Something is wrong.

        The sky is doing it again! Hard rain – Caneo skirts beneath the rugged pines in futile effort to avoid this plague. His hooves crunch over frosted soil and frozen mud, slipping every now and then. After a particularly clever patch of ice bends the silver boy in an impromptu bow, he stalls.

        The cold sings in his joints, in the agitated trembling of fine silver skin. It nestles down into his muscles like an ache, unending, and he shudders now without movement to warm his blood. He has never known cold like this. Confused, he thinks back to sudden torrents of rain, the warm stinging wet, the flooded gullies – not the same. He peers up at the fleecy sky and frowns, distaste pulling his narrow features taut. He is a creature built of glass and knives; warmth flees his skin as if it never belonged.

        While he stands, the strange rain drifts down through the trees and lands in delicate patterns over his bony hips, over the long shape of his spine. It feels weightless at first, but it burns as it begins to melt, and Caneo surges on. His eyes skip heavenward now and again, watching and measuring, certain Helovia is filled with sickness and unhappy secrets. Roland never warned him about this, this days-long deathly cold, and now he shakes even in the daylight, and the rain falls in clouds and eddies, whirling between the trees, flickering into his eyes.

        With a snort, Caneo puts his head down, hunches his shoulders forward, and bulls on.

        He knows his destination, this time. It is a place from before, a place visited often. He cannot call it home but he feels comfort in the play of color and the gleam of tinted glass. He tracks the rotunda’s place uncertainly, his path a wandering track under snow-heavy boughs. Meanwhile, the storm falls silently around him, menacing in its pale beauty, slowly skimming every inch of weight from the narrow boy’s bones.

        He is glad to find the stained glass empty, today, even if its colors dull under a roof of white. Caneo dives under its protection gladly, without even a glance back and forth to check for approaching company. Once there, with the worst of the threat diminished, his twists his body in a clattering shake, as if determined to removed every ounce of the bitter, awful stuff. Indignant, he peers back out at the storm with narrow eyes and cold ears pinned against his crown.

        “What the hell is this?”

        Unusually frank today, wet, and shivering still, Caneo sighs and waits for the wind to stop, and the snow to give up. He is resolved to claim this spot until one or the other, or his muscles freeze.

        He almost misses the sun.

        Loose eddies of wind curl in every now and again, pushing at the drapes with invisible hands. They sing like unseen wolves: a mournful undulating cry, a voice as hollow and as desperate as the cold. Caneo watches the snow intensify beyond the curtains, his glimpses of the outer world all brief. He prefers the relative peace of the rotunda, even if it does moan as if haunted. Even if he shudders still, his stringy body twitching in the cold.

        He should not have wandered off.

        His thoughts move sluggishly, content for a long time to follow the noise of the wind and the muted play of color on the floor. This place was splendid in the summertime; like the silver creature sheltering beneath its arches, it stands muted now, its glory patient. The drapes flutter mournfully; bored, maybe? They catch Caneo’s attention now and again. He has grown accustomed to their movement, though, when at last they part in answer not to wind but to another creature like himself.

        Her hooves strike the floor with a sharp noise. It jumpstarts something in Caneo’s brain; he twitches upright, his narrow body quivering with more than just the cold. Inside, in this little space, he feels immediately trapped. Blue eyes roll his his narrow face, jumping from archway to archway, and only in between the hasty naming of escape routes does he bother to look at her.

        “What a shame...”

        Her voice is soft. Her attention, much to his surprise, lingers on the ceiling. For a brief moment, Caneo realizes he is unseen, a ghost, and a strange disquiet spreads through him. He has not died? He is here? His body quivers insistently; the pain of cold reminds him yes, however unwelcome its touch.

        When the girl does look, a flash of something – fear? – leaps through her eyes. She is larger than Caneo; as caution runs across her body he watches with careful eyes, no longer afraid himself but measuring. He will not run, if he can avoid it. He is too unhappy out there... so he merely looks instead, and waits for her to act – except she doesn’t.

        Someone else appears, instead: a flash of white, the gleam of long, sharp teeth. For a moment, Caneo mistakes the wolf for a burst of snow and merely frowns. Then realization strikes him, burning through his nerves, and no longer feeling the cold he steps back, lightly, on his toes. His ears twitch. “Good morning.” It comes out a little dry, not an attempt at pacifying either of the strangers, but a subtle venting of his mounting frustration. Of course, this morning is not good. It is the worst of mornings, and it promises to be no better in the foreseeable future.

        Caneo’s tail flicks, the scant hairs at its tip wavering. He is no taller than the girl, but he stands at his full height, his head just slightly lowered to regard the wolf. He is surprised to hear its growling taper off after a moment, though he feels a pang of optimism when it does. Maybe he won’t need to run off, after all. Maybe he can even coexist with this strange, burly mare. She speaks at last, though it is only to give a name, and the name of the wolf, confirming Caneo’s suspicion that they come together, paired. He regards this Romul a moment longer before his pale eyes turn again to the mare. Essetia. It’s pretty enough.

        “I don’t live here,” says Caneo. His attentions shifts to the colored roof, the glass buried under sheets of snow. “You can come in if you want.” He doesn’t move, though, instead maintaining his unhappy stance in the center. Interested by whatever it if she refuses to tell him, and by her earlier disappointment, he cranes his slender face toward the girl, his ears alert. “Caneo.” He has given it so many times... he wonders if he will even see her again – if she will even bother to remember it. His tail twitches once more. He wonders if the shivering will be a constant until the cold gives up.

        Caneo opens his mouth to speak again, to ask Essetia just what she seeks here, and what disappoints her, when another girl arrives. This one is small, delicate; her lines are utterly familiar to Caneo’s mind, though he has never known her, specifically. Her blood is desert blood; his interest piqued, he blinks at her, too. The day is quickly becoming a day of oddities; he might enjoy it more if he weren’t so cold.

        Drom. She gives a name – and nothing else. For a moment Caneo blinks at her; she stands apart from Essetia and himself, as if she wants nothing to do with them. “Nice to meet you.” There is nothing warm about his smile. With a sort of shrug, he returns his attention to the bay mare. Maybe, if he moves in close enough, at the just the right angle, he can use her to block the little eddies of wind... Caneo steps forward gingerly.

        “You were looking for something,” he guesses. “I met a lord here once.” The boy pauses, glances about carelessly, though his gaze does flicker over Drom. He doesn’t forget her, but he does ignore, deciding that if she wants something she will have to ask for it. He’s too cold to be begging affection today. “I guess he’s sleeping now, or something.” Caneo glances sidelong at Essetia instead, hoping he has caught her interest, at least. Hoping she will relax, and forget whatever fear first gripped her.

        Dreamer. She uses the word again – like a name – but Caneo stands waking before her. Confusion ripples through the back of his mind. He might ask further but she is soft, this mare. He wants to keep her soft – avoid provoking temper, wherever that may lie. Pale eyes skim over the shape of the wolf at her side, curious still – and wary. It wields teeth only a little sharper than its temper, Caneo thinks. He wonders if that makes the mare a liar, or just strangely matched. The silver boy prefers the second option; he inches just close enough to let her block a little wind, his shivering too obvious, his body unhappy in this cold.

        She doesn’t like it either.

        Something small and warm blooms in his chest – some little inkling of kinship, perhaps. In another universe somewhere, maybe the two of them are friends, dreamers, dreaming together. He could be soft like her if the desert had not withered him; he is nervous instead, standing tiptoe, his body never quite at rest. “Thank you,” he says when she compliments his name. The words are empty as the boy’s smile – learned by rote. So much of his brilliance is cold like the glass above – like the shine of ice. He knows no other way to be.

        But Caneo smiles when she takes his bait.

        His tail twitches. “Yes,” coyly. A moment later though one ear twists back and those pale eyes turn to Drom, who has suddenly awakened. “The lord visits places for mysterious reasons.” Those cold lights in the silver boy’s eyes twinkle brightly as he listens. He wonders then if she is like Tandavi, treating gods like family, like favorite uncles. “You know him?” Caneo asks, true curiosity sparking through his smooth voice. His gaze sweeps the mare more critically for a moment, but she walks unadorned, not like his friend – wearing no favors from any god. Caneo wonders if perhaps this Drom talks bigger than she is. He steps curiously toward her, a half pace, unhappy to leave his place near Essetia’s comfortable bulk. “Who is your family?” he wonders, ears cupping forward to catch the words. He does not understand why when she looks away, her eyes skimming the floor. He does not understand, but he lingers looking at her anyway, patient, expectant.

        Only one ear cocks back when Essetia speaks again, answering his earlier question. Caneo’s eyes roll back in her direction briefly. “They’re very pretty in the warm time,” he observes. “You should come back when the sun shines again.” A brief pause, and his pale eyes flicker toward the outside, the white world beyond the fluttering drapes. “I hope it does,” he adds a bit more softly, tail curling around one slender limb.

        There is something... near familiar in the way Drom watches him. It is a distant look, a watching look, eyes that see but fail to feel. He knows it, and if he were a little better, a little keener, he might say something to bridge the distance between himself, Essetia, and this orange mare. But he does not; cannot. He is, too, a creature aloof. Whatever she reads in his voice, in his careless friendliness, she reads in error. He is not kind, not in love, not anything. He listens, though.

        She speaks of the Earth God, and her rank, and Caneo supposes he was wrong to feel doubt. He blinks at her mention of crafting. What does that mean? What does she craft? Caneo wonders, too, about this Hidden Falls and all the others things falling out of her mouth, slanted in that strange voice. She is like him and yet not; the familiarity he felt when she arrived has long evaporated, and in its place roils curiosity just overruled by confusion.

        “That’s nice,” he tells Drom. Caneo is sincere now – in his own way. “Do you have a lot of stories?” He met a spotted mare once with a head full of them. Drom seems much quieter, though. Maybe it’s the desert blood in them both. Maybe the children of such places are never meant to be happy, and certainly not happy together.

        Essetia demands his attention then, and he turns to look. Something in her tone has changed, though Caneo fails to mark its meaning. His ears twitch, curious, nonetheless. His thoughts turn toward summer, gold and green, and something bright is there on his face. “Yes! I would like that.” He has misjudged her, too, though he may not think to realize it until he’s left this place. She seems like a good mind, though. He nods and turns to Drom again, to invite her as well, even though she probably comes all the time and knows the Earth God better than he.

        Caneo finds her leaving, instead. Surprise bleeds the joy from his face as he blinks, his tail coiling again, once, unhappily. He knows this feeling – too familiar – he has endured it silently so many times. “Oh.” And Caneo does not ask her to stay; he is not one to beg, and even if they might have been better together in different circumstances, on a different day... Hers is another face he will forget.

        If he feels sorrow, he quickly strangles it.

        “Goodbye, then,” Caneo says, polite still – always. His eyes are on her as she goes, on her until she is gone, until he cannot see her anymore. He breathes a small breath, the meaning behind it something like weariness. When Drom is no more, he turns back to Essettia, though his words have mostly fled, disrupted by surprise and by confusion, both. “She was strange,” he murmurs, blinks, shifts his weight. “Do you need to go, as well?” If so, let her do it now. These things are so much easier before he feels attached.

        She is kind, though Tandavi was kind as well, and Tandavi is no longer with him. Caneo is better at drifting away than he is at keeping promises; a part of him wishes, maybe, that Essetia did leave. That part died in the desert far from here, died watching moonlight on black water, died waiting for the stars to show it something lovely or important. Her voices rings like a song in his ears and he nods. Will they meet again? Meet here? Or will he find her body one day – or she find his – lying out for everyone to see? His thoughts are growing dark and sluggish with the cold. This body spun by dreams of heat and an unblinking sun is unhappy in this place and yet with nowhere else to go it lingers, dying still.

        “You’re not keeping me,” Caneo answers simply. No one has yet managed to do so; the idea might amuse him on another day. He blinks then, in search of the easiness before Drom’s departure. He wants to forget all about her. He recalls his curiosity about this Falls though and wonders what they do there. Essetia is one of that place, as well – a sleuth. Is she important, then? Is everyone important save for him?

        “I have never seen the Hidden Falls,” he says. It sounds like water; it reminds him of the sea that morning on the beach, with Roland. Caneo wonders – is it anything like that? His mind catches on the memory and he pauses, glances at Essetia, seeing her now in a different light than before. It is a shrewd glance, not exactly wary but calculating. “Is a sleuth anything like a thief?” he wonders next, and his tone is innocent though he isn’t quite sure why he wants to hide his reason for asking it. Maybe for the same reason he keeps from identifying himself one of the Basin – a forgotten one. He isn’t, really, and he isn’t a thief, though once he wanted to be. A part of him still yearns to understand this feeling in his chest when he thinks of herds, of homes, of families grazing quietly together. It all looks like a dream in Caneo’s mind.

        He wants it, though.

        He might devour it all, if he could. Perhaps some of the hollowness shines through his pale eyes now, as he looks at Essetia, innocent, questioning, but always asking less than he feels. A part of him is here, in this dance, wishing to befriend her and meet her again in the spring. Another part of him is just beside the first, watching and doubting, failing to understand, at all.