Narrow, rigid, cold eyes looked upon the Helovian landscape with some sort of distaste.  Angry eyes were only the beginning. His walk was strong, his hooves dropping heavily onto the dry ground. His muscles rippled with every movement. Beside him was his ebony hound. From her inky lips, between razor teeth, hung a mahogany tongue, slick with saliva. She was the only company he would keep in his life that wasn't temporary.

          The sky was dark- it was the middle of the night. Only the slight peppering of stars and a sliver of moon gave light to the eerie meadow. Caleb's presence here was almost... inevitable. He fit into the dark scenery with wicked perfection. The beast has grown since he last roamed the grounds of Helovia. He is broader, more muscular, yet also cynically colder and detached. Henrietta has grown, too, but in different ways. The bitch is analytical, judgmental, and systematic.

          The pair had silently left Helovia for no reason in particular. Perhaps they left because they felt like it? Caleb is not known to stick around for long. He has little idea where his progeny are, though it matters none to the cold-hearted beast. Those mares he used to care about, he has forgotten. Those stallions who he has fought, he has forgotten. His previous years here matter little. What did the past matter when the present is so much more interesting? In the now, everything is new and interesting. You've already lived the past, it has lost it's excitement. His goals are reset, his dreams have changed. What he craves has changed. What he chases has changed. The beast, however always a beast, has changed.

          Through their mental bond, Henrietta asks the beast 'are we going to the Aurora Basin?' The beast's mental response came quickly- 'Soon, Henrietta. Soon.' The quick, mysterious response answer's the hound's question completely. They were going home after they finish their business. 

          The approach of another was unwanted, but not unexpected. Helovia had a way of tossing horses his way. This time the horse that moved towards his impressive form was not a mare, nor an imposing stallion. It was a colt, a flimsy animal not yet developed. The approach of such almost caused a deep, wicked, chuckle to ricochet upwards from his chest, through his throat, into the air. The daffodil child was minuscule. Henrietta watched the child through her metallic eyes, noting every lean part of his body, from his foal-like facial structure to the oddly colored sprays of red on various parts of his golden body. Caleb's eyes never moved from the colt's. He was met with a strange sense of familiarity as his eyes focused on the colt. The boy's voice floated from his young flesh in a soft way. The sound wasn't aggressive, nor threatening (though Caleb doubted anything the boy said would ever be seen as threatening). Caleb had no verbal response for the boy, the only reply offered was the writhing of his snake-like feather-tasseled tail. 

          The beast stayed silent, his rumbling voice kept at bay for now. At his sides, massive wings hung low, relaxed. Oddly marked face twisted sideways, cocked slightly. What does this child desire, Henrietta? The inquiry is sent to the bitch through their bond. Her canine eyes leave the child's body for the first time since his arrival and flick towards Caleb, he does not look back at her. His eyes remain on the child, still watching, alert. I have little knowledge about the works of unicorn children's minds. Inquire the child. His nostrils quiver briefly out of agitation by this answer, yet he otherwise is still. He wanted the answers, but did not have the means to get them without actually speaking to the boy. The hound's eyes once more fixate upon the child as she slowly lowers herself to sit on her muscular haunches.

          With silence ebbing on, Caleb decides to appease the awkward air with one question. "What do you seek, figlio?" The deep rumbles that form his baritone voice glide effortlessly between this learned language Helovian's speak and his native tongue- Italian. The stag's question was vague, he knew this. The young boy would interpret it in whichever ways he desired. 

          The stillness throughout this area was absurd. The air hung around them, thick and dry. The heat of a quickly approaching summer grew ever more obvious by the day. Even now, in the dead of night, this heat lingered like some sort of cruel lurker. He itched to go north, the place he lived in for quite a few seasons. He wanted to feel the cooler air kiss his flesh. Would he be accepted back as if he had never left? The beast was sure they would question where he had been, and he had yet to come up with an excuse grand enough that they would allow his re-entry into the heard of unicorn (and occasional hybrid, like himself). For now, he would be forced to wait.