[ Very sorry about the wait - life took an unexpected turn for a bit. ]

It ran along his spine—the peculiar knowledge that he stood here, in his home, with a new member, one to become part of the family.. and yet, he did not know her name. He had missed that part of her episode in the Threshold, had come in later, simply seizing onto the best thing he could and taking it from there.

But truly, did names matter so much? Aside from a convenient means to catch somebody's attention, that was, for he wouldn't argue that they were useless, no. Obviously, they weren't. But names, names names names... The lack of knowing real names was what had brought Glacia into this world, a chance meeting between two strangers, no strings attached, no names exchanged. He knew who Ghoulface was by looks, wasn't that enough, if he had to go looking for her later? If she changed her name, what was a name worth?

Besides, neither names nor faces gave the story of the soul beneath. Somebody could be named Handsome McNicePants the Gentle Knight and still be a complete douche.

Her eerie gaze shifted back to him as he spoke, and he bore it without discomfort; who was he to judge just because she took her time observing? It hadn't gone away with sleep, that long, heavy way in which she watched, dragging the action out just past the boundary of what was appropriate. He noticed, because it was different. Because it was out of the ordinary.

“Why do you have owls?”

Mauja's white tail flicked against his hocks, trying in vain to fan the air against his mist-laced flanks. Why, indeed? "Others made the choices for me," he simply said. "One of the Gods of this realm pulled me through time to unite me with the white one, and then.. a snow leopard spirit said I needed 'another guide for my heart'. Sometime later, a plague and a wave of darkness swept across the land. Irma—my white owl—rescued an egg from a nest, and it hatched into another owl." He shrugged, slightly, felt a moment's sweeping vertigo as Irma spied Hemlock and dropped towards him. Frosty eyes locked upon the smaller owl before she swept on towards Alysanne, sunlight glinting on the metallic blue barring of her back.

Then she was in sight, the devoted healer of the Edge, and the concern in her eyes made concern flare up in him; was something wrong? Irma wheeled away into the trees, and Diego left his back to join her.

Whatever it was that had worried her, though, it seemed to bleed out into the sand, soak up and bleach in the sun—perhaps not yet forgotten, but soon to be. He blinked, a small smile curving his dark lips as his neck arched. "I am," he simply said, ears flickering to the conversation as it flowed between the two mares. And finally, he knew Ghoulface's preferred name—Lourdes. Still straight to the point, still staring slightly longer than was appropriate, and Mauja could only hope Alysanne would not take offense at her less-than-common way of acting. And on the subject of gardens... "I may or may not have baited her with it," he admitted dryly.

[ @Alysanne, @Lourdes ]