The warrior in Stavros finds the golden stallion's restless hooves disdainful, and he even glances down at them with an expression that reads as much. He doesn't say anything on the matter, either, having met enough foreigners during his skirmishes to know that not all thought that being composed was as important a thing as the soldiers of Luca did. The scholar, then, is silent, and wonders if everyone in this strange city is as rambunctious as moon-faced Vadim.
That the young man seemed perplexed by the mention of the famed and great realms of Luca - great enough iya people were almost always at war with some jealous neighbor or another - boded ill, and made the aging man's belly drop, and his heart beat even faster. As Vadim continues, that rapid, heavy rhythm begins to fill Stavros' ears, with each foreign name striking him with how very meaningless they were in the world which the white and gold stallion had known.
"Ma Dia," he mutters beneath his breath.
He doesn't have to say he knows none of these names. It is written all over his face, and the long lines of worry which stripen it. That confusion hardens into a stoic expression when the older male takes note of the sympathy upon the cheerful stranger's face. While he notices Vadim's attempt at a comforting glance, he avoids it, looking instead at the nearby entrance to the city beyond.
In the tall man's head, images of home flash by, between waves of cold chills and the flips of his belly, in time to the beating of his worried heart. He hears Perrin's soft laughter in his head, and can almost smell the wind which moves through his dark hair, as he leans in with a wide grin on a long ago afternoon: 'It's never just an ordinary day with you, is it?'
The tired man sighs, and answers his beloved much differently that he had on that happy afternoon.
Not even here, wherever this Novus is. Not even without you.
"If you have not heard of it, it is far," solemnly answers Stavros, "on a map or not. Besides, I'd no intention of going back when I left.
He had intended to find solitude, and to die alone, somewhere forgotten, where nothing reminded him.of his failures and loss. That was not Zeus' plan, however, and so it would seem that Stavros was here. Perhaps he might still not be reminded of Perrin in a realm far from the one they had both called home.
"You spoke of the library as if anyone might enter," he continues, chasing his thoughts away with a subtle shake of his muzzle, "I would still like to see these maps, if it is of no inconvience to you."
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