He had no expectations, no beliefs or delusions about his return — in fact, he had not been aware of it. Vague shock lingered in his gaze, but beneath his skin, it sunk its fangs and claws deeper, gripping heart and mind, body and soul. What had happened, really? Had he walked into a wall and hit his head so hard he was starting to suffer from severe hallucinations? To him, that would make more sense than actually being back. Slowly, he pulled back into himself, retreating to his castle of ice, expecting them to shatter like glass statues or dissipate like smoke any second, laughing at his foolishness.. that he, for a moment, had thought they were real.. that he was real...

Into the cave came Lena, and as always she seemed to bring spring with her, even to this frigid cavern in which breaths steamed towards the rocky ceiling. She breathed his name almost like a prayer, and it sent a shiver down his spine. Mauja. How long since I truly heard it... The air of this world was tainted with memory, like sulfur and soot in his lungs as he tried to breathe. His throat constricted with hope as his heart thundered in his chest, seeing blackness as his eyes pressed shut. Hooves shuffled over rock as Myrddin rose, berating him for breaking his mirror.

Mirror? Breaking?

Somehow, he knew he had a choice to make: to accept this as real, or reject it. But how can one choose such a thing, without proof? How can one deny the bonfire of hope, or feed it, when knowing that the hope itself was corrupt? Slowly his neck arched as he pressed his chin to his chest, his ears falling back for a moment. He could not make a choice: he could not decide if this was real or not. If anything, he just wanted to run away. Doubt had ever been his greatest enemy, and faithless as he were, one day it was likely to consume him. How long would he question his existence, if it was real, if it had ever been real? How long was he to walk Helovia and wonder if it was but a dream, from which he was to wake? Forever?

Warmth washed across his neck, the velvet nose of Lena ever so gently touching his tangled mane. Slowly his eyes opened, and before he had the time to check the flood of emotions, they held all the pain of his plagued soul; in the next instant, it was gone, swept away by wind, scoured clean as if centuries of rain had wiped the features from his face and only frost remained. If there was one thing he knew, it was that he was somewhere else; he could taste it in the air, feel it in his bones, but he couldn't recall if he was where he was supposed to be, or just somewhere else altogether. He had not wanted to play along with the clones of that other land, but could he deny these unicorns their King? If they were real, how could he possibly reject them? And if they weren't.. his resolve was thinning. If they were not real anyway, perhaps it was time that he gave in to the madness, and lived it. Surely that was easier than.. this.

As she pulled back, voicing the question which seemed writ across the faces of them, he turned to look over his shoulder. True enough, the odd face of the rock behind him was cracked, filled with a yawning gap which bubbled ominously, and stretched out towards him like hungry mouths. Was that the, err, mirror? And the crack the thing which had broken it? “Have you come back to us?” ... "Yes..are you back?" He did not turn towards them at once, did not acknowledge their questions, their demand of answers, at first; how could he tell them, what he didn't know himself? And why did the questions send up such a hammering in his chest, such a sense of pressure, of weight? Why did it make him want to shut his mouth and run away, never answering them? If a third one had asked him that question, perhaps he would've: one voice, unfamiliar to his memory, pleadingly whispered the name of Myrddin, and just after it came another voice, one he knew too well. Devoid of its twists and turns, of its purrs and drips of poison, it repeated his name, an eternity of emotion nestled within it. His blue eyes snapped to her, catching the faintest shift in her gaze as the mask slid back into place.

Not a stranger, then, but the jackal-heart herself.
But for a moment, she had been the echo of a dream.

"Welcome home, darling."

And thus, she had answered their question for him. His eyes slid to the child beside her, for a moment wondering if this was her revenge, but somehow he didn't think so; she looked more like him, if anything. Nothing like the blood of Paladin and Psyche. There was no likeness there, yet she clung to her side as if it was her mother.

Dimly he remembered that Mauja smiled — Mauja always smiled, that small little smile, a mere curl of his lips, a twinkle in his eye as he peered at you from beneath his white forelock.. but he found it not in himself to smile, not when reality was catching up and stealing the breath from his lungs. "I guess I am," he said quietly after a moment, for the first time looking upon the two strangers; one was a silent mare, looking to Lena as if looking for guidance, and the other was the stallion who had whispered Myrddin's name. Odd, that neither of them looked to Psyche. Expelling something near a slow, brooding sigh, he returned his stony attention to her. "But where is home?"