He’s tired – and sore. His legs fall heavily, stomping into the ground more out of fatigue now than anger and his breathing comes in uneven gasps and puffs, the red lining of his nostrils flashing as they stretch and retract in double and triple time. He hasn’t traveled far from the Basin and its band of misfit moles, but already he’s reaching the end of his paltry endurance. His churning strides fade to a ragged amble moments before he finally staggers to an ungraceful halt, flanks heaving to catch his breath and steam rising off his dampened coat. The ground is hard beneath his hooves and covered in a thin snow, but this powder is hard and clean, not the dirty runoff of spring melt just a mile or two south, an unflattering amount of which is now splattered across his chest, legs, and stomach.

His eyes sting with the threat of tears, but for what exactly? How can he still be the tiniest bit surprised by unfairness in the world? And really, does the Thief and her lackeys dismissal (no matter how earnest his input had been, snarkiness aside) even count as injustice? They only expressed the same opinion of him that everyone else holds (distaste, dislike) and why should that bother him? He is alone in this world, forever from that day. Just because a few of the Basin bastards kinda-sorta don’t mind his company he decides to chug the koolaid and let himself be sucked into the fantasy of justice and purpose all over again? Stupid. Helovia is no different. He deserves to have his feelings hurt for such an idiotic mistake.

He sniffles self-pityingly, angrily, and rubs his muzzle against one knee. Old habits die hard he supposes, but old hurts die harder. He won't be tricked again. He won't waste another lifetime.


OOC // Open to anyone. This is a hot mess and I'm sorry I don't know where it's going, but I thought he should end up somewhere after storming out of the sneak meeting.

∞

It was supposed to be spring. Why was this place still so bloody cold?

Really, Seanan couldn't say what had possesed him to roam North in his ramblings.  He knew that North generally equalled cold.  He wasn't really fond of cold, so it gathers that he should have gone South.  Then again, he did know.  What, after all, was more distant from where he'd come from then a place where the snow seemed to cling tenaciously to the Earth and the wind cut through his fine coat with all the keenness of a knife.

The sun's shine picks up the lavender in the stallion's eyes and the mother-of-pearl sheen in his coat, but it gives him no warmth.  For a long time he is alone, a white wraith in a frozen wasteland.  His thin skin shivers from the aching cold of the wind and he can feel it sinking slowly deeper, into his bones, striking for his heart perhaps.  

Spindly pistons pick up speed and with spray of fine powder and have frozen silt he is suddenly free.  His long body stretches out, all awkwardness momentarily put aside as the fine engineering of ancestors pasts abruptly shows the true purpose of legs and neck too long for looks, a body lean and light and bony.  He can hardly feel the touch of his hooves on the hard ground- more keenly he feels the winds knifing through him, trying to slow him, stop him.  His heart is pounding now though, flushing hot desert blood through his veins and fighting off the chill in the air.  

The barren steppe, like his desert home, is strangely good at keeping it's secrets.  He is almost upon the other horse before he sees the dark horned and bearded figure.  The white stallion skews his body sideways, small hooves grappling for traction on abruptly treacherous ground.  Still, it is not so treacherous as sand and he stumbles to a halt only a stride or two away from the unicorn, more winded from his near miss than from his run.  

Wide eyed and still a little breathless, the pale steed gives a whole body shake not unlike a tremble.  

"Sorry," he murmurs, rosey eyes noting first the danger inherent in the other's build, horns, and hooves, well before he begins to notice the tell tale signs of age.

OOC:// @Albrecht I don't know either but I have a little crush on Albrecht and wanted to meet him!

For a long moment it’s only him and the low whistle of wind sweeping across the frozen tundra, the thrum of blood pulsing through his veins a steady back beat, but as the drumming within slows and quiets a second base line swells, bearing down on him from somewhere out on the steppe. The elders ears plane uncertainly, sure that the sound is coming nearer but unable to say from which direction in the vastness of open space. His failing eyes are just as inept at trying to pick the unknown body out of the backdrop of whites and greys, despite its presumed movement. It's not until the leggy stranger is near to running him over that the spindly figure registers. Albrecht flinches hard, instinct and reflex commanding his body to brace for impact, but the whomp of colliding bodies never comes.

Neck still curled protectively, he opens one eye to glare accusingly at the stranger now huffing and puffing nearby, his ivory coat a perfect reflection of the snow covered landscape (and a perfect camouflage - no wonder he’d been so impossible to spot), right down to the way his flatter surfaces seem to absorb the light around him and glow in an unnatural way. One black ear flicks forward, wondering if the effect is a sign of magic or just a result of obsessive cleanliness when the stranger mumbles what might be the least impressive apology in the history of nearly trampling old men ever.

“Sorry?” He mimics. He can’t decide whether to be incredulous that the stallion is apologizing at all or to be insulted that he doesn’t seem more embarrassed by his near collision. For fucks sake, has he even heard of osteoporosis? They’d need a crew of healers to put these china fragment bones together again after a hit like that. “You’re either a really bad assassin or just an idiot." Insulted it is then. “Go unicorn bowling often do you?”


OOC // @Seanan No problem! ^.^ I hope you don’t mind my talking about his teke shine. My mother used to breed them so I’ve seen it first hand and wanted to mention it in Alby’s first impressions. (Not that hers were ever clean enough to show it off! :P)

∞

The white stallion minces.  That's the only word for the way he brings his hooves in tight together and moves from hoof to hoof almost in place and yet gradually the movements take him a little farther from the heavier stallion.  His eyes flick towards the black horns more often than they dwell on the stranger's face.  The horned kind were not unknown to him though he'd had little interaction with them.  

His awkwardness grows with each of the unicorn's words, head dropping and ears splaying out oddly to the sides as he watches the elder.  Though his ungainliness is impossible to really hide he seems to shrink in a bit on himself.  He can see the age now that he's looking.  This is an elder and even well into adulthood he has not lost the awe of age that was much impressed upon him in his youth.

"No, elder, never."  His voice remains soft.  It's a little too high in pitch for his size, as if it doesn't really suit the stallion properly.  "The ice-sand plays tricks on the eyes, and I had forgotten how well the world can hide things when it is feeling playful."  

Though his words are a bit meandering, the stallion looks contrite, a well-chided colt.  He watches though, more than a child would.  His rosy eyes watch through the fog of his breath, reading the play of muscles beneath the elder's coat and seeing the light shine dully from his horns.  There is height there too, he sees.  Taller even then himself which is unusual.  As tall as he and heavier built, this is not a stallion Seanan wants to fight.  Not just because he sees himself outmatched, either.

His hide twitches, shivering a little though he can barely feel the cold over the heat of his own blood.  Soon that will fade as he stands here in the chill.  For now he is warm though, and that's all that really matters.

@Albrecht

The pearly coated stallion is oddly submissive, skimming his eyes over the old man in wary, apologetic glances. He wonders if the stranger is naturally overcautious or if his obvious discomfort – the shuffling of his hooves, the lowered neck, the planed ears, the whispering goddamnit these ears aren’t what they used to be - is the result of some traumatizing past. There has to be some kind of bad experience or maybe an unseen physical handicap for anyone, let alone a young, otherwise healthy looking stallion to fear an old wisp of a man beyond the bite of his words. Even gangly-legs here could probably knock him over with little more than an exuberant sneeze.

He appreciates the reverence though, a sentiment rarely never expressed by his previous acquaintances or fellow herd members (even despite his following most of the rules, which is total bullshit) and holds himself a little straighter for it, the backward slant of his ears softening. “I suppose so.” He concedes, his change in tone and expression conveying a shift from anger to curiosity. “Are you lost? Or just enjoy the bitter cold? You look too thin for that.” A shiver rolls forward from his tail, over his shoulders, and up to his poll, whipping his ears down against the back of his head again. “And so am I, for that matter.”

Standing still, his shield of exertion induced warmth is quickly evaporating and letting the icy fingers of the so called ‘Frostbreath’ wrap around his gaunt and threadbare frame. For the hundredth thousandth time he mentally praises the CandyCorn – get it? ‘cause he’s a unicorn made of candy – for weaving and gifting him the scarf of thick cotton tied around his neck, gently shaking himself to loosen it from its folds and spread a protective layer of fluff from withers to poll. He might look silly, actually he knows that he does, but when was the last time he gave half a rats ass about that?


OOC// @Seanan

∞

Seanan shakes his head vigorously, short tendrils of mane whipping back and forth in the thin and icy air. This is not the kind of weather he enjoys. But it is different. Right now different is fine.

"I did not know there were places that got this cold. Only on the coldest winters did the air smoke like this." He huffs out his breath and his ears perk in something akin to childish delight as the fog cloud puff around his head. His skin begins to tremble anew- the air steals his heat faster than he would have thought possible. It is hard for him to decide where to put his attention- on the cold nipping at his skin or on the elder who doesn't seem so angry with him anymore. The softening of expression has no small affect on the white stallion's mood.

"I'm not lost, I don't think." He tilts his head to the side, but his contemplative stance is broken by the quick dance of his hooves, unable to stay still. Between the cold and the lingering energy from his run, he would be hard pressed not to fidget. "Are you?"

Seanan watches as the elder shakes the scarf out around him, curious. At once he sees it's use though he says nothing. Here it might serve a different purpose than the sand-veils of his home, but it is still a way of adapting without changing.

@Albrecht

As utterly enchanting as it is to watch the opalescent stallion puffing smoky little clouds of breath from his nostrils like a foal waking to discover their very first winter, the innocent, juvenile humor gleaming from his pinkish-purpleish eyes fails to invade the querulous green of the elder's. Needle pricks of cold jab through the woven wool of his scarf, puncturing and purging what little patience has kept him here and in reasonable decency thus far.

"No." He huffs shortly in answer, scowling at the other stallion's compulsive movement. He wonders again if there's something wrong with the stranger, some undetectable syndrome that makes him behave so oddly, with his fidgeting and the uneven tempo of his words, his apparent obliviousness of the world around him. He seems a great deal younger than he looks too, immature somehow, at least from the crotchety perspective of a genuinely old man, and the novelty of his veneration fades with the dissipating breath from their muzzles.

The black turns to leave, trudge back to the dismal collection of frenemies, enemies, and all out predators he calls a herd, but he stops mid-step, turning his head back to the pearly stallion, one ear tipped forward in curious question. "I have a-" Not home. He'll never be home again. "Residence." He decides. "In the Aurora Basin, just south of here. There's a herd and a preference for unicorns, but it's not binding. They like warriors." He offers this last with a raised brow, glancing pointedly from narrow hips to shallow breast, all shining white and unblemished as well as he can see, but the strangers oily, reflective coat is hard to judge even at close proximity and it's hidden him once already. He shrugs indifferently, stepping away. "You're welcome to follow."


OOC // @Seanan

∞

Seanan shuffles back a bit as the unicorn scowls, then stops. His body goes still except for the occasional tremble of his thin skin. He watches the black turn to leave, head tilted like a curious dog, ears perked towards him, alert. Interesting how he puts it. A residence. It seems like everyone he meets in this land is a stranger to it, displaced. Foreign.

It is too cold to linger, he decides, his tail lifting to flag briefly as he makes his decision. Really, there was never a decision to make. He know why he is here, even if his mind occasionally shies from the purpose. He knows it's futility, and even so he cannot avoid it. Nor has he any desire to live under another's rule.

"I am no one's warrior." It is not soft or sing-song, but the words are somewhat cavalier, casually tossed out in a way that hides anything deeper beneath them. Perhaps there is nothing. Seanan takes a few cautious steps back to put some distance between him and the black, then wheels and lengthens his stride into a ground eating trot that quickly stretches out into sprint. The wind is cold, but it is the wind and it is his friend. He would rather listen to the pounding of his heart than the whispers of the past or present. This time, at least, he had the courtesy to ensure he did not kick snow on the elder who had deigned to speak with him for a while.

@Albrecht