The water ran.

Early spring sunlight streamed through a break in the trees, the rays of light playing over the ripples in the little stream.  The reflections it showed of the world were broken and distorted, where they existed at all.  Tiny fish flashed silver in the current and the rocks beneath were the many colors of rich earth.

Why is it so cold!?

The white stallion snorted and sprang back from the water, pale rosey nostrils flaring wide.  He shook his head, the frost-melt water still cool in his throat.  It was only recently that he had begun to become familiar with these bodies of water.  They weren't the still, sometimes cool pools that had watered him in the desert, the sand turned to mud around the edges by the hooves of many horses.  Those were kind pools, pleasant respites from the desert's heat.  This was different.

This water moved.  

This water bit.  

This water lived.

Even the air here was wet.  He could feel it sticking in his throat and lungs.  He was half-drowned with ever breath.  And the air was cool, winter in his home but now he knew how cold winters could be.  He had never known winters so cold.  Winters where everything was still and dead.  Only this past winter had he seen it with his own eyes.

With a delicateness that was oddly appropriate despite his height, the spindly stallion stepped over the narrow stream.  He took great care, swinging his long neck around in a sharp crescent to watch the exaggerated lift of each leg.  Once satisfied that the danger was passed, he let his head come back around to the front, long ears swinging up to face forward at attention.  He picked up an easy trot, swift and smooth.  He wasn't going anywhere in particular.  He didn't even know where he was.  He had set himself a path though, meandering and wandering as it had been.  Until something changed-  

until he found the seat of the gods-

there was no reason to stop.  No reason to slow.  The game trail he followed soon broke out into a broader path and Seanan turned to follow it, swing his bony frame along.  His gossamer tail flicked, just barely long enough to reach around his hip.  His head was low, eyes half closed.  Only his ears betrayed his alertness, at odds with the sleepy disinterest the rest of him displayed.

A dream(or a nightmare) —         Something whispers home. He catches it first in the corner of his eye: a flash of white, an opal lost, as if discarded amongst the trees. And the first response is fear. And it's a memory — the sound of jackals laughing in the night. His own feet, running... He is there again and he is in the trees. He is home, he is — scouting. Something bites his ear. The ear twitches; the knot of blue and grey scales living in his mane retreats. The whisper of her body against his is a soft hiss, and it says now. Now Caneo stands beside the road between Helovia and Nothing, a creature of knives and bright laughter, a creature more hunter than prey. Fear bleeds from him like dirty water and he breathes again. The snake, the hunger haunting his head, curls and coils and points her blunted snout at something on the road, something coming rather than going. She smells heat and sand on his hide; Caneo sees sunlight and distance in his blood, an impossible resemblance.         Caneo has yet to meet anyone more sapling-built than he here in Helovia. But compared now to the pale beast he moves toward, he's almost strong(dirty-blooded, fouled). The way he moves, he appears from the trees at the stranger's back, and when he gets noticed - he doesn't quite care. The stranger's awareness speaks only to its abilities; not to his. Still his gait is long and smooth, his every footfall soft. And the hunger in his eyes - it never goes away. It appraises. And he's sickened, though he doesn't show it, by the almost familial resemblance he sees.         (they are not cousins. cannot be.)         "You're lost," he says — a question and not. You don't belong here, he says without saying it. Still his voice is the same old song it always is, bright and pleasant, as if he just appeared — as if he haunts this forest as a helpful spirit and not a hungry one. It doesn't matter what he feels about the past or if he's recognized as kin and kind - he isn't. He tilts his head and his tail twists at his haunches and he's waiting, judging, wondering. Some half-forgotten sense of duty brought him to the woods and it's what pilots him now, though a very desperate part (the child refusing to die) demands flight. "Can I help you?" More subtle than her silver heart, the snake upon his crown slides her head up under the delicate curve of his ear. She watches. Her eyes are black.

sxc.hu

Welcome to Helovia! :D
I could not resist throwing Caneo at another teke, hope you don't mind!

He know when someone steps up in the road behind him.  It's prey instinct- guardian's instinct.  Yet there isn't a hot scent of fur and musk and slaver so he continues on for a stride or two, feining ignorance until he slows to an awkward walk, then stops.  His head swings around.  Head low, ears akimble.  In the dappled light his eyes were pale rose, without the hints of lavender the bright sunlight brought out.  Then he sees him.  A silver sliver of memory ripped from his dreams.  Seanan has not seen the metallic glow on any creature since he left the lands of the desert that birthed him.  

His head snaps up, body performing an abrupt serpentine curve to bring him about to face this new stallion.  His nostrils flare wide, hooded eyes widening to flash whites around.  He is half-wild.  One seashell hoof raises as if in question.

Backwards or forwards?

The long legged elder seems to shift back, then abruptly the hoof swings forward, one long stride that decisively changes his momentum towards the younger.  His skin shivers, though from the cool air or this chance meeting is uncertain.  For one moment, the stallion seems to have regained the dignity of his blood, a child of wind and sand and sun.  A long moment of silence passes before the words spoke register in his long ears.

"No."  The words are spoken in a soft voice, somewhat high for the stallion's size.  Which question he is answering.  "I am not lost."

The tenseness evaporates from his lean figure.  His ragged gossamer tail twitches up to brush at his flank as though to harry an insect.  His head tilts to the side, one ear seeming to dangle listless while the other perks towards the silver steed.  Seanan sidles sideways, a drunken shift that's oddly graceful despite the awkward way he criss crosses his steps.

"No, I don't think so- are there others like you about?  This seems a cold place for a heat-dream."  The words tumble from his throat, each one coming hard on the heels of the one before until abruptly he stops.  Then the gaunt beast shakes his head at the end of his over-long neck, eyes half-closed and sleepy again, though the whites flash in the corners.

The sensation of seeing his own feelings mirrored back is strange; not joyful, certainly. It's cousin to relief, maybe. He's not the only broken creature like himself. The desert gods like fragile things, after all, and fragile things crack so easily... But if Caneo feels empathy for the pale creature, it doesn't show through his expression. He's quiet now, benign and empty, that twisting, opalescent shine reflected in his eyes. Not lost, indeed.         Caneo's tail snaps, brusquely, and his head dips as mirth glances swift and bright along the edges of his face. "No?" It resembles good humor; it says how patient I am putting up with you. Caneo sees no strength in this half-cousin from elsewhere (never his desert). He doesn't quite write the beast off - a narrow suspicion wonders if it plays some game - but he does swallow down the bitter familiarity of disappointment. It will be no prize to haul back to the Dragon's Throat, unless it's thrice as clever as it seems upon first glance (and it might be). But he doesn't know.         Because there's nothing else to do for now, he decides to answer the questions he's pelted with. He feels the serpent growing bored, though. She's young yet, learning patience still, and she sees no meat on their shared prize. She'd just as soon be gone. "Oh, I'm very unique," Caneo answers truthfully, ignoring her. "But you are, too." His body curls forward as he speaks - just a step - the long, graceful arc of his tail weaving along behind him. He's a bit perplexed at this stranger's height, at the perceived age in the lines of its body (the worn shape of muscle, the faint, delirious flicker of the eyes). It must be more than he sees, there must be something...          "So where are you going, Uncle?" It's a childish form of address to fit the half-innocent tilt of his head, the weight and lilt of his speech. But it's also an acknowledgement of kind and, where he's from, an expression of respect. He hasn't used it since he came here - not even for Roland - but now lessons beaten into his hide a long, long time ago are put to some use (Caneo glances away, of course, from the pain involved in wrenching them out from the mire of his memory, from the bog labeled things gone for good).

sxc.hu

@Seanan forgot to ask if you'd like to be tagged

The snake catches his eyes.

It is a lovely thing, what he can see of it, and for a moment his blood-tinted eyes follow it, tracking the restless serpentine weaving through the silver's mane.  He let's the condescension sweep over him- he has met some others in his travels and this response is not uncommon.  It is his truth- if this one will not believe it then there is nothing else for him to do.  But he cannot look away.  Eventually the serpent loses his interest and hungrily he returns his gaze to the supple, desert-born form.  

He is half tempted to believe it a fever dream.

A dozen desert jewels spread 'cross the desert sands
Swept up by a child's careless hand

If they are unique, then is he the only other?  The last fragment of memory that Seanan might cling to?

Despite his wandering thoughts, his response to the other's question is immediate.  His skin shivers and his body lists slightly to the side. "Uncle".  The familiarity makes him uncomfortable, but it does not show.  Instead his sidles a little as if thinking, maintaining the distance between them with an exactness that is almost choreographed.  Is this is dream?  Perhaps it has all been a dream.

"To the end of the world."  The answer is dreamy, voice softening to nearly a whisper.  There is something different in his eyes as they narrow, and the sleepiness seems to betray something else.  Something that would be more familiar in a sand cat's eyes.  "I am seeking the gods' land."  

Am I even real?

Watchfulness in the pale eyes, but Caneo reads nothing else. He wonders if his perception falters now. Behind his ears the snake twists, aware of the gaze upon her but never flattered. Her interest in the wide world extends only in the direction of things which might fill her belly, and things which might seek to fill their bellies with her. She fears the latter less and less each day, as her bond with the silver creature strengthens. They make an odd pair, the two of them: both rare, lovely, deceptively delicate. And despite the kinship Caneo sees (unwanted) in the stranger, she disdains all but the knife edge of his bonded heart.         He stirs slightly, bored by the stranger's confusion and by the dwindling prospects of a worthy find. Long limbs stretch forward, devouring more of the distance between them. It's the mention of gods that glints against something lively in Caneo's eyes. He looks for a moment as if he might laugh, but he doesn't. "Gods," Caneo murmurs. Instantly a being of flame and brilliance flashes into his mind: horned, winged, burning. Caneo had not known a god then, when they met. He isn't sure he knows them now, though what he has seen breeds only disappointment. His thoughts are echoes of longing as he recalls the moon, her silver eyes and - no.         "How lucky!" he chirps. "I've met lots of gods." The long arc of his tail twists along behind him as he steps as if to pass this weary uncle, as if he means to lead him on to the throne of the gods themselves.         But Caneo pauses, one blue eye bright over the stark curve of his shoulder. "I live with one," he says pleasantly. He does not say how long it's been since last he glimpsed the voice of the sun. He does not say how he abhors the thought. "I don't know if he'd like you, though," he admits. Something like concern darkens the brilliance of his face. "They're picky, aren't they?"         Who he addresses this last to, Caneo doesn't specify. The snake, maybe - his imagination, maybe. He shakes himself, a sort of shrug. "If you look hard, you might find a nicer one. What do you need a god for, Uncle?"

sxc.hu

@Seanan

Seanan wheels, ceding the road the the silver stallion, maintaining a distinct body's length of distance between them.  He will not be crowded.  Despite his height, there is bred in him a desire to be free of the touch of strangers.  There is danger in closeness, in the press of bodies.  There is a trap there, where another could bring their greater weight into play, snapping his fragile legs as though they belonged to nothing more than an errant spider.  Even as he swings his hinds off the road and into the trees, not allowing himself to be crowded or herded, his dainty hooves so like the silver's find purchase in the soft loam, so much sturdier than oceans of sand and yet more forgiving than the diamond-like salt flats where the wind drinks the moisture from your breath.

The footing is uncertain for him, but he does not try and improve his footing.  He is likely to move anyways, too restless to remain in one place long.  It's the addiction,  the need to feel his blood rushing in his veins and his powerful heart thundering in his chest.

Then he speaks of gods and the beast is still.  Watching.  Listening.  For a moment the wind stirs the trees and a dabbled shadow crosses his face, darkening his eyes near to the color of blood.  Heart's blood.  He does not step back onto the road as the silver stranger passes.  Instead his lowered head stays pointed at the trees across the way- but he is watching.  There is no mistaking the steady regard and the pointed cock of one ear.  Even his thin tail has gone still and the twitching has still in his coat.  For a moment he good be a statue of abalone.

"Answers and recompense." The words are quiet.  There is still a strange quality to them, almost dreamy, but they lack the hectic pace of earlier.  As though time itself has slowed for him.  

"Answers and recompense."  The echo is barely a breath, hissed between near-closed teeth.  And yet his body doesn't move, standing in an odd portrayal of relaxed disregard.  As if the body is not quite attached to the mind.  Then his head comes up and there are riddle in his eyes and on his tongue.

"And how do you know that what you've seen are gods, little argent?  Are they benevolent, are they kind?  Are they terrible in their glory?" A soft laugh whispers from his throat, and somewhere there might be a hint of sarcasm in is half-lidded eyes as he flips his nosed up briefly towards the sky as if in delight, his short mane falling back for a moment to reveal the long gauntness of his neck.  "How do you know, what is a god and what is a devil?"  

Now he moves, a rush of white, reclaiming the road in a quick long stride so he takes up the position the silver stallion originally held upon their meeting.  And in a strange mockery his gangly form takes up a posture not unlike the younger stallion's.  Head tilted, tail twisting, all life now where before he was stone.

And his eyes are empty, rose tinted-mirrors.