He is caught off guard by the sudden company of another-- from the smooth-surfaced pond of his thoughts there is a ripple, and then a wave.
She is an unusual thing, he wouldn't quite have the words to describe her if asked. Dangerous might be the first word that comes to mind, and not just in the way pretty women are. It is her dark violet eyes; their depth reminds him of the night sky and the sea of sand and other unimaginably large things, endless things.
One ear half-lowered in uncertainty, he stares at her while she speaks.
My kind-
His thoughts snag there, like a tangled ball of yarn that only tightens more as he tries to pick it apart. my kind is ash, scattered dark and chalky across the permafrost. All that's left is a smell and a color. He takes a shaky breath and shoves his feelings back down inside of him.
(left to their own devices, they'd break him. He'd shatter, with nobody even to sweep him up and throw him away. Watch your step, you don't want pieces of the Sad Man stuck in your foot)
It takes him perhaps a little too long to reply; his thoughts are always slow to return from the land of winter and the family that rests there. Solterra, that's right... that's what she means by your kind. Each day it takes less and less effort to think of himself as one of them- he wonders if some day he will wake and being Solterran will feel as natural as his scars now do.
"You're right." He admits, "I... the view is disarming." He looks once more across Denocte, wild and sprawling before them, and as the wind tugs at his forelock he thinks how easy it is to be disarmed. Of course, he does not care enough about the tensions between night and day to be wary of trespassing in Denocte. Their struggle must be quite ancient, for he can almost feel it in the land itself, a tense feeling like a stain that cannot be washed clean. Perhaps if it would just rain more, they could wash away the mistakes and misfortunes of their forefathers.
(How sweet it would be to stay here for a while, and listen to what the wind has to say, and ponder the dreams of stones turned soft with moss. Can you see storms moving over the ocean from here, or do afternoon clouds roll in and envelop the mountains in mist?)
Anyway, he is still a stranger to Novus- isn't that what this little quest is about, anyway?- and there is much he doesn't understand about this place. When he returns his gaze to the masked mare, it is a little more focused, as if before he was only half-here. He might seem more serious, and certainly more intense. You can see the calm, patient determination in the set of his jaw- this is a man who would wait a lifetime without complaint to see his goal completed, if that is what it would take.
And if you look a little deeper you can see bone-deep sadness, too.
"I grew up believing purple eyes were a gift of the gods." It was the mark of Athenis, goddess of magic and secret, sacred things. But when the fires came, brown and blue and purple burned alike. "What is your name?" He asks, usually not bothered by such trivialities but finding himself helplessly intrigued by the dangerous woman before him.
