What were names, really? So often since his return he had heard his own upon their lips, a question nestled within, a sigh of pleasure as they spoke it again without worry and fear — but what were names, but words given to specific things, specific beings? What were words, but sounds, noises in the eternal storm of life? The merest breath in the gale, so easily swept away. Words bound no souls to truth and honesty, words held no moral, no honor, no magic to will tongues into not lying. Words were nothing but a tool, and names nothing but a means of power, of control, to create a familiar atmosphere around you, a bubble of safety. Even the enemy's whose name you knew was less fearsome than the one whose name you didn't know. The predator, whose glowing eyes and slavering jaws haunted you from the dark, was less of a threat when you knew its name.

Perhaps that was why nightmares were so frightening. Vivid and intense, they shook him to the core in a way no mortal being had ever done.

Yet words was the fire fueling their lives, filling the spaces in between the actions; she answered his question, and his gaze slipped away into the foggy night, across the wavering thistles and grass. So it was here she had been, all that time, alone in the winter after he had disappeared, alone as spring came and slowly faded. His gaze trailed hers into the fog, knowing she was looking at the Edge where they once had lived. Lost? Suppose she had retreated in the wrong way and not found their trails alongside the steep cliffs.. easy to become lost within Helovia's vast wilderness then. Blinking slowly he drew a breath, preparing to speak, apologize, anything, when she beat him to it; her voice sounded thicker, hoarser even, and he frowned ever so slightly in the darkness.

If she had not been with the herd..
.. who had told her that he was lost?

Step carefully, walk slowly. Had he enemies he did not know of? Spies? Or was he just jumping to conclusions, and she just believing him gone simply because she couldn't find the herd again? Something about the notion of danger, that his enemies might keep tabs on him, might somehow threaten him, awoke part of his mind; deep down the uneasiness uncoiled itself, nearly made the breath stick in his throat. There was nothing like an unknown, potential threat to set the paranoid gears of his mind spinning. "We went east," he said quietly, his breath condensing in the moist air. "Along the edge of the cliff, until it met the isthmus leading to the Steppe. You must have taken off in another direction..." And he had been in no state fit to count their heads, burned by magic and dragons alike, his mind run ragged by the pain, clouded by the whole ordeal and the long road to their rallying point. He had wanted them safe, but how many more had he lost in that journey? "We hid away north, upon the tundra." Shifting closer, the movement so faint as if the breeze had pushed him, he ran his muzzle lightly across her scar again. "Did you get this in the battle?" The question was barely more than a murmur, and his gaze flicked back to her face, watching her quietly.

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