Eyes like pieces of summer sky flick over the road-weary unicorn, assessing. His heart falls just a little to be presented with another grim faced warrior and yet he is coming to value these men and women. His sovereign frightened him on first meeting, seemed alien. And yet now he has listened to Maxence tell stories (grim stories) and call him 'brother' though he does not think he has earned the title. His expression slips, just a touch, when the other man does not also give his name. His ears flick forward, attention. Questions he is used to. Questions he can answer, as he has asked so many himself. Even in this attitude of listening though he is not still. His hooves shift, flirting on the sand as though some music hums in his bones and compels him to motion.
The wind lifts across the desert and briefly he shifts his body to catch the brunt of it, arching his mane-less neck to glory in the caress of the hot desert wind. It is tempered, gentler with the touch of autumn. He almost thinks he smells a hint of rain in it- perhaps winter will bring storms. He is excited to see this desert after the transformation of a downpour though he does not like the rain itself particularly.
"Luca?" His voice is curious, but holds no recognition of the name. He files it away for later though, scattering his question to the wind with a quick shake of his white-masked head. "This land is called Novus- the desert you travel is part of Solterra, the realm of the Day Court under the leadership of one Maxence."
The words hold a touch of a story-teller's cadence and it is only barely remembered restraint that keeps him from elaborating with an artist's flourish. His salt-white tail whips across his hips, intimidated by the height the stranger has on him. Nor does he try to even put distance between them. Perhaps it is only that many people are so much larger than him here and he is rarely reminded of the danger that such being bring to one like himself. For all that he is in a realm of warriors, Vadim is no warrior.
A fleeting expression of sympathy flits across Vadim's face as he begins to make a few guesses as to the warrior's confusion. He tilts his head to meet the stranger's eyes. "Novus is strange- most of us here are from other lands, and some have arrived in very peculiar fashions. I do not know where.. Luca... is, compared to here. There may be maps in the library?"
The name rolls off his tongue hesitantly, as does the offer. What maps he has seen show very little beyond Novus' coastlines. Even his own home is not mapped and he has no real notion of how he arrived- it was only many weeks after that he saw one of these maps and realized that they were surrounded by oceans on all sides. He remembers only walking here, scenting the sand on the wind and following it to the desert that seemed so much like an echo of home.
@Stavros
