More arrive.

The stallion takes little notice, apart from allowing a glance to rest on each of them. The crimson maned maiden who arrived so shortly after he, earned a slightly more lingering stare from his violet eyes, as he admired the beauty and grace with which she held herself. More arrived, and more still, until the steed was almost overwhelmed with the crowd. It had been a long time since he had been around this many others, evidently drawn as they were to the prospect of helping a poor dying race.

Suddenly the doe began to speak, confirming his thoughts. Another grunt, sceptical in its resonance, sounded from the steed. And yet, a niggling urge itched at him, poking and prodding a sensitive area deep within him. He couldn't identify it, but it annoyed him, irritated him. A shiver rolled from his shoulders down his spine, ending with his tail swishing to and fro against his flanks. Build a shelter, he grunted again, to himself this time, as he turned away from the crowd to passively search the woods that surrounded him.

He did not ask for help, for that was not his style - no others could help his own curse, why was he bothered to even try to help this doe alleviate the curse of extinction? Because the doe had given them an answer, a solution, where his own curse was still so unknown. He thought the issue had been solved with the absence of the Sun and Moon, but then the Moon had returned, and he had felt the curse reawaken within him, even if it didn't show itself until the Sun rose at some time in the unknown future.

Build a shelter, he grumbled to himself, as he attempted to remain focussed upon his task at hand, instead of be absorbed, as he so often was, by his own dire circumstances. The forest held many broad leaves, many trees - and ah, just what he was looking for. A fallen tree. It's broad trunk had been hollowed out by termites, but they had left the harder wood of the outer shell of the trunk in tact - and cleaned, with strange carvings left behind from their trails. Kiro thought himself quit ingenious as he examined it. The part of the bark he was looking at specifically, was shaped like a cone cut in half, with a wider curved end, that curved to the height of his chest at one end, and spread out until it was almost flat at the other end. It had been warped and tempered by the elements, but it was solid in its foundations.

With smug satisfaction to prove the crowd who had barely noticed him his intelligence, he clenched the bark between his teeth, and dragged it. The journey took time, precious time which he knew the doe did not have. When he arrived back to the clearing, he shuffled his way through the crowd, dragging the bark until it was near the doe and her precious cargo. Here, he dropped his bark, and began to dig. With his cloven feet, and even his long, sharp horn, he carved a hole in the earth that was the shape and size of the orb. With a sweep of his tail, he encouraged soft leaves to line the area, before he grabbed the bark once more, and placed it over the nest. Shuffling some more leaves around the place, he gave it one last satisfied snort before deeming it worthy. Standing before his shelter, he presented himself, and his structure, to the doe.

"I am Kiro… Kirottu." He hesitated a moment, knowing that he needed to be honest if he were to prove himself worthy of the doe's cause right now. He paused before he continued on, dipping his crown to her level, speaking in tones that were smooth and warm. "Your child would be safe within this nest, for it looks like nothing more than a dead fallen tree that most others would overlook. I would keep watch over it always. It is small enough to keep in the warmth, keep out the damp, but also allow it to breathe."