Could anything keep those blue eyes clear and at peace?

Beneath his allure of innocence was a darkness that threatened to take it from him, that had already chiseled deep grooves into the smooth ivory of his soul and filled the lines with black smut. Its what leaves him mildly reserved during all encounters with those not saturated in the smell of the Edge: the bleak memory of rain in the willows and a black body crawling through the mud, the melancholy thought of Mirage that summer afternoon when she had explained to him that his family was wrong to have taught him as they had, the lessons etched deep into his heart over the hazy eternal summer of his youth that, no matter how hard he tried to forget them, bubbled up into his thoughts again and again, warping and distorting the beautiful perfection that was Helovia into murky shades of grey that left him feeling blind, and grasping.

Perhaps that is what she sees when she looks upon him, not innocence so much as it is naivety, an inability to find ones footing in a world that constantly moves and wears so many masks. The only way he can survive in such a place is to be steadfastly himself, a humble honesty that many may view as the actions of a boy or one who is unschooled in the ways of life; his mother, however, would swell with pride to know that her youngest son had grown in so many ways so quickly as to understand that no greater life could be lead than that which was truly your own, and perhaps even his father could look upon such a noble life as an achievement though it was not one common in leaders such as Adalwulf had been. Lying was a part of life.

Dragomir was content to speak the truth and let the dust collect on his skeletons, neatly stowed away and still hidden from those he called friends here at the Edge. Let them see him for the man that had emerged from the flame engulfed grove, not for who had been while dancing in time with the darkness ebbing in his soul.

Mirage had been right.

Hatred was wrong.

She is called Sheba, the woman who poses such a threat to the spiritual ties of his youth and the newfound ones in the misty forest that spreads behind his tall and muscular figure. He smiles at the odd lilt to her voice, having met many who speak strangely the native tongue of his own family and many here in Helovia, wondering where it is she has wandered from and how far it must be if his journey took him so many months.

The ivory mare uses a lot of words that easily fill in the gaps of silence that are so often left hanging from the lips of the awkward young man, and his ears cling to them each with his mind wondering why it is she sounds so much fancier than others he’s met who have long winded words. It may just be the accent, but there is something playful and clever about the construction of the sentences, something that a more experienced man might recognize as quite dangerous – a femme who adores herself and the sound of her own sweet voice, one who quite easily pulls the young stallion into her cadence.

Her question makes one ear fall back atop his head and a wry smile slip across his lips in apology, foolishly having used a native word for his job in front of someone who was obviously foreign to it and the apology evident in the subtle changes in his features and the sparkle that is born to his eyes. ”A glass maker," he says, nodding sidelong at the wall behind them as a reference to the art he made mention of, glass encased feathers tinkling merrily against the beads strung low in his mane, just above his whither, "each herd has been given a gift from their patron God to create from nothingness beautiful things. The Moon, it would seem, admires glass." He chuckles, a humorous statement having risen to mind and the young man finding himself unable to share it. "Apparently, just not walls."

@[Sheba]