Ashamed to have frightened the gentle maiden, Kaj's eyes dropped from her visage to the earth beneath his hooves, shoulders tense with the sound of her griffin's scream. His mane was still cropped short, a reminder of Valiance's attempt to blind and disfigure him. A lingering instinct, one that made him tense and tremble beneath her companion, magic lingering beneath the surface of his skin in a panic. When nothing comes, he tentatively lifted his eyes, shoulders still hunched defensively with the memory of fire and pain. Still, all he found were gentle golden coins that gazed back at him, full of a kindness and gentleness he had not experienced in far too long. Kaj was a creature of touch and tenderness, kinship and love. It radiated out to him like a warm embrace to a streetrat orphan. Tentatively he stepped closer, wondering if her light was strong enough to withstand the force of his taint. Few had, after all.

Her smile is sad, too sad for her pretty face, a contrast to her joyous countenance before he'd so cruelly intruded. It was testament to the powers of his own disruption, destruction. Clearly it was already in effect, spreading out to latch onto her, prepared to drain her and leave him dealing with her corpse. His heart was weary, Kaj did not believe he could survive that another time.

Yet she beckoned him forth regardless. Not merely an allowance, but a plea. It was odd to him, that she would want him near, with the state he was in. A broken man at the feet of a saintly goddess, afraid to touch even the hem of her robes for sake of staining it with his soiled hands. But he was a desperate, broken man. A weak man. And so he yielded to her beckoning, falling into her light with a sort of fumbled relief that betrayed his shattered state.

Eyes flicker between her and the ground, not daring to gaze more than once upon the narrowed eyes of her bonded for fear it would bring his magic surging up to hurt her accidentally. Or worse, cause him to flee, the coward that he is.

Her name is bestowed upon him, and he cradles it like something precious, priceless, in his calloused hands. "My name is Kaj," he offered quietly, wincing when he realized that it would be painfully obvious who he was the moment his name was mentioned. Herd lead names were known far and wide, and though he cared not for what she thought of him, it was his herd that he feared for. But he was so weary of being fearful, of being careful, that he did not care to sustain the emotion for long. Instead, he moved closer.

He remained silent, merely watching her gaze up into the moonlight for a long while before any words deigned to fit a pattern on his lips. Was this his confessional? "My heart is weary, miss Arah," he began, turning to gaze out at the betrayer in the sky. "I have lost my sister too young, forced beneath a mask of quiet control by my father. And when I came here, when I saw how this land flourished in their excitability, in their raw emotion..." there is something akin to awe in his voice for a moment. For Helovians never did anything in halves. It was something Kaj respected as equally as he feared.

"I fell in love. I killed to protect her, without a second thought. I served her faithfully, even more when we were promoted to lead together. I took upon myself her burdens, for she wanted freedom, not the chain of leadership." Was he revealing too much? Ah, but perhaps it was best to suffer the consequences than hold all if it within him. Who else could he turn to? He had lost them all. Quilyan, Destrier, Ink. Evangeline, especially. Who else could he seek to cry upon their shoulder? He was alone, lost at sea on the endless waters of his own sorrow.

"I loved her without boundaries, without qualm or question. And when the day was done, she took all I had ever given her and shattered it at her feet." Agony was raw in his voice, but he spoke it so simply that it had to be obvious to Arah that he had reached an odd state of numbness. "So I turned to another. A stronger soul, beautiful, like fire and ice waging in a singular form. But she left me, too, for a stag I held dear." A weak smile lifted at his lips, pathetic.

"It continues on and on...I give and give, and they take. Until there is nothing left of me." Cold, fractured irises turned to gaze upon Arah's face. "I suppose this isn't what you were expecting, or you would have never invited me to stand with you," Kaj chuckled bitterly. "I tend to speak too much, too freely, when I am at the edge..." the edge of what he would not say. He did not want to frighten her, nor force her pity. He was an empty shell with a thousand words bound up in his chest. It was simply her own bad luck that he had been drawn to her.