You're so cold but you feel alive

Erthë tried to make herself comfortable. In the narrow space it would be cramped and difficult to attempt the sorting out of misaligned feathers the erratic winds had caused, and while she longed to lose herself in the familiar ritual of preening the girl was reluctant to let Rikyn see how discomforted she was by a bit of mess. Instead she settled for making herself look somewhat decent, shaking out the tangled hairthat that tightened up in the damp weather until it hung in heavy, glistening coils down to half her neck. One day it would be a blanket of silk to tickle pale knees in seductive sways, but for now it remained on the shorter side; slow to grow, slower still to admit her any of the grace or elegance her born nature suggested she ought to possess.

She sensed Rikyn's eyes on her, but gave no sign that she noticed it or indeed felt unsettled by the quiet scrutiny. Patience was not her strong suite, but she could be persistent when she wanted to. Growing up as a wild child with the need to hide from all sorts of dangers - imagined or real - while mother was not around she had achieved a perseverance that, paired with the fatalistic notion that things would happen when they did and no sooner, allowed her to wait quietly until Rikyn broke the silence on his own.

His comment was off handed, as noncommittal as hers had been. She nodded and hummed in agreement (wait, they actually had something in common?), eyes moving to touch upon his lean frame with unreadable expression.

"Lets hope it blows through quickly" was all she said, voice quiet as she leaned against a withering stone column and stared out into the gathering darkness. Night would fall soon if she was any judge, and what little light remained from the setting sun was swallowed up by heavy clouds. The perspiration remained undecided, caught halfway between rain and snow and coming down so hard that the difference was marginal. If she stepped out from the shelter the downpour would feel like needles against her skin, ice to prickle and sting and cling to every inch of her being until her body was heavy with building ice.

Indeed, Erthë enjoyed snow. What she did not like was the feeling of slowly turning into a sentient icicle - something she was doubly prone to because of her cold, heat less skin.

Expecting the silence to drag on much longer, she blinked in some surprise when the young bay raised his voice above the sound of pattering against glassy tiles. Turning to look at him, Erthë was startled to see an almost thoughtful expression on his face - at least that was how she interpreted it, quiet and almost stoic as he appeared to her - and the question in itself was curious.

Tilting her head in honest puzzlement she said; "I'm not, though." It sounded almost like a question. Was that how she appeared to him? "Right now you are here too, aren't you. Mmmh, but that's not what you mean, is it..."

The filly pursed her lips as she considered the question, intelligence shining within the clarity of her gaze. "I suppose I just haven't found someone who can keep up with me" she finally said. "I've inherited wanderlust from my parents, you see, so while I like being at home I like seeing the other side of the horizon even more. No one express any interest in tagging along whenever I take off, so I just do it on my own."

Shrugging, she glanced at the horned stallion to see if the answer was satisfactory. Erthë had never thought of herself as being alone. Solitude was something so natural to her that it had grown habitual, just as it was habit to always carry around what possessions she owned or linger of the image of the Goddess' smile before she drifted off to sleep. She had friends and acquaintances across all of Helovia, from the familiar faces in the Edge to brief acquaintances like Rikyn himself, Volterra, Murtagh or Maren. It could go days, seasons even between seeing any of them, yet she did not feel lonely; closing her eyes was all she needed to feel them there, present within her warm, generous heart.

It was a curious thing, to suddenly see herself from the perspective of another. She was frighteningly young, though she did not feel like a child - she hadn't in a long while, not since her mother passed away - and it was true she always appeared on her own, popping up here and there like a restless spirit unable to find rest.

But, she thought to herself, the same could be said for the arrogant unicorn next to her.

"What of you?" she asked, suddenly curious despite the near instinctual reflex to say something snarky. "Do you spend much time with your kin?"

The wind howled and the sleet pounded against the roof of the rotunda, but the cygnet barely noticed as she focused her attention on the enigma of an arrogant rascal that was Rikyn, interested despite herself in hearing the answer.