'What're we doing here?'

'What are we ever doing anywhere?' Frost snapped back apathetically.

Altair's diadem falls, his ears swivel back in annoyance. The response he had gotten wasn't what he was looking for. 'You make it sound like nothing matter,' he muttered through the bond, his long, silver legs slowing in their tread through the reflective, shallow waters.

'Well, It's true. Nothing matters, Altair,' she replied softly, her emeralds everywhere but on him.

Silence.

They seldom spoke, so the quiet wasn't unusual, only uncomfortable. The maiden wasn't upset, despite her lashing out. She wasn't even upset, nothing warranted her odd behavior, except for perhaps, her odder past. The girl was still a gnarled bundle of emotions, unable to express them, confused as to how to handle them. In front of others she would put on the facade, the Haruspex, the innocent maiden who wanted nothing but to serve her herd and learn from the Gods, but within, she was more.

Altair, try as he might, could never understand that side of her. He knew of the ghosts that plagued her nightmares, but he hadn't experienced it how she had. He could only rub her shoulder, and love her no matter how hard she pushed him away. And he did, he strode forward, his muzzle pressed against her soft satin skin. She shuddered, but didn't object. The maiden paused, stroked the cerndyr's side with her leonine plume, before continuing again.

Despite her heavy heart, she loved him still, and always would.

And so they kept moving silently, without purpose, without end, through that shallow sliver of Poseidon's expanse, the sun harshly hot on their northern hides.

They paused. Altair tilted his crown to the sky, grunting at the bird that flew too close. 'Vulture,' she whispered to her companion, answering his wandering thoughts as to what the creature was. Her brow furrowed as she, too, watched the avian skeptically. Vultures don't live by the ocean. They prey on already dead meat of land born creatures. She supposed it could be a little lost, and searching for a salty snack, but that theory felt shaky.

“Miss Frost!”

Oh. It made sense now. The Haruspex's eyes watched the vulture return to the side of the golden girl on fire, a filly she didn't know all that well, but certainly considered a familiar face. 'The child with flames in her future,' Altair commented, almost questioning, as if to affirm that it was, in fact, that child. 'Indeed,' she responded, ears pricked firmly forward, watching her intently. The mottled maiden smiled warmly to the exuberant filly as she approached, her emeralds flicking to the deer dancing upon her back. She never did ask her what the nature of that flaming fauna was.

“What is this place?” Came the jubilant, bewildered lyrics of the child. Frost laughed, amused by the innocence of the child (how strange, she rarely interacted with children). "Miss Kiada! A bit lost, are you?" the Haruspex teased jovially, trotting elegantly up to the filly, careful not to splash her with the foam of the ocean. Altair followed close behind, grunting a delighted greeting to the filly and her strange bird.

"This is the Halycon Flats, a place covered with too much salty water to be considered land, and not enough to be considered part of the ocean. It came from the Rift, a sickly land that lived parallel to us in a separate dimension and far away reality we'll never know. The Sun God purged it of it's disease, and now, it is here, as you see it," Frost spoke neutrally, as if the Rift and the battles to conquer those lands were common knowledge.

"Talk talk talk"