Mauja the FrostHeart
ice cold man watches earth die, eternal winter takes its reign

We're building it up, to break it back down.

He was back, again, a ghost among the trees. Sweat coated his body, dust clung to his coat, and darkened him slightly from pristine white to a more off-white. His dark spots seemed grayer, the frost on his hooves was melted, and on his horn it kept running down onto his forehead and drying there. It was, to say the least, annoying. Still he did his duty to his herd, drifting among the trees and searching for new blood. Sometimes he found it, sometimes he returned home empty-handed, but the monotonous task had to be repeated, over and over again. He knew some other members came here, looking for the newcomers, but only by coming here at different times could they cover it all. And so, he'd left the rock, where some winds blew even if they were stale and smelled of brine, and come into the forest where nothing stirred and the sun was merciless. Dry, brown leaves crunched under his hooves, and whenever he moved out of the shadow, it felt like standing in a furnace. Unpleasant.

He found a face, one that wasn't familiar, but that reminded him of the one he'd found a few days ago. Black, all black, but where she had been sleek, this one was muddy and tangled. Sweat and dust had mingled with grime and splattered across his dark hide, but in some places he caught a glimpse of true dark. She had had eyes like the forest; he had eyes like fire, but oddly dull despite the color. A slight frown creased Mauja's face. His gaze seemed vacant, despite the vibrancy of the colors. One ear tilted back, the other forward, and he stepped closer to the stranger stallion. A black rope of sorts hung around his neck, tattered and flimsy, and his knees were scraped and bloody. He caught a glint of it around his neck too, as if the rope sometimes chafed him raw.

"You're hurt," said the FrostHeart, stepping even closer, not knowing what sort of ticking bomb he was dealing with. Warrior the black body whispered, crowned by the drying stains upon his straight horn. That was all he knew, all he saw; he knew nothing of the void that lay just beneath that smooth, scarred skin, knew not what kind of monster he stood face to face with.

Mauja had never understood the concept of "nothing".
Perhaps if he looked within the heart of this one, he would.