morozko
and all our footprints in the snow.
Make haste, each winter-dark crow seemed to chastise Morozko, as he made his way to Novus and the world thawed around him. The wind, too, seemed to agree with the need for it, whipping and whispering at his back and urging him on and on. The snow gave way to mud, the branches caught forever in ice turning bare, then dotted with buds. And all the while, leaving miles of footprints behind him, the unicorn wondered Why me?
He’d never gotten a satisfactory answer; perhaps there wasn’t one. It was enough, his commander would have said (and his parents had said) that he was chosen. Now there was only to go, and see what this Dusk Court would make of itself.
It was raining when he first beheld the tower rising before him, a stately beacon; he was glad of his shorn mane, then, for every flick of his sodden tail felt like a slap. The cloudburst was quick to pass and Morozko was forced to admit that the resulting sky made for an impressive look at his new home: darker clouds shot through with the guileless blue of spring, and the spire rising up between them. Being so close to his destination was encouragement enough for the stallion to push himself into a lope, and so it was that he arrived at the Dusk Court.
And with perfect timing, it seemed; though Morozko would have preferred something a little more discreet (and a chance to bathe and rest), there was something to be said for having the business out in the open.
Now at a walk, the unicorn joined the (small, quiet) gathering just as a dark pegasus - young, fit - spoke. Morozko hung back from the group, silver eyes keen, the lines of his body graceful even as his muscles ached with travel and begged to be stretched. His gaze was on Damascus, wondering at his accent and the strange way he spoke, but after only a moment he lifted it to their sovereign.
Rannveig. She’d been only a yearling when last he’d seen her, full of promise but untested, and now she was grown. Lovely and powerful and stately, a fitting sovereign of the Winter Court - or the Dusk one, he thought wryly. His eyes sought hers, but he expected no recognition there - they were distant cousins, enough that he’d only been a member of the crowd four years ago.
Much like now.
He would have preferred to say nothing, to simply observe, but they were few enough that to take that route would be almost more noticeable than speaking. So, his impassive gaze touching them in each turn and taking the measure of them, he spoke. “Well met,” he said, voice rough with disuse over the journey, and it was strange, for him, not to see a puff of vapor vanish with each syllable. “I’m Morozko. I’ve come from Veteris to join your Court.”
It was the first he’d spoken the words aloud, and they tasted as strange as he’d imagined.
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