Like old friends the shadows greeted her and the night said a fond farewell as her slight form stalked into the woods on quiet feet and her eyes, still vacant from the day she was born, carefully mapped out her path. Blood dipped wings were pressed tightly to the sides of her skinny bodice and unruly hair draped in long curls framed her fragile outline, tail snagging on branches and undergrowth. The cadaverous spy had skulked away from the confusion that was the Hidden Falls to find a brief moment of what she would describe as peace. The trees had seen many, many violent battles and watched the lives of others dwindle away, their haunting presence was a comforting one and their rough bark like the rough edges of her soul. A conniving forest for her conniving heart. Ghost did enjoy walking though the woodland on a dark night.

Her adventure was a quiet and solitary one, much like her existence even with the Falls as her family, Ghost wished for none of their company except perhaps the Necromancers. Their ways of thinking were similar and even though the sprite had claimed victory in their only skirmish, Ghost still respected the magic that flowed within her.

Like the mist on a damp day, she drifted on at a slow pace until she heard voices on the air and her steps fell to a halt. As always, Ghost's expression didn't change, but she cast about with ears swivelling in attempt to find where it was coming from before setting off in its general direction. It took her a while to find him as her pace had been slow, hooves careful to make as little noise as possible and even taking longer routes at times. Though eventually she found his behemoth shape of spots and hair.

The sprite didn't realize that she had already met this one before, so young she had been, Ghost remembered nothing from her very early days. Though his name she would know, his appearance was a mystery and so she shifted from the protective embrace of shadow and moved into a more well lit position where the nights silvery glow broke through the woodland. Coming to stand next to a rather large tree and eyes bored into the front strange stallion before they caught they movement of owls above. She liked owls, they were creatures of the night and shadow lovers themselves. For this her lips quivered into half a smile before disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. Her vacant gaze turned back to the stallion then as her eerie breeze of a voice commanded with one word.

"Stop."

She watched his lids lift as easy as if had he just been blinking, revealing a sharp colour of captivating blue that were the very contrast to her own. Still, Ghost was not quite sure if he was all there. Then again, she lived in a herd full of mad folk, surely she should be used to these weird meetings by now. Yet, she carried on watching him without moving a muscle, intrigued as to who he was and what on earth he was doing shutting his eyes in the dark depths of the deep forest. Did he too, like Ghost, feel at ease in its shadows? The mare snorted at that thought and watched his face that looked almost alert and bright now to her presence, his voice a sharp mix that matched his clarity and her lips set to a thin line. What an odd question to ask. Did it really matter, he was awake wasn’t he? Finer details like this were simply lost on the mare who preferred to talk in simple terms. Though ‘stop’ wasn’t quite the fitting word, ’wake up’ sounded too… Friendly.

"No" was her answer to that. Better to head him off there than to lure him into a ridiculous conversation about the right and wrong of words. Ghost couldn’t care less.

Her gaze shifted back to the owls then and she watched them with interest. Owls had faces that Ghost adored, sharp and intelligent, but not always easy to read. They could unnerve you with a single glance and watch you forever from dark encased trees. Clever little birds, they were almost inspiring to the sprite and when she turned back to the male, she wondered again if they belonged to him with a jealous surge. She remained silent on the matter though, more intrigued as to why he was walking through the forest with his eyes shut. "Do you like the forest?" An odd question really, but she found herself curious, of the times she’d visited the mare had never seen too many lurking in its shadows.

Blank gaze cast about their environment in a quick examination, checking for any other figures before finally, after admiring its beauty a little, she returned to the stallion with a brief frown. Her voice was the same cold breeze of uninspired interest. "Who are you?"

She never really understood why she needed to know answers to such trivial questions or why she insisted upon conversing when it wasn’t exactly her strength. In all her life she had always been a tool, a means to an end, something useful to pick up and perhaps misplace later. Never thought about in a moment of worry, never loved beyond her usefulness and maybe in a place at the back of her mind, in the corner of her heart, it hurt. Emotions were cast aside, they were burdens that damaged her value and she had no need of them. Yet, of course her emotions never went away! She simply hid them and refused to acknowledge them coming to a point in her life where she couldn’t identify feelings or understand what they meant. She became a creature that lived off impulse, unconsciously spurred on by loneliness and a need to be needed. This stallion before her who gave away nothing in the way of expression and answered her questions with brief notes was Ghost’s source of entertainment, a temporary cure to a lonely heart and she enjoyed trying to understand the lives of others. The mare would remain for as long as it cured her boredom and her intrigue before moving on.

His first answer, however, disappointed the sprite and she snorted disdainfully. "The shadows are comforting. I could live here forever" she said with no real feeling, but her eyes gave away a flicker of fondness for the scarred woodland. It was no secret after all.

She left the topic of the Deep Forest at that and didn’t ask into his reasoning of not really loving the place. It would only lead to more scornful sighing from the mare. Instead she let the pause in conversation run whilst watching him carefully as he came to answer her simple question into his own identity. The answer this time came as quite a surprise.

Ghost said nothing for a while with her gaze staring at him, but not consciously on him, as if she was lost in thought, her mind organising itself. Mauja. A name she knew, but never the appearance until now. Finally, she let out a long, quiet laugh before her eyes returned to him with a new kind of look, as if she was seeing him for the first time and she took in every detail. If her mother was around perhaps there would have been fireworks, but nothing like that was going to be instigated from Ghost. "It answers enough, I know who you are, or who you were" she simply stated. She knew not who he was now and she knew nothing of his story, but she knew what he was to her. The sprite had become an outcast by his command.

For a moment, she wondered if he’d remember her. After all, she would have only been a tiny filly not worth a memory. Judging by his reactions so far she presumed he hadn’t recognised her by appearance or maybe he did but chose to ignore it. Perhaps her very presence still insulted him after all these years. Who knew? Ghost decided to jog his memory in case. "You outcast me when I was just a child. If I am presuming right that you are that Mauja." She prodded and poked with an emotionless voice and heavy gaze, watching his features that had been neutral so far throughout their meeting.

"I'm Ghost"

He had a likeness to nothing. She watched his face calmly and tried to understand perhaps just a little of him, but to no avail. You'd think a former King might have kept some of his previous grandeur and yet, he looked like a vagabond drowning in his own stoicalness who needed at least a months worth of sleep. There was nothing to him, no inkling to former greatness and no hint to who he was now. He was just him. A white spotty stallion falling asleep in the blood thirsty woods. Ghost couldn't tell if she was amused by this or disappointed, maybe a bit of both. After all, she had never known what to expect.

At first, he says one word when she reveals herself as the tiny foal he had outcast that day. Ghost didn't really care for the wrong he'd committed against her, if it was even a wrong at all, she was more interested in him. His reaction amongst other things, if he could manage it, perhaps that was more like a shot in the dark. She'd get a better reaction out of a boulder. He carries on talking though and she listens intently to his words, hanging on 'unfortunate' and turning it around in her head. Did that mean he regretted it? Or did he think that maybe he should have killed her there and then? Wasn't she everything he despised?

The question posed to her was an unexpected one and the spirit frowned at him. Killed her? No, that would mean her mother would have wasted her most valuable weapon. An innocent child whom she could corrupt to her own ways to unleash on the world when her horn was long enough. No being killed by her mother at that point would have been a mercy that she couldn't manage. "No. That would have been a waste of a weapon she was working so hard to forge" she put it eloquently on her cold breath. "Why, were you hoping I'd be dead? Unfortunately I'm Ghost by name and not by body" she teased and poked, seeking his story, his truth to sate her hunger to simply know.

Surely, if he wanted her dead then he should have done it himself. Perhaps he was a true coward and didn't want to bloody his own horn. Or was it something else that spurred him to ask such an odd question. Did he know who her father was? Seiren had said he was a stupid bird not worth mentioning and that she looked almost exactly like him. Except, Ghost wasn't a stupid bird as her dam had quickly found out, a weapon forged that she could not wield, such was the extent of her mothers weakness. Once a mass murderer and now only nothing.

She wondered, at first, if it was annoyance that plagued her mind and niggled away at her lips. Was his stoic silence and straight face beginning to play on her mind? It was almost like looking at herself in the mirror. Ironic, that she should become so much like the one that condemned her to a solitary life. Yet, was she? He could be someone completely different behind that thick skinned appearance and if the layers were ever to be peeled back they could be as different as dark and light. It was this that captured her attention, stilled her cloven hooves and fixed her starless eyes on his unchanging face. The chase of words was over, he was revealed to be the mighty Lord that threw her from her cot to live in the den of her mother, yet he seemed to unlord-like. So normal. It was intrigue, not annoyance, that captured her mind.

Of course, if the conversation remained like this and the old spotty bastard decided to be a boring bastard instead, the spy would have to give it up as wasteful task. Stalemates weren't fun.

She listened to his absently delivered words and smiled at his contrary reply. Ghost almost thought he was going to defend his actions though instead he left her with more confusion than clarity. His enigma growing as she began to wonder why on earth he bothered to outcast her in the first place. Wasn't she supposed to be everything he hated? Why not just kill her? Or was conscience playing a vital role? Did he suspect Seiren would do this? If that was the case, Ghost lessened her opinion of him. "Why? Why not just kill me?" She asked, her face becoming a mask of brooding darkness and her stare was like a gloomy cauldron awaiting the next odd ingredient to twist the tale. Did he expect her to thank him for her own life?

Hooves shuffled as she moved to stand up tall and straight, rustling her feathers with purpose, "am I not what you despise most?" Had he changed or had her mother been wrong, Ghost did not know the answer, she knew only what she had been spoon fed. Perhaps he would not want to answer, he was not obliged to after all and the spy did not feel it was worth fighting for. History was history in the end, though it would be nice to know exactly why she had spent most of her foal hood in the chains of her mother, rather than the freedom of death.

She'd rather be a real Ghost and live one with the shadow.

She waited with well practised patience, dark brooding eyes boring into his spotty face that impressively betrayed nothing. Ghost thought by opening up a past memory she might've sparked something from him, perhaps a glimmer of what he was really thinking if he was thinking of anything at all. It could be that she was simply boring him. There was no way to tell and nothing to do but speak her mind and wait to dissect his reply in hopes to find something, though what it was she was looking for the sprite had no clue. A more exciting story? More of a reaction? They seemed along the right lines and the young spy began to doubt she was going to get either. Her cloven hooves shifted in response to her restless body that wished to be on the move once again, the deep dark wood calling her name and whispering cold tales.

Her poking and prodding gained yet another answer that contorted her expression and hardened her eyes. Her maw quivered as she shook her head gently, folds of knotted black mane falling over one side of her already shrouded face. Carefully, the spy attempted to move her dark horn to hover next to his neck whilst one eye stayed fixed on his pale features. "So even then, you were soft hearted? You should have killed us both." Her maddening gaze remained on him for a few seconds longer until finally she lifted her horn from where she had placed it and an unpleasantly disturbing giggle bubbled from her mouth as her lithe legs took a few steps back.

"You've changed into a boring fossil, I think I prefer the sound of the old you." The banshee quietly commented, finding that she understood the King Mauja more than this devoid castaway that stood before her who was, in Ghost's assessment, a silhouette only of a former Lord. A soft sigh passes through her lips and she settled back into her usual aloof self, the moment of mania fleeting, a long passed on trait from a rather faulty lineage. Her mind began to wander and slowly she started to turn away from the bereft Frostheart.

Momentarily, she traced the trees in attempt to find the two owls from earlier, Ghost had always imagined the intelligent looking birds to be similar lovers of night like herself. She had no proof, obviously, but it was a nice thought. "Beautiful creatures" she complimented, hopefully their direction before restless legs began her gentle walk further into the dark woodland, tail snagging on the undergrowth. "Don't get lost in the deep dark woods, oh fallen one" she crooned creepily back to Mauja over her shoulder. The words that marked her departure.