The sun blinded his right eye and he had a little trouble making out her face in the bright light of the dawning day. But it didn’t matter, he could count the hairs on her body only by closing his eyes and imagine her before him. At least it felt like that, like he knew every nuance to her color, every curve and feature of her face. But nothing had a greater affect on him than her voice. She had the voice of an angel and every time he heard it, he felt both hot and cold at the same time.

"I can't say i've ever heard of such a place, but if it is full of shadows of the dead.... Surely it can't be a place i'd want to visit anytime soon."

Breeze laughed and shook his head. He wouldn’t either. In fact he’d promised his parents to never venture near Isilme. He would not break that promise now when they were both dead and gone. Well, he wasn’t sure about his father, but the uncertainty wasn’t much better than the pain he felt when he thought about his mother whom he knew was dead.

Kiara spoke then and her sweet voice pulled him out of his thoughts. He forgot his own problems in the blink of an eye as he watched her face, the best he could with the sun stinging him in the eye. As her story neared its end the roan femme stopped and Breeze did too. He met her green eyes with his own deep pools. He wasn’t sure what his face was displaying, but he tried to let her see his thoughts. He couldn’t say he’d understood all of what she’d said, but he figured as much as when a stallion “claimed” someone it wasn’t something nice.

"It must have been awful. I am sorry you had to live like that." he said, trying to show her how much he cared and how truly sorry he was she’d had to endure such a childhood.

Breeze moved his body closer to Kiara when she started speaking again. He touched his muzzle to her withers and softly he moved his upper lip trying to comfort her. She smiled at him when she spoke of the Qian and he stopped nuzzling her withers to give her a smile back. Then her words changed to contain him and she finished by saying: "But with you I was never afraid, only shy..."

And now even that is fading. He thought, knowing it was true for him too. Not that he was usually afraid of other horses, unless it was a big, mean unicorn with a very scary horn; he didn’t like those pointy appendages one bit. But uncertainty and awkwardness had been his worst enemies while talking to others and he’d only felt shy when he met Kiara. It was almost as they’d been destined to be friends… but Breeze was silently wondering if they were something more. But what was the next step, after friends? He thought about his parents, they had been friends, yes, but friends didn’t just go and make a foal, did they? And how exactly did one make a foal?

As his thoughts about life and the little, next to nothing, he knew about reproduction kept his mind busy they’d left the Dragon’s Throat far behind them. Breeze was beginning to tire and he was very thirsty, so when a crystal clear lake, surrounded by naked willows appeared in front of them he turned to Kiara and said: "We should rest for a while. Not too long though. We don’t want your muscles to get stiffer than they already are." He smiled and nudged her shoulder before he walked over to the water. He lowered his muzzle and drank in deep gulps. It was the best water he’d ever tasted, so cold and crisp; it quenched his thirst right away. Then the young creamy stallion lifted his head and looked to Kiara, it was obvious he was puzzled over something.

"When you said the stallion would claim you, what does that mean? And how could the stallions of your herd just decide that a mare would bear their foal? I thought foals came out of love, don’t they?"

The sun had reached its highest point above them, and in their steady speed they’d covered quite the distance. They would cross the borders of the World’s Edge long before dark and therefore Breeze thought they could afford to rest for a bit.