morozko
and all our footprints in the snow.
In contrast to the monarch of the Night Court, Morozko had yet to travel these cliffs or look upon the endless beating of the waves below. After his new court’s first meeting (the thought still bitter as dry bark on his winter-loyal tongue) the unicorn, as both soldier and sensible man, had thought it best to learn the geography of what must now be his home.
It was not ugly. That much he could surely say without feeling a pang of guilt or a strike against the loyalty he felt thick as ice. Indeed, the Dusk Court was a beguiling place, its landscape far more varied than what he’d grown up among, and as he wandered the stallion felt himself warming to it. Perhaps its people would win him over as quickly as the landscape did - though the thought made his dark lips twist, wry.
Eventually his soldier’s stride brought him southward, and his ears perked at the first cry of the gulls. The wind here was nothing like what he’d scented; all sea-grass and salt, the bitter hint of brine. It was a different wildness than the one he knew, and he picked his way carefully along the overgrown trail, the clamor of the sea against the cliffs in his ears.
It was within view of the sea - and the figure that stood against the cliffs as though hewn himself from stone, save for the wild tangle of his dark hair - that Morozko picked up a new scent. This one was beguiling in its own way, one that reminded him of the interiors of his own court at the softer edges of winter, and the lean stallion paused for a moment to simply observe. It was loud enough, with the wind in his favor, that he might have done so for quite some time - but after a few moments he started forward again. It was almost shameful, how grateful he was for the cliffside to not be sheathed in ice, as it would have been at home.
And the ocean - now there was something he’d never seen in all his eight years. So captivated was he that for a long moment Morozko said nothing to the stallion he’d drawn alongside - only stared down at the churn of the water, the white-capped waves that rushed and rushed against the stone, a mesmerizing advance that had been happening for hundreds of years. The distance to the bottom was dizzying, and he felt a prick of jealousy for each sea-bird that cut through the air between the cliffs and the sea.
“Stunning view, isn’t it?” he said, voice just loud enough to be heard above the crash and fury of the waves below. “I can half imagine what it would be like to fall.” It’s only then that his silver-eyed gaze lifted to the (unbeknownst to him) monarch, and whatever that rich, dark scent was born of, he knew it wasn’t the Dusk Court. “What business?”
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