Striking mights and maybes even more

A useless thing called life

It's a biting cold again

It seemed she was definitely not entirely normal. There was a nervous edge to all she did, the way her gaze flickered around, the slight stammer as she began to speak: "Well... you've missed so much. I-I had a kid... went to the Basin, the usual." A child? Yet she did not sound happy about it — was it a mistake, or worse, a forced breeding? And whenever their eyes met, there was something.. almost worshipful in them, nearly a fanatic edge to their blue depths. It was uncomfortable, unnerving even, and he wanted to turn aside from it, away from whatever had her so fascinated. What about him could possibly elicit such a look, and yet she dared not look upon him long at all; her head lowered and for a moment, he wondered what it would be like to not pretend anymore, to simply keep staring at her in awkward silence with a blank look upon his face. What it would be like, to move away from who he had been.

But, he couldn't. "Congratulations," he said softly into the void, blinking his pale eyes and trying to force the warmth back into them. It bothered him that his mood kept changing, switching from chaotic and confused, to near-panicked, to empty, all in the space of minutes, and he could never quite predict it. It just went where it willed, without a care for the situation he was in. "Foals are wonderful things, Leyra." Or was he alone in sharing the fascination of watching them grow, in feeling the deep, unshakable love to his own blood? He had been robbed of Snö's childhood, but he had had Tamlin, the arrogant prince he loved and scolded in equal amounts; slowly his gaze drifted to Leyra's appaloosa blanket, the sprinkling of snow upon her dark hide. She looked like his son in many ways, and.. his gaze narrowed. That filly in the cave, when he had returned? She had had a snowy hind end too, but she'd been a bay roan, not a blue. Had that been Leyra's daughter?

Slowly he lowered his head alongside hers, feeling himself falling away within again; hiding, allowing the memories to come out and play again, and direct his body. Who was he, but a shell of what he had been, housing the last lingering warmth of a fire gone out?

"Yet I feel you are not happy," he said quietly, his head close to hers yet beside it so not to tangle their horns. Deep down he despaired, knowing that he could not bear to care about the burdens of another, but something, some deep force kept him going on, pretending, and pretending so well that it felt like a second skin. "Why?"