It's stuttering, awkward, fumbling. Compared to the fluid ease with which they once conversed, this is a stark reminder that you don't miss the water until it's gone. Volterra thinks of all their other discussions, from the trivial to the vital, and how they'd all just...flowed. Like pieces of a puzzle falling into place, like the easy synchronicity of two dragons in the sky, the old Volterra and Isopia could have discussed the finer points of fungus and they'd still have managed to make it feel natural and comfortable. In the past they'd just worked regardless of what they were talking about, but this....this is almost painful. This makes the black beast yearn for those lazy conversations about nothing, because prior to this, they didn't need to speak properly in order to understand each other. The unsaid things were often just as loud as whatever left their mouths, whereas now there's nothing but empty space and awkwardness hanging between the words.

It's more troubling than Volterra can possibly have imagined it would be. He'd been naiive to think that, now the Mountain has her memories back, they'd just tumble back into the same easy friendship and more that they'd always been. He'd expected it to be like pulling on an old glove, friendly and comfortable and warm, yet instead it's like walking through one's old home only to find it cold, empty and unfamiliar. It makes sense, he supposes. Just because she has those memories back doesn't mean that she still feels everything like she had during those times, because to her, those images must seem as though they've come from somebody else. Even when somebody describes to you what love feels like, it cannot compare to actually feeling it for real, and that's how he imagines it must work in Isopia's head.

His dreams of slipping back into the old routine, then, seem entirely stupid now. This conversation - if it can even be called that - only proves it.

The mare adds that she is the Edge's Seer, and Volterra nods absently. This isn't right. He refuses to be condemned to this, refuses to have his single most important relationship be broken down into two strangers pretending they know each other. This isn't how he wants to live. He wants the old Isopia back, as utterly selfish as that may seem, and he's going to do anything in his power to make her truly understand the things she's been told to feel through those memories. "Say, perhaps once you've collected your fire, we could go to the Hidden Falls." Now the Falls have been relegated to a neutral land, they can be explored at will. Volterra hasn't yet done so, because despite how much he longs to roam the realm that could have been his, he would feel almost like he was intruding if he went there alone.

His gaze snaps to hers, and a small, hopefully warm smile blossoms across his lips. "We could visit your clearing, like old times." His plan could surely not be more obvious - the only thing he can think of doing to bring back Isopia's feelings is to take her back through memory lane, through all the places that had defined them. The day in her clearing had been perhaps one of the most important for their growth as friends and lovers, and the stallion's remaining tendrils of hope convince him that going there with her might help start the spark to rekindle them. At the very least, it might enable them to talk with slightly more normality than this stunted, miserable excuse for a discussion.