The path winds upward.

   Sun beats down through wreathes of mist, hard heat sheening sweat across red flanks. Hooves slap the earth in time to Asur's slow breath, and small puffs of dust rise up to sully the pale thrust of each limb. He struggles to breathe in such a land; he knows only the struggle of living, the slow fevered ache of scarred flesh. It hurts less every day but still the pain of memory remains, the fear and doubt and guilt like weights around his neck. Sweat lathers where the stallion's braided mane slaps up against his shoulder. He might hesitate, but clouds block the way like sentinel ghosts and move like steam through the air. Push up, he thinks. The narrow path defies the urge to turn around. It forces him up, forward - like so many things in life. He bears memory with great reluctance. He thinks, he no longer knows himself.

   He is alone.

   A lonely flame upon the rocks, he moves with slow but careful steps. The seconds crawl on crippled limbs across his flanks and when they lie in piles on the path behind him, he catches sight of the sky - at last.

   Asur pauses for a moment, half a breath - to wonder if he is too far beyond the boundaries of his newfound haven. It is a child's worry though, and quickly tossed away. Before him the slope evens into a sunbaked field, a plateau high above the worries of a toiling earth. He walks like a dreamer through the whispering grass, head cocked to let the single useful eye scour golden stems and wilted bloom. It is a place of silence and the lonely wind, a place for misplaced fire to burn for a short while. Asur glances but briefly toward the sun and moves to stand where he can see across the land, Helovia - a new place tarnished by much heat and age. A great sea coils beneath the northern horizon; a land of blue and white peaks from the waves. He wonders at these things but vaguely, more enticed by the sweet smell of grass and the waterfall he left below. It seems a lonely land, he thinks, too large for the souls he's met within. Perhaps the heat has chased them out. Maybe greater dangers wait for him elsewhere; he can only be prepared. Can only stand beneath the sun and craft his fate anew.

   Wind tangles through his forelock, sweet and bitter as it rises from dark waves. Asur lifts up his head to breathe in, soothed by the voices of grass and sky. Transient calm moves through his veins and the stallion utters a sigh, provoked of hours alone beneath the baking sun. Something tugs at his attention but he shakes it off, ear twitching. The burden of thought weighs heavy on him - he, youngest of four, last of a dynasty, brought now to burn in the sun's fury. Despite the ministrations of his newfound allies, the stallion's face aches with a distant pain. It might simply be regret, he thinks. He might simply be afraid to open that left eye, to see the world stolen from him for so long. To see nothing.

   The grass rustles. The wind sighs. Asur lowers down his head to graze, tail flicking. As the left ear twitches back, the noise of something besides wind at last resounds against some nerve. Quick as light, he spins and stands upright, and there at his side - a dream? - a black mare, grazing too. His heart pounds fierce against his eardrums as the stallion breathes, and for a moment he can only stare - one eye brown and innocent as new earth.

   Asur snorts.

   "I... didn't see you," growls the chestnut. Surprise rings in his voice, embarrassment. How long has she been there? On his left side? Silent? Suddenly alarmed he swings about but no one else stands with them and Asur turns back to look upon the stranger, both ears flicking between curiosity and fear. Has she said nothing? Why? The mare stands similar to him in size and build but painted black, painted with colors like a night sky - black-eyed, black hide, slashed through with crescent white. He smells magic on her - or just paranoia on his part? - and spends a moment breathing, staring, trembling despite his best efforts at calming the swirl of thought. When the mare does nothing like bare teeth and leap for his throat Asur steps back, shaking his head.

   "Are you one of the Foothills' herd?" he wonders aloud. It's rude to stare. Rude to stare, rude to fumble, rude - he's never been so tongue-tied in his life. No one ever just appeared though, like that, hiding for who knows how long... The stallion's ears settle on a backward cant and he frowns down his nose at the stranger, far from angry and deeply unsettled. "I'm Asur," he tells her, all the same. "I was offered shelter by Smoke the WildRose." It seems important that he add that, validation for his presence. He knows he stands beyond the borders of the herd land, though how far is anyone's guess. At least she's not a unicorn, he thinks, or growing wings... He wouldn't know what to say then.

   He barely knows what to say now.

   Skepticism holds through her apology, but the longer the mare trains her uncertain gaze on him, the more guilty Asur feels. His pale limbs shift beneath him as the stallion listens, and beneath the constant slide of moments he begins to loosen up.

   She is not of the foothills herd. Asure suffers brief disappointment, but the mare mentions something called Qian. He recalls the mercenary tribes of home and wonders if they wander here as well, or if the Qian are something different altogether. Now seems hardly the place to ask; he is grateful for the company and too fresh in this land to judge her for allegiance. The mare names herself - Rishima - and he answers with a nod. It is a foreign tasting name, all things foreign here - beyond his grasp. Rather than speak without cause, Asur stands silent. She mentions knowing Smoke but little else and he simply nods again, his ears twitching. Gradually newness of her presence dissipates and Asur is left with little to say and only the view to take in. She takes his silence for rage though, or discomfort, and apologizes again.

   "Don't be sorry," he offers at last, the grating tone of his voice ever strange against kind syllables. "I thought... I was surprised." With a cock of his head, Asur studies her. I thought maybe you weren't real, he almost says, but bites his tongue. Even still the mare is something surreal, and his eyes linger on the pale strands of her mane with interest. "That's all. The wound has taken some getting used to." Surprise lances through him as he speaks of it so easily, and Asur realizes there is no anger in his heart - just regret, and residual fear. Perhaps he was never angry - he is, after all the one that lived.

   The stallion's long face jerks in surprise when she asks about it, though this time the tension dissipates immediately and leaves him standing, thoughtful. He is not a storyteller, but he knows that stories have their time each, that disregarding such a truth is the mark of a fool. And Asur is careful; his eye shifts away to look out over the sea for just a moment - a hesitant moment. "I was betrayed," he says at last, the weight of blood shed days ago now heavy in his voice. He can smell the fire still when he thinks back; he tastes the char of flesh and the sweet tang of blood. Almost gracefully, his shakes his head and long loose strands of mane flurry around his face.

   "We were all betrayed. I was lucky to find this place. It seems... kind," Asur finishes by glancing once more at Rishima. Inoffensive, wary even, he finds solace in her gentle presence. "Smoke mentioned your kind to me," he says suddenly, as the memory rises into his conscious mind. "Your leader is called Mirage. A friend." Asur nods, perhaps more excited than he ought to be, and over proud of his petty achievement. "What brings you here?" the stallion wonders at last, lifting his head to gaze across the field, "so far from the others?" He can only assume the others are far, or else skilled in the art of concealment. The latter option is disturbing, and optimistically thrown out.

   Warmth lingers in his lopsided gaze as he mentions Mirage, and the name banishes all darkness clinging to Asur’s notion of his past. Best saved for bitter days, he thinks. Asur prefers the lilt of joy in the mare’s tone, and even breathes the lightest snort of laughter at her tone. She has a mate, Rishima all but growls. Someone named Vikram - Asur doesn’t care. He has no design on this name - no attachment to this faint idea he calls Mirage. Let her dance with Vikram; he is here. His head tilts slowly, and her moment of intensity flies away with the sea wind, teased off by his voice. She has more to say than he expected, and the chestnut stallion listens in good nature while she speaks - not all important things, but all brief snatches of insight to a foreign soul. He glimpses her behind her words like a traveler sees light through the trees, and rather than rush in headlong and frighten her with his abruptness, he takes the wandering path and lets the breeze skim off the worst of the day’s heat.

   ”Good,” he parrots, gently teasing. ”My brothers would laugh to hear you say that.” His attention fades though, leaping suddenly into the past, and though he catches the sadness before it overtakes his face the feeling lingers - a gathering quiet, a restless blue like evening sneaking in after a good day. She never meant to even say the word, and he shouldn’t have dragged it through his own mind, tarnished it with feeling inappropriate for such a place. Something’s happened to the younger son of three princes, who found nothing waiting for him when he slipped into the world and laughed that off, and won himself companionship instead of any prize. A stranger has moved in to take his place.

   Someone dark.

   ”You’re kind,” he breathes to fill the silence threatening to swallow up them both. The good humor returns, but tempered by that blue now lingering in the stallion’s voice. It’s all he manages before changing the subject to something safe, something he can trust to carry them along. This wound can’t heal soon enough; it lingers on and on, and in its shadow bad things grow.

   She saves him by talking about the sunrise, and he thinks he tastes a bite of loneliness in the mare’s voice. He hasn’t paid attention like he should; Asur is busy struggling against his own thoughts, falling prey to narcissism brought on by a single wicked blow. He forces his gaze outside and lets it linger on her face, a dark name brushing through his thoughts. Rishima. A second child, lonely with the weight of expectations on her back or with the light of an older sister dimming out her own? She expects to be overlooked. She promises to call him good and shrinks from her own judgment, as if appreciation - want for something other than the empty air - is wrong.

   He answered only with a nod when she spoke of the view; his ears twitch now as the conversation turns to him, running past a mention of family on Rishima’s part and turning into a gentle taunt. Asur blows an indignant snort.

   ”They were hospitable enough,” he says, lip curling in what must be described as distaste - though to be frank he has never had a love for doctors, for the bitter taste of herbs. It’s rude to speak ill of your hosts, he thinks, and swallows. ”A man grows restless, though. And tired of sitting in one place. My face is damaged, not my legs! And I was curious.” Tail flicking, Asur shifts his weight. ”I heard there were... strange creatures here.” Unicorns, he thinks. Pegasi. He doesn’t mention that he’s glad he didn’t find them. He doesn’t want to seem afraid.

   ”Had,” he says, as if allowing her to believe even that tiny shred of happiness is too great a lie. That’s all Asur dares voice on the subject though; bound not by secrecy but ignorance, he can say little of siblings now lost. No doubt the notion of those other princes made him seem less distant, more real... He used them that way before but now only feels sickened by the memory of each face - a different sickness for each one. They gather, silent, at the bottom of his chest. He thinks the scar is just a warning - the only physical description he can manage for the things inside him, too. Maybe that explains the soothing presence of the dark mare with the liquid blackness in her eyes and the moon in waning brilliance struck across her hips. She is a mystery, a thing to think of and enjoy, a thing untarnished by these beasts inside him.

   Unaccustomed to this weight of dancing around touchy subjects, giving here and taking there, Asur follows the course of conversation just a little slower than Rishima does. The sound of her laughter draws a broad smile, though - he has always found the noise highly infectious. A low chuckle rumbles in his chest then, radiating warmth already present in his healthy eye. Her next reaction is a strange one though, and without even noticing the tension Asur stands a little taller when she drops low to prowl about, voice hissing like the best of storytellers. His own ears flicking curiously, Asur stands tall but does not move - opposed to movement, in fact. Something in him, tempered by six years of honest training, screams when struck just hard enough and bleeds sparks but never gives. It is the first he’s shown of an iron spirit since arriving here. It is less anger though and more a wariness tucked in behind amusement, a sudden reminder that he knows nothing of her beyond a charming wit and a love of beauty.

   For a moment, while she speaks, he feels the weight of.... something - pouring down on them. A heaviness, a headiness, like magnetism - pushing them together and thrusting him down against the weight of the earth and his own demons and whatever unknown mysteries await beyond. He is a splinter lost in the black sea of her gaze, an old oak groaning in the wind of her voice. He is impervious and vulnerable and drawn in so the liquid warmth of his own gaze is something hotter than the sunbaked earth - something intrigued, something hot enough to forge the iron strength of the will that brought him here, half dead, to this place.

   Helovia.

   The spell breaks and the mare reels back. Asur lets out a breath he’s suddenly aware of holding, and the air around them both seems lighter suddenly, and hotter. Somehow his posture has become a thing contorted, twisted down and arched up, roiled like hot glass to meet the crooning of her moonlight speech. He gives himself a hearty shake and snorts, and deep rumbling laughter shivers in his chest. ”My legs carried me miles when I craved for sleep,” he boasts. ”They don’t tire so easily.” With a flick of his tail, the stallion moves now, curling around her in a wide arc, hesitating when he stands facing nearly the same direction she faces. ”Let’s explore,” he decides, emboldened by his days of rest and memories of worse things - far worse things - that he endured with little to show for it. ”I’d see the places you know first, before I find Mirage.” Asur breathes a snort. "I have had enough of dragons."