Her words cause that gaping, Isopia-shaped chasm in his chest to grow even wider, and he inclines his head in silent understanding. Volterra is no mind-reader, but he'd be willing to bet most of his possessions on the fact that she's thinking about their past and all the things they've been through together. How could she not, when they're staring at the place where one of their most important early meetings happened? It was in Isopia's clearing that Volterra first realised he felt more towards the giantess than just platonic amiability, and when he first felt the adolescent pangs of lust that grew tangled with something deeper and infinitely more meaningful. The same might not apply to her, but....how could she not feel something upon looking at this place? Especially now it holds the added pain of being the burial ground for their child.

Tentatively, the stallion reaches out his muzzle and tries to touch it gently to her shoulder. It's aimed to reassure, to tell her that he understands, but Volterra is unsure whether he can convey so much with a simple touch. The old Isopia would surely have understood what he was trying to silently say, yet the new Isopia might just think that he's trying to take advantage of her nostalgia in order to cop a feel. He hopes not; the touch is meant to transcend sexuality, although that's hard to portray when everything about Volterra screams salacious intent. So he withdraws his muzzle hoping that he's not cause her to think anything untoward, and follows her beckons with an eager, if nervous, stride.

He follows her, feeling the thorns snag at his feathered feet and thick black flesh just like they had during his first time here. Back then, there'd been a lot less of him for the thorns to grab hold of - he'd been a broad, bulky yearling, but now he's fully-grown and brawny from his chosen lifestyle of battle. The brambles seem to know that he's in a hurry to follow the Mountain, and snatch against his skin all the more. He pins his ears and barges through, trying to ignore the multiple, stinging cuts engraved into him. It's as though the clearing itself is telling him to leave; earthen magic, perhaps, or just a painful coincidence?

Finally, he breaks through the thicket and into the clearing itself. His eyes are immediately drawn to the mound of stones, which pulse gently with something he assumes is magic. On top of it - and his heart lurches - is the statue that he'd made for them both. "You kept it," he murmurs, his voice far softer than seems possible for one of his size. It means more to him than he can put into words that she'd kept his creation - when she'd flown off with it, he'd assumed that she had crushed it beneath her hooves in a voodoo ceremony, or cast it into the sea in the depths of her despair. Instead, she'd kept it...and that surely means something. Doesn't it?

He doesn't remember it being so brightly red, though, and frowns at it. It looks like blood, yet what blood could last so long? Deciding he'd rather not know the answer, Volterra follows her deeper into the clearing, his eyes never leaving the small grave. His ears flick towards the mare as she speaks, informing him that she'd given birth right here. The beast tries not to think of an alternative reality in which he'd have been beside her during the long, painful labour, and where he'd have watched with happy, awestruck eyes as their son took his first tentative steps upon Helovian soil. There would have been a delightful irony to watching something they'd created frolic joyously around the clearing where they'd once created something else, a hot-tub made of rock and stone. Their son would have gazed upon both of his parents and felt safe, knowing that he was loved, adored, protected. Wanted. The only stones in the centre of the clearing would have been placed there for the boy to play upon, not laid down to mark his grave.

Volterra's eyes are suddenly stinging, and he blinks hard. He averts his gaze from both Isopia and the pile of stones, but he can't stop his mind from focusing on that beautiful other world. If he'd have been honest, upfront...if he'd have found out about his other children sooner and raised them properly as he does now...then that alternative world could have been reality. As it is, there's nothing under that mound of rocks but rotting bones, and there's nothing to tie Isopia and Volterra together aside from shared memories that one of them hardly even remembers properly.

The giant sighs, his sadness there for all to see. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and there's little use hiding how he feels. He ambles towards the mound of stones, sniffing around it as though he'll be able to smell his son upon them, all the time trying not to unleash the tears that burn behind his eyes. "Aludj jól, a kis király," he murmurs to the stones in his mother tongue, soft enough that he's not sure whether Isopia will be able to hear. There's a sober silence upon the clearing, a sombre weight, almost. His dragons are utterly silent, mourning alongside him and offering their mental strength to him as he gazes at his child's final resting place.

He moves away, then, back towards the Mountain. His face is schooled into a mask, but there's still sorrow in those haunting ruby eyes. "It's probably a stupid question, I don't even know why I'm asking, but...did you name him?" It feels even stupider as he says it - why would a mother who'd purposefully aborted her child then name the dead fetus? But he needs to know - needs the security of knowing that, perhaps, his boy was granted a name, that one great vestige of life, before he was committed to the cold ground in death.