The snow brushed his cheeks as gently as the flutter of butterfly wings and kissed his steaming shoulders almost tenderly, as his mother once did, long ago, on cold winter nights when storms would howl and rage outside the caves. Déodat, just on the cusp of manhood, was far too brave and fierce to embrace his mother's warmth and comfort. The grim red brother always stood stoic, silent vigils by himself, frowning, brooding, staring out of the cave and into the deep blue abyss beyond. d'Aramitz had never entirely understood the concept of brooding—it seemed so tedious and boring—but all of the ladies fawned and gushed over Mister McBroody Pants all the same.

But his serious elder brother was long-since dead, cold and frozen in the ground he had died defending, with only the crows and maggots for adoring companions.

And now d'Aramitz was the brooding, angry brother, with a curious dark-eyed girl for company.

She had come, soft and fleeting as the arc of a falling star, and just as swift and silent. He straightened slightly, gathering and drawing himself up from his former slouch, just enough to be wary. But his body language portrayed a relaxed figure with the careless nonchalance and easy grace of youth (despite the thick ribbons of lather decorated around his neck like a necklace of moist pearls). From an onlooker's view, he might even appear slightly bored, from the way his ruby eyes glittered with a lethargic air, but this couldn't be farther from the truth. His gaze immediately swept her face, desperately scouring her forehead openly and even rudely; an action that had become so incredibly automatic after the fall of his lord father's clan.

And there it was, there in the middle of her forehead like an obsidian shadow; beautiful, black, and the most relieving sight he had seen all day.

After that initial moment of uncertainty, a whispered hush settled around the two strangers in a close embrace of silence. It was not an uncomfortable sort of silence, so he took a few moments to regard her person with a searching, curious gaze. He stared—he often did that sort of thing, rude and course country boy that he was—and decided she was alright (as far as girls went anyhow). She had a lovely brown face the color of damp earth, and she was all sweet curves and innocent smiles. In his limited experience with girls, those were the ones you had to watch out for. How long had it last been, since he'd seen a real girl? Or perhaps she was a lady. He remembered someone saying (was it Cricket? No, no, it was Laughingwolf and his great belly that jiggled like jelly when he laughed) that women didn't like being called girls. They're ladies, my little duck boy, and you treat 'em such, you hear?

She lingered across the murmuring stream, gazing at him with curious, probing eyes that were large and dark and bold, glittering brightly with a flitting sort of intelligence that reminded him of a sparrow. Overlooked compared to other grander birds, perhaps, but surely there was not much that this little bird did not overlook. He felt so naked under the innocent scrutiny of her blatantly open gaze. But for all of her curiosity, she did not yet approach any closer. d'Aramitz couldn't find it in his heart to blame her; he looked a right sweaty mess, after all, and probably didn't smell like a springtime daisy, by any means. She spoke to him then, all gentle and proper-like. Lena of the Aurora Basin. It was a nice name; a simple name for a simple face.

"Hello, Lena of the Aurora Basin," he said at last, slowly, forcing the words to behave formally on his tongue. He wasn't entirely uncivilized, you know. There was a time when he was once a lord's son, and knew all about courtesy and manners. He even smiled a bit, albeit tentatively so, like a young blossom desperately struggling to bloom, but without enough sunlight to properly do so. The end result was a bit wilted. But it was a smile, nonetheless. He could not remember the last time he had smiled.

However, he hesitated briefly before answering her question, a fleeting second that seemed to last a life time. Who was he? He had known, once. His father called him Dammit when he was angry (Dammit, come here, boy!), his mother called him Saf (for the sapphires in his horn, you know), his friends called him Mitz (what little of those he had once had), and the old, wizened veterans with cracked smiles and broken bodies had christened him Shadow, because he latched on to whomever would tolerate him, hovering insistently and constantly, always underfoot and ever-present. He had been branded Number Five as a slave (his shoulder still bore the faded white mark), Boy Gladiator had been the name roared in the pits by the mob, and the Brotherhood had fondly dubbed him Blue Duck. His identity was stretched; so thin and brittle, he could no longer tell where one began and the next ended.

"Blue Duck, my lady. Blue Duck of the Stream in the Woods, at your service." He made a slight bow, ridiculous and silly, but he needed this light-hearted conversation more than anything.

His lord father still had enemies, and d'Aramitz Dieudonnée was not an inconspicuous name, by any means. When first taken captive...if they had known he was the General's son...he did not like to think about what they did to the Dieudonnée line. His dead father had not been given the proper honor of burning at a grand pyre as his rank demanded, but instead, had been strung up while the victorious pegasuses had flocked around his father's corpse like foul buzzards, beating and slashing the body beyond recognition. Worst of all, they had snapped his horn in two—the most dishonorable deed that could ever possibly befall a unicorn. When the remaining prisoners of war had been hobbled and bound in a long string of wailing children, old men and women, yearling d'Aramitz included, his captor had worn his father's horn, still bleeding, around his horrid neck. The memory of it all still sickened and angered him beyond belief.

After straightening from his playful bow, he noticed a small bundle of pale fur pitter-pattering around the mare's refined hooves. She had nice hooves, so tiny and refined. A lady's hooves. And the fox had five tails; they were nice tails, as well, he reflected evenly, as if a fox with five tails was the most normal thing in all the world.

Five tails?!

"What," he huffed excitedly, his sweaty weariness forgotten momentarily, "is that?" He stared at it with morbid fascination, pinning his ears and snorting softly as he lowered his head to peer at it more closely, like a child that has discovered a new and exciting bug, but uncertain if he should squish it or put in a jar. A longing expression crossed his face—his father never allowed him to have pets. That didn't stop him, however, but only increased his determination. He'd brought home an entire zoo of critters at one point or another, pleading to keep them, but to no avail. Before he could bomb the poor lady with all of his childish questions (Can I have it? Do you have another? Where can I get one?), a pale ghost floated through the trees.

The questions turned to ash on his tongue.

The pale dawn light filtering through the trees made the stallion shimmer like a thousand shards of ice and obsidian, beautiful and cold, glittering and dangerous in an other-worldly sort of way. The pale stranger moved with the smooth, skating grace of a freezing winter wind sweeping snow off the slope of a hill, swirling and violent as the cascade of flakes fluttering from the boughs of the naked-limbed trees, and yet, more still and silent than a frozen lake in the dead of winter. d'Aramitz spotted shades of his father and brother in the unicorn; breathtaking majesty shrouded in mystery and crowned with authority. As a boy, and even now, half a man, he could only ever dream of being so, so majestic. It was depressing, really. How did the man manage to get his hair to move in the wind like that? Smooth and flowing as ivory silk, not one strand out of sync with the rest. Whenever d'Aramitz tried to achieve that effect by throwing back his head, he only accomplished getting whipped in the face with hair and effectively putting a crick in his neck.

They seemed to know each other, Lena and this majestic creature with fabulous hair. The pale stallion cried her name, and stood near her side. Protective? d'Aramitz found it difficult to say. I'm not like that, he wanted to reassure the great stallion, I treat girls like ladies. But that seemed irrelevant, and so he simply stood, steaming and numb to the cold while the two shared a silent greeting with their eyes. When the newcomer finally addressed him, in a blunt voice that reminded him far too much of his father that it made his heart ache with longing, d'Aramitz merely shrugged, surprised to distinguish a note of concern in the stranger's voice. The cold was not bone deep—in fact, it seemed pleasantly warm compared to the icy tundra and spiraling glaciers of his homeland. As for his current physical condition, he was more mentally exhausted than physically. He met the stallion's gaze evenly. Eye contact was always important, he'd learned. Let the stranger evaluate him all he wanted, let the pale stallion search his eyes; he had nothing to hide. Nothing meaning everything, he thought bitterly.

"I'm stronger than I look," he admitted at last, carefully, unable to think of anything better to say without completely declaring his abilities to this stranger.

After all, revealing an incredible strength was almost as fatal as exposing a weakness.

D'A R A M I T Z ϟ