Footsteps approaching through the gloom raised no alarms with the cygnet. Where once she would have been on edge even within the creeping mists, a wild child haunted by shadows in a forest much the same as any throughout the wilderness, Erthë had come to trust in the illusion of safety this place provided. Herd, family, god and home - mere words that surely would come to ring hollow and empty one day. Yet she chose to believe in them, believe that this forest (so similar to all the others) was special, held in a protective embrace by a dark goddess. She chose to think that the guards did their duty in safeguarding the borders and driving off predators, opted to believe that no one who resided beneath the Moon's silver eye would wish to inflict injury upon her.

In any other forest the sensation of a presence closing in on her would have made the girl tense, reach for her weapons and turn to face impending danger... but not here. This was the World's Edge and she was safe, and so she only threw a short glance towards the stallion that stopped further off along the cliff to register his ghostly pallor, accented and amplified by black kisses strewn across a sturdy frame. A visage that was known to her, if perhaps not familiar, a presence as unsettling as it was comfortable. He was herd, therefore family, and yet... still.  A stranger.

He glanced in her direction and looked away again, staring out into the mist as though he could see something in the swirling mass, but Erthë let her gaze linger on his silhouette with an absent-minded expression on her youthful features.

Mauja.

He was a mystery, like a question left unanswered. She knew so little of this man, only trivial facts. He had been the king of this land when she came here. Then his daughter had died - she tried to remember her name but realized she had never known it - and he stepped down, appointing Tembou to lead in his place. After that he just... existed it seemed, like a spirit haunting these woods with no apparent purpose. Sometimes he appeared and acted brashly, rudely, like that time when Glacia had come to the herd and he refused to greet her - his own daughter - and at other times he was angry, only to become friendly, perhaps even protective? She still had no words to describe what had happened that time when they met by the Heart, and Mesec had appeared... had they been friends at that moment, as she hid behind him and he let her?

Probably not. Erthë had a feeling that it would be very difficult to get to know this person, and she was not entirely sure that she wanted to. It was much more comfortable to regard him from a distance, where she could allow herself to feel irritation, apprehension and jealousy without a guilty conscience. This stallion, with frost-coated horn and impassive face and eyes that revealed nothing of what went on inside his head... he had a way of stirring up stormy feelings within her that she was not ready to deal with. Anger, impatience, respect, admiration, inferiority... jealousy, because for some reason her beloved goddess had summoned him and excluded everyone else from their conversation. And when it was over he had disappeared off somewhere with Tembovu and no one had told her what was going on.

It was petty, it was selfish and egoistic and childish but it burned her to be left out like that. She was a part of this place too, was she not? She was a friend too, was she not? She might be young but she wasn't stupid, she could keep secrets, she could help, maybe, if she got the chance to try. She had been right there and yet... no one had paid her any heed. It hurt, it stung, it rankled her, and Erthë wished nothing more than to shout, to jump and flail and scream out her inner turmoil, throw it into their faces and force her presence, her affection and curiosity and willingness onto them until they had no choice but to accept it and return everything she longed to give in equal measure.

But though she looked at Mauja now, though one of the targets of her frustration stood within earshot of her, though the day was still and calm and time flowed past at a snails pace, fat and languid and overabundant, it was as though the mere sight of him caused some dark void to open up. Though she stood close enough that he might feel the rush of wind should she beat her wings, there was a mental distance there that consumed every raging emotion that dared raise its ugly head.

Because, after all. They were not close. Even though she knew his name and he knew hers, even though they had lived in the same place for nearly a year, though they had exchanged words more than once... he was a stranger to her, and she to him. Why should he tell her what he spoke of in a moon-lit clearing amidst flowering roses of ice? What right did she have to demand anything of him, when she had given him nothing but a few words in passing, hard and difficult to interpret?

Why, indeed.

But then again, why not. Erthë altered her position where she stood, shifting weight between legs that ached in the damp weather and looked away into the gray wall of nothingness, as bored of it as she was of the stillness within the forest. The silence was numbing, deafening, and she could endure it no longer.

"Mauja?" she inquired softly, quiet voice drifting towards him through the still air.

DANCING IN DARKNESS
to the sound of a drum