heart as it did in those who were forced to watch the numbers of their great species dwindle as it was bred away and laid to waste by less worthy creatures.

It’s an interesting notion though, one he stores away for later reference, that not all who came from the Aurora Basin were wicked. Some were misguided, or oblivious to the dark deeds their brothers committed. Still, the dark nature of this one would have led him to believe he was the latter had he not so openly approached a horse with kindness rather than violence; it left Dragomir with many thoughts on how far he had to go before he could count himself adept at judging others for who they were beyond surface value.

"You don’t sound entirely convinced," he says, thinking on how he himself would reply if asked about the World’s Edge. He doubted it would hold as much hesitation as what lied in the tones of the bloody mouthed unicorn, so much sadness tangled in the tones, but it would hint at loneliness, a common belonging without any of his edges truly fitting against any of the others.

He kept pressing the piece into the picture hoping to warp the edges of himself enough to truly belong there.

As the two stand side by side investigating the markings in the wall, Dragomir nods in reply to the repetition of his words. "Hmm, yes. Like a story," he says slowly, "though I haven’t the slightest clue how I have come to such conclusions or how to go about hearing the story it has to share."

@[Voodoo]