The blue black stallion in the Heart turns about to meet him, and instead of condemnation, a worry which had neglected to itch at the back of Rikyn’s mind, Erebos’ face displays the same unfettered joy at meeting with a true friend.  Their near collision is like a tribute to the ties which have bonded them since that long ago afternoon, the children of Lord and Lady, having found the droll processions of political and societal nuances less worthy than sharing with one another their names, their smallest dreams.

The two Princes, their hearts full of darkness, illuminated (and in Rikyn’s case, anyway, often consumed) by bold fire.

Their clattering hooves still, the sound of their voices rushing up to crush the echo of their clamorous meeting.  Tales of Erebos’ life, this time, do not contain murders or successions, but instead the taking of rank – the same rank Rikyn had taken when he’d returned there in the past Frostfall – and the promise of vengeance.  He mimics the nod of his friend, remembering both of Arah’s daughters well, taking a small moment, as he does when ever reminded of Arwen (he does not think of her on his own except most sparingly, having be saved from the sight of her fallen figure, and the haunting return of it that surely ghosted through Erebos’ dreams).  He thinks softly of her twin, Asche, and her broken heart.

It is a short mourning.

Everyone has a broken heart, it seems; foolish to dwell on such a common affliction for long, to feel deeply for another when his own pains had never been pitied.

"I wish you luck," he says solemnly, "perhaps we should have the delight of meeting the fiend together!"

That he already did meet said fiend, and even took the time to chit chat with him (until they were interrupted by an idiot woman) is a sorry fact for Rikyn’s poor ability to listen to what he’s told, and to pay much attention to things outside of his current train of thought.

"I haven’t been up to much, myself," he says, answering now Erebos’ question as to the lost Prince’s own whereabouts, "I’ve mostly been wandering around.  I did sneak into the Edge though!"

His eyes light up with the remembrance of this particular escapade, his body angling to display the perfectly straight, white line of a scar left behind by Elsa’s shurikens.  His smile, devious and full of the cheek both he and his friend were famed for in their youth, displays how very little he cares that he was caught (in comparison to how much he had cared at the time he had been).

"There is a lady there with magic, star shaped daggers who doesn’t like strangers," laughs the black brown stag, not a single thought given to the fact that he might have died, "it was all good fun regardless."