He is, for once, himself again.

He has concluded his journey well enough. Out of order, perhaps, maybe skipping one or two places, but close, damn, enough. And he is tired, now--tired of the murder and the intrigue and the lying and deception, and for once he wishes to rest in his own form.

Knox, the hunter, is once again in control. Manhattan trails behind him, dejected and obedient, the perfectly disgruntled companion. Let her master make as many foolish mistakes as he wishes, she will know better than he. She circles him aimlessly, restless, and enters the water in the center of the grove for only moments before leaving it. Let's go, she hisses to her master. She is bored and impatient with Knox; she wants to distract herself, and she wants to hunt. Aren't you the hunter? Manhattan has no time for his emptiness and his upset. Didn't you decide to be a murderer again? Commit.

It isn't that Manhattan wants her master to be a killer once more--it isn't that she wants him to be anything but who he is, which is so rare now with his forms much more often taking over. But now he is Knox, standing tall in his friesian physique and sporting the dappling and glowing white bridle of his ancestry. But if he's going to commit to this blood and gore thing, she at least wants a piece of it: fair and square. They are bonded, and what is his is hers, too. Let the retriever have her share of the spoils.

Manhattan is hungry and bored. She tried, in vain, to catch fish between her black and muddied paws.

Beside her, the hunter stands still and in disbelief. He is broken, unable to accept that this has become his fate. Aylin is gone, his companion despises him, his Goddess has left him, and now... now, coming through the wood, revealed by a parting of the misty veil, is his only friend left in all of Helovia, and he is no longer sure he can trust him.

It's Mesec. Looking for all the world like he is a teardrop of the Moon Goddess himself, the same Goddess who Knox knows has abandoned him. The hunter doesn't know what to do or what to say. He just stands there, legs quivering, heart shaking, mind unsure of itself. Manhattan, having taken note of her bonded's change in mood, looks up at the stallion striding forth. Ah yes, she thinks, her tone obnoxious, her heart unsympathetic, Mesec. She hopes uselessly this will change something in her master's mind, if it, if nothing, can reach his heart.

His voice comes out a rasped whisper, as he calls to the other ("Mesec...") his eyes brimming with hurt. He feels betrayed and abandoned, and yet he has no right, not even to speak the words he does now ("Mesec, is that really you?"). And at the same time, in that same moment, for the first time revealed as himself in this wretched land where he was born, he wants to reach out and touch his friend, to know that the both of them are real.


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[[I screwed up a bit and cause of timelines this has to be in frostfall for Knox, so I'm just... not gonna mention the seasons too much. Sorry for the wait on this, Sarah. @[Mesec]]]