After teaching young Ilios how to fly, the mighty beast had headed south-west, back to the mists of his home. It is a long walk, and Nasreen is sure to keep Ilios company, but the king diverged from their path with a kindly smile. He had not visited the Helovian Threshold in many moons, mostly because he was so often busy when he was within the heard. Still, he missed the freedoms of the wildlands, though he had not left the Edge since the moment Tor had found him in the gateway. There truly wasn't much to miss, but Kaj had been a traveler, a nomad, after the death of his sister had set into motion something that had rolled downhill and never stopped. Though Kaj loved his herd, his crown and the land that had given it to him, he mourned the fact that it only came to be because Aniela had died.

The forest is as dark and imposing as he recalled, though not nearly to the level of the Deep Forests and its mysteries. The pines and firs tower overhead, larger than life, and yet the area seems to draw him in as it did all travelers. Offering new life, new purpose, healing - for those that sought it. Was that why he had been drawn to Helovia? Or had Fate seen the cards of his future and dictated the path of his steps? Kaj held conflicting beliefs, as he trusted in fate and yet also believed in free will, in choice. Deigning not to think about it, he continued on, shafts of moonlight spilling like errant liquid upon his pale golden coat. The night was quiet, sleeping. Peaceful.

Had it not been for the maiden's coloring, Kaj likely would have walked right past her. She was coiled up tight at the base of a tree, and his heart instantly began to speed at the sight of her jutted hip and frail figure. Moonlight cast itself in patterns upon her frame from the canopy above, but it led him true through the forest as he relied on its light to keep from tripping or crashing or some other embarrassing act. He nickered softly his arrival, hoping not to startle her by simply appearing at her side. A look of worry etched itself into the crevices of his handsome visage, and he rocked to his knees before her, mighty wings loose and unimposing at his sides.

She reminded him so much of Resplendence, so long ago, that it nearly hurt.

"Miss, are you hurt? Please, allow me to help you. My name is Kaj, I'm the King of the World's Edge herd west of this forest. We have healers who may aid you, if you are in need," he spoke quietly, putting it all out there for her immediately. He was concerned for her state, and did not want to spook her away too soon. Was she physically harmed? Or was she battling, as Resplendence did, against the current of something far harder to diagnose?

She glows like a broken star, seeping its light upon the shores of her skin. It guides him to her, though she seemed to need a guiding light more than she needs to be one. Her eyes look up at him and he is captured by the shell that he recognizes in her, the loss that plucks a heartstring he'd once tried to cut from the instrument of his soul. Aniela had caused that look in him. His family, his herd, his lifestyle. It is like seeing his face anew, all those years ago. He cannot feel anything aside from sympathy, aware that pity was an emotion not reserved for such losses and experiences. It would only work to either infuriate or upset her, and Kaj knew she could likely not handle either in her state.

Her words are hoarse and quiet, but he is attentive, listening to every nuance that dips and tells in her words. It writes a novel for him far longer than what she'd uttered, telling him everything she would not tell him outright. It was a secret guarded, fresh and raw, and he would not prod at it. His own pain of the past was a good reminder of what it felt to carry such a burden. Her words remind him again of Resplendence, and in her he sees the oddest mix of the frail medic and himself from the past. It only serves to keep him rooted at her side, unwilling to leave her to a misery he knew too well. A fate he'd once wished upon himself as well.

The strength it takes to stand is beyond his capability of imagination, and yet her efforts were honorable. Nevertheless Kaj stood alongside her, sweeping his wing back to offer his shoulder in silence, should she choose to take it. He awaits the end of her words, for he still does not know her name, and yet he feels a deep understanding that he cannot put to tongue.

"I understand," is all he murmurs at first, quiet and soothing, though sad in its own right. Memories are brought to surface what he'd thought long buried. "But the pain does not have to end you," he whispered, trying to meet her eyes. The story it tells is painful to face, in its familiarity. "I lost my baby sister in a world too cruel for the light of her soul. Her parents...our parents...they let her go with hardly a glance behind. She was my everything, the center of my world. The pain you feel...perhaps I have felt it too." Kaj would not be presumptuous, think that it was loss of family rather than herd or lover that she felt.

"But I am here, alive and well. Because I knew that she would only have hurt to see me in ruin. At first, I lived only for that. But as time went on, I found other reasons. I found kin, brothers and sisters who loved me. It began to get easier." A quiet smile budded on his lips, and he shook his head like an old man reminiscing on a past too chaotic for his years. "I never forgot her. I never will. But I have healed." Turning his mighty head he looked at her, quiet but firm. "I cannot in good faith leave you to a fate I once wished upon myself. Perhaps I cannot give you that reason to live. But let me try?" It is a sincere, hopeful question. He would not be able to live with himself if he left her alone, to die beneath the weight of her misery, if she could not find the light that Aniela's memory had given to him.

Skin was warm and soft against his shoulder as he hefted upon himself the weight of her sorrows and bodice in turn. She glows until it radiates in turn upon his own frame, casting them in shades of yellow and gold that chases away the loneliness of the night that they waded through together. He is granted a smile, demure and crushed beneath the weight of a story untold, but Kaj relishes it readily. Perhaps it will be his only token to keep from this meeting, but even if it was he would happily clutch it to his heart with the knowledge that he'd kept a single soul from sputtering out. That was far greater a gift, after all.

Tiny ears swivel towards his voice, attentive, and he prays quietly to himself that for once his eloquence will win out over his normally quiet countenance. He hopes that he will find the right words to bring her back from the edge, back to his side, beneath the warm comfort and protection of his wing. Kaj had never taken well to words, in his own opinion, but if he was capable of leading and inspiring a herd, perhaps he was also capable of repairing her shattered soul.

His own sorrows momentarily take over him, trying to lend a sympathetic story that ended happily rather than with death and peace. Or so he would tell her, for his own heart was weary with the past seasons, and such happiness was rare and scattered far for the noble king. But it was far better than death, he ruminated to himself. Each musing is succinctly shattered by the stretching of her muzzle towards him, dark and inviting, and he responded with a quiet extension of his own. Gold on ebonite, sharing what meager strength they both had remaining to allow each other to continue standing.

Each lyric was soft, and relief shattered over his consciousness to hear the subtle gratitude in her tone. He glanced at her, all doe eyes and silken blues, taking upon his shoulders her compliment and using it to lighten a heart too heavy to give her real hope. Her smile worked wonders even further, and he returned it, hoping to support her in the large, painful steps she was taking in that moment. The first steps were always the hardest, after all.

A lick of shame caressed him, to not have known her name nor cared to give his own. Had he? He could not recall. If he had not, it was highly disrespectful, and he bowed his head momentarily beneath the gold coins of her gaze to express his regret. "It would be my honor," he assured softly at first, grateful to have been awarded even the smallest of chances to help her. Perhaps he could do right by her, as he had not been able to with Resplendence. "My name is Kaj, King of the World's Edge, west of this forest. Will you allow me to take you there, introduce you to my family? We would welcome you with open arms, miss Azaneen. No harm is left untended, be it of the mind, heart, or body. We would heal you as one, to our capabilities, and should you ever deign to leave our lands you would take our blessings with you," he murmured, for he knew there may be a time where she sought a different path than the one he introduced to her in that moment.

@[Azaneen] Similarly late ;-; so sorry

Were she not already glowing like a star brought down to earth and woven into her coat, Kaj would have deemed her lighting up from within as he extended to her an escape. A safety net. She latched onto it, prostrate and defenseless, beneath the weight of his mercy. Had any fouler soul waltzed upon her, perhaps her ending would not have been so optimistic. Sometimes all it took was the nudge from even a stranger to end the gossamer thread connecting one to a life they did not intend to continue living.

Her kisses ghosted across his muzzle, like velvet and gratitude. Warm, sweet clover breath washed across his paper thins and he categorized the underlying scent of her existence into the little journal of family and friend he'd kept since arriving new and washed clean in Helovia.

She seemed struck by his motions, by the words he melted into her ears and let cling to her frame like tentative butterflies perching on her skin. Whatever it was he had said to paint upon her delicate visage such a surprised expression was beyond him, clueless as to what he had done or said that surprised her so. Had she come from a land as foreign as his own, and he had somehow offended her? Though no blow nor crinkling of brow came, her ears remained alert, attentive. So Kaj let his curiosity boil into the back of his mind, to be asked at a later date. Perhaps on the lengthy walk back to the Edge, the few days it would take.

Except then she began to cry, and at first he panicked, eyes wide and ears swiveling about, attempting to figure out what he'd done to force her to tears. Had it not been for her sudden cooing of words he understood, Kaj likely would have leaped towards her and despairingly questioned what he'd done. Whether he could atone for whatever sin he'd committed. Instead, his chest warmed to hear the silken slide of her voice, overcome with emotion. Relief sagged his mighty shoulders. No wonder he never went to the Threshold, he was horrifically bad at it.

A slow smile spread on his handsome face, endeared by her snuffling and adorable manner of speech in that moment. His heart had always been weak to those trampled and trodden upon. "Speak not of debt, miss Azaneen. You owe me nothing but your friendship and company," he assured, eyes warm like summer nights. Kaj had never asked anything more from his kin, and they had in return gifted it to him freely, securing his position as king with their love and loyalty. Kaj knew no other way to rule a herd but with the thickest of ties to his flock.

"Come. Let me take you home."