Knox expects Manhattan to depart and chase after the white wolf, but is surprised when, this time, she stays close to him. Now you stay, the hunter thinks to his bonded as his grandsire's eyes cast over the cool cave pond. He expects Manhattan's response to be wittier than it is, and is surprised when she replies with nothing more than a simple and honest truth.

You wouldn't have known her, Manhattan offers, and Knox knows that his companion is right. But is it a pleasure to know this other mare? Knox finds pleasure in so few things, that has always been the case. He turns his dripping face back to his companion, nudging her where she rests as if to impart his question. Will she know the answer? This mare, to Knox, she is just another mare. Some other passing ship in the night. He has known so few who have struck him to the core with kindness and something like affection--and now, for a brief moment, his heart stutters at the thought of Aylin, of Mesec, and the Goddess he left behind--and this mare... she isn't one of them. Not yet, maybe not ever. He hides a frown with expertise. Manhattan is right, she is only here because of him, but is his canine cohort the only reason he remains?

Knox looks back to the water and stares at his distorted reflection. His question is answered, then, in the same instant that Manhattan tells him why he is still here:
for Anaan.

And Knox knows, as he stares into the deep blue eyes of that battle-beaten wise one and traces the lines of those heavy black scars, the physical marks of a fear that will never be forgotten, he knows that this is the truth. This is why he stays, to bring an old patriarch comfort after so many years of pain and then darkness: so many years of a still heart.

The hunter lends the protector his life. His own history floods that of the protector, and Knox recedes, resting in the back of his own mind. Let the protector take on this role, and let him have the comfort in company he so deserves.

Anaan lifts Knox's gaze and watches as the mare speaks, taking in her every detail. She is young, but so is he--he suspects they are of a close age. And when she speaks of childhood, of growing up with Romul, he feels a stirring in his own heart. He grew up with a companion, didn't he? And he had a life of love with her, and now, she lies upon his back. Didn't I always have you, Manhattan, Anaan whispers in his mind, loud enough still for the bonded of his host to hear, were you not always mine?

And the dog knows he is wrong, that he is sad and his mind is strong but longing, and weakened now in a state of sorrow that blinds. And the dog knows that the roaned back she lies upon is not the back of the one who saved her in the deep woods so many years ago. The hooves in the water are not the ones who fought away the beasts that hunted her then, and the broad, burned chest that just rises above the surface is not the one she curled beside that very first night as a pup.

Still, she knows she must lie.
Yes, she thinks, Yours

At this thought bursting into his head, Anaan smiles widely. He smiles at the mare, who stands far and above, closer to the shore. He smiles at her white companion as he paddles in the water, away from them. He smiles at the dim shadows cast on the bay's already dark coat and the feminine muscles she sports. He smiles at the line of white so perfectly framing her features, and the starkness of her eyes in the cave where they rest. He smiles at the water lapping at his chest--smiles as the mare walks towards him and lets it do the same for her. Smiles at the way her black tail catches on the surface of the water as she moves and drags silver lines in its wake. Smiles at, he thinks, the sound of her voice as it echoes in the cave. Smiles at something more that he doesn't quite know how to explain.

When the mare is closer, he answers her at last. "She has been with me too, since I was young." Manhattan lifts her head from between his shoulders at this, extending her nose tentatively towards the mare and dropping her jaw to take in her scent. "A good thing to have a friend like this," he says with a low nod of his head, a dipping of his graceful, crooked nose. He contemplates invincibility--in some way, immortality. Is this what he has, now, as he stands here after his death? Can he know that he is still dead and that these lungs are borrowed, this breath exhaled from a soul other than his own?

"Take care, still, for the invincible," he adds sagely, deciding that even those who seem to be in power are vulnerable to something, to someone, to some power that tethers them. "If he is anything like she," and here he tosses his neck back to Manhattan, his mane flipping as he does so, "then his invincibility can only be as strong as yours."

There is a pause, a beautiful moment of silence and everything encompassed in the soft splashes of water that echo around the quartet in the cave. "Our strength is what makes us, but it our weaknesses that companions such as these two counter. Our gaps that they fill, our fears that they face for us."

The protector looks out over the water at the wolf and then deep into the mare's white eyes and the passion that lies within them. "Your eyes," he says, "it is as if he was borne from them."

And then the silence returns to Anaan, like a well covered over before the storm, and the protector lets the world impress itself upon him--the water on his scars and the object of his tireless affection resting kindly on his borrowed, ancient back.


—
[[Essetia]]