There is a sound – the crunch, crunch of the earth under moving feet. All the attention in his silver body turns that way, thin keening muscles spinning the jagged angles around, presenting the unseen stranger with a face armed only with that single dagger of a horn, sharp still with lack of use but insignificant. In the world of his kin, he has ever wielded a knife against swords.

The stranger bears no cutting edge, at all.

She is like that other mare he saw, down south – yet altogether different. She carries no weapon, for one – not even between the teeth, not anywhere. Feathers clothe her sides instead, asymmetrical and stark, like the confounding pattern of a flocking bird. Caneo blinks at her and blinks again, his mind shuffling rapidly to lock together all he sees. On top of it, she speaks, and her voice is a bright call, a shard of sunlight through the glass at his back. He must be excused for staring; he has no metric against which to weigh the course of the conversation. He has only momentary knowledge of winged unicorns – of hornless unicorns – and the uncertainty gleams in the brilliance of his pale eyes.

“Hello.” He recovers quickly enough, every string of energy in his body fighting against the urge to step back as she draws near. Nothing in her promises the merest hint of violence – no, she reminds him of Lena. A fragile, almost shy, sort of smile finds its way across his face. Caneo says nothing else, though. Rei fills the silence for him; the words pour from her, quick and bright, and bemused he can only watch. She is more than Lena; she pushes breathless joy into his ears without pause, as if they are old friends, as if he has practice in saying anymore than a word here and there, a question as it catches his mind.

In the briefest pause between her words, he offers up a nod. Then she races off again. The tale is of a place called Lytninia – a myth, for all he knows. But she seems lost in the story, and politely he listens, his eyes all the while covertly tracing her strange patterns of black and white. Delicate and clean, this creature of the sky. He almost wants to laugh; what fallen angel ever shone with such a brilliance, ever thought to see him? He has never believed in such things; he still doesn’t, but he likes the look of her, and the sound of her voice, even if she comes at him with too much force.

When she pauses again, he feels her eyes on him. Caneo shifts slightly; it is not a measuring look on her face. She does not seem prepared to strike – merely curious. And he, curious in the same way, watches her watch him. “That sounds very terrible,” he murmurs, meaning the story. War. He hardly knows that word, either – only lawlessness. Briefly his thoughts drift back, to the silver glint of the sand in the moonlight, that crescent hanging like a scythe above the black oasis pools. Rei’s voice brings him back again, and he listens as she continues to speak – oh, and to speak and speak! Would she even notice, if he were to leave?

He thinks about wandering off, though not out of malice, or even boredom. Caneo merely requires silence – a moment of it – to recollect his thoughts. She is so much he nearly drowns the way the cave threatened to drown him. His eyes roll from the strange beauty inherent to her figure and search the tundra once more, pausing – wide again with surprise – upon the flame-licked silhouette approaching.

His heart leaps; he thinks it Roland, at first, but upon more than a brief inspection he finds the creature hornless. Female. She joins them in silence, and silently Caneo watches her, tension once more trembling, lightly, under the pale velvet of his hide. She carries upon her back a creature he thinks to call kitsune, this one black and white. Only the questioning noise of Rei’s voice recalls his attention to her; with a jerk, the narrow head spins, ears twitching to split between the two mares.

“Why was it that I got started into this story?” Caneo opens his mouth to reply, startled by the look of chagrin on her face – as if she has been rendered suddenly conscious of her own long-windedness. But she speaks again before he does, and his teeth snap together with a dull click. She talks about something called snow and ice – and then her foot gives way, a narrow thing, caught before she crashes to the ground. The movement flares in his brain like an alarm though, and startled, Caneo darts back, a surprisingly quick movement, agile on the long, narrow stilts of his legs.

When he stills, his gaze finds the chestnut mare – also spooked. Breath heaves in his lungs; his heart, awake now, hammers loudly in the narrow confines of his chest. “Careful.” The first word in a long time, the silver voice breaking a little more loudly than before. He speaks as gently as he can, with the noise of his heart like a war drum in his ears. The winged mare begins talking again, though, complimenting his hooves, and bemused Caneo merely blinks at her. “I guess so.” He peers down to look at them, and then across to look at hers – and again at the red mare, so quiet, much more comfortable than the pegasus but also dangerously unknown.

At last, it seems, Rei falls silent in a more permanent manner, and Caneo speaks longer words, his attention flickering between the winged mare and the quiet one. “When I was little, my grandfather told me stories are important. They light up the paths we’re meant to walk.” He smiles gently in the wake of this, secretly triumphant at having said it in such a normal way, so that it sounded almost as if he’d had a family, and lived in a place with a real name. A place like Lytninia.

His ears come up with interest when at last the chestnut mare speaks: soft voice, gentle words. Caneo finds it somehow easy to believe they mean him little harm – perhaps this place is getting to him. Or perhaps he’s getting better at reading intentions, though he hardly feels that way. “I enjoyed your story.” says the nameless mare, and Caneo nods quiet assent. He turns back to Rei, waiting for her to answer the question before he speaks again, though he knows he ought to give his name, and perhaps ask for the fiery girl’s, as well.

There will be time. He recalls many lectures on the virtue of patience.

        He senses something in this winged mare: a brilliance long forgotten, suffocated under days of wandering alone. Such a thing had grown within him once, when he was storm cloud dark and so frail, but it has left, burned out, replaced by silver emptiness and the miles under his feet. He cannot go back to it, but quietly he soaks up her voice. “You don’t talk too much.” Canoe smiles at her, more softly perhaps than he smiles at most. Keep talking, he thinks. So long as he listens, that hollow place inside him closes down.

        Rei goes on to tell them of her own childhood, and this information he drinks with interest. They were hardly like, as children; he recalls his own self wandering the desert, his voice chiming out to strangers, his nimble hooves darting quickly away. Of course, that was after... After Grandfather. He peers at the tundra behind the mares, the empty sky curving over their heads.

        When the nameless girl speaks, Caneo listens, but with a detached sort of interest. He studies her again, the youthful lines of her limbs and her face, and thinks – she cannot be so much older than himself. Maybe they share a birth year. That would be something.

        She seems embarrassed by the thought of singing. Caneo’s head tilts slowly, one ear cocked in curiosity. He has heard the singing of sharp teeth through the night, and the singing of wind, but has never used his own throat for creating such a sound. He ponders this until Rei speaks to him again. What would he sing about? What songs are meant for unicorns?

        And why was the orange girl embarrassed?

        A name. Rei wants his name. He waits to speak as the kitsune leaps from the hornless girl’s back. Though the sudden movement startles, he remains still, his lean figure tense as brittle glass. They’ll know you’re afraid, he thinks, annoyed with his own instinct. Natraj, the red girl names her friend, and for herself – Tandavi. Caneo blinks at her, fitting the name to the shape. “He is kitsune,” quietly. It is a question, but he makes it sound like the mere truth. “He’s very nice.” And now it comes to Caneo’s turn.

        “I’m Caneo,” he tells them. There is nothing else to say; he might also add from the Aurora Basin, but he has lingered there so little time he forgets that part. He is not one of them; he would much rather be among these brighter creatures, even if they are not unicorns. They seem much better than his own kind, anyway.

        Except perhaps for Lena. And for Roland.

        He feels a little guilty when Rei speaks up again, admitting she overheard his temper earlier. And something like embarrassment creeps up inside him, something warm and unpleasant, and he turns to look at her with wide eyes, regretting the words immensely, regretting that he ever spoke aloud to himself, at all. “Eh... I don’t think so.” Caneo simpers, his long tail twitching as he struggles desperately to find a suitable lie. He thinks of the Basin, of the desert, of the stars shining bright overhead.

        He thinks, for the space of a heart beat, about taking these mares to the Basin with him, but he remembers seeing unicorns there, only. And he remembers the smell of that northern home on the skin of those he met down south, those who spoke with cold tongues and looked with cruel eyes.

        He will not bring anyone to that place.

        “My home is far away,” Caneo says instead, as if he has lost interest in it now. “I was exploring, actually. But I didn’t want to go in this cave by myself.” He turns to gesture at the glittering rock behind him, its cold breath rolling over his skin as he moves just a breath nearer. “I don’t like caves.” More brightly, he turns to them again, a little too aware that his sudden cheer sounds false; his manner is childish still, and strained. “Do you live around here? I bet your homes are nicer than mine.”