“The Aurora Basin.”

"Give the boy some space!"

The boy. The shadow of a smile ghosted across his face, the familiar nickname dropping from familiar lips, an echo of the past. Myrddin was the only one old, and brave, enough to call him by such a familial name — and get away with it. "Aurora Basin," he echoed quietly, turning his distant, detached gaze back to Lena, as if to thank her for answering his question. Only then, when hooves shuffled over rock, did he truly realize that the old Haruspex had been saying. The quiet, hesitant stallion readily followed the old white one out, without a word. Lena, and the mare who looked to her for guidance left too, as Mauja called a half-there half-here "Of course," back to Myrddin. He was fairly sure that whatever was on the old man's mind was not really about the mirror, but more along the lines of what lay behind it. Where he'd been. What he'd been doing. Black-rimmed ears pressed harder against a white neck at the thought, nothing of anger in his expression. He was uncomfortable, confused, lost — many things.

The painted girl was the last to leave, though she went too and left him alone with a shadow.

Mauja swallowed, before pushing out a quivering sigh. Was any of this real, did these familiar and unfamiliar faces cease to exist when they stepped outside of the cave? None of them had walked through trees, but just like the mare in the Threshold, some had been unfamiliar to him. This place was unfamiliar, aside from the fact that he'd seen a copy of it before he stepped through the mirror. Why would his mind create this warped place, and put faces he didn't know in it?

Psyche's voice snapped his roaming thoughts back, his gaze snapping to her. Left alone with a predator was like almost waking up again, wariness in his eyes as he listened to the dips and rises of her voice. Always that hidden purr, drips of poison concealed as nectar. Nothing like the bare, emotional mare from that vivid dream. It was only a dream. This was proof of that. This was the real Psyche. Right? Right. (Hell no.) He knew another side of her, from before, that had been softer, playful, but deadly yet. Had that part of her died, when she left?

The story she told was one of a new god, gifting them with this corner of the Steppe, and, he assumed, gave it to her. She trailed off but he didn't know what to say, thinking of the snow and new gods, wondering if it hadn't been enough with three bickering immortals to begin with. Still a bit metaphorically jet lagged no words came to him, until she spoke again. One sentence of purpose, one word, a name, of vulnerability and emotion. For a moment, the world went black, but then his entire body whipped around to face her, all masks falling away as the frustration built up and overpowered him. "If you think I have some grand master plan, then you're wrong!" His voice was raised, not really a shout, and tinged with frustration and sadness more than anger. Did they expect him to step out here, and have answers? To know what the hell was going on? What he was supposed to do? He'd lost himself, bits and pieces buried in the snow of a world long since gone, and what stood before he was a broken mockery of who he'd been.

"I've spent more than a season wandering a Helovia where the faces of those I know stare back at me with personalities I don't know, always twisting, turning, changing, plotting, and nothing showed me the way back. Then I somehow walk back through a fucking mirror and you have a home and a crown and you expect me to have formulated some kind of plan in the space of a few minutes? I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF YOU'RE REAL!" The last, it came as a roar, immediately followed by a thick "DAMN IT!" as the worn stallion spun around, to hide his face from her. White eyelids pressed down over blue eyes, trying desperately to contain the tears. It had all piled up, too high, too fast, and he was crumbling.

[ ... oops. ]