The night was growing closer and Breckin was growing colder. Shivering against the same wind that had failed to shake him, her head lowered, and the odd trinkets caught in her mane rang melancholy in her ear.
He approaches, and she watches. Unlike the time before, the withered mare doesn’t cower behind the trunk of her sentient guard as she had when Arthas found her. Instead, she leans deeper, heavily against its grounding. The splinters protest beneath the pressure of her shoulder, but it’s a welcomed distraction. It’s almost enough to make her forget about the stubborn ache in her head, the one that grew a little stronger with every quiet pace he stepped nearer.
Almost.
And it’s almost enough for her to miss that he had drawled out her name - her actual name - a name she hadn’t heard said aloud for a few seasons now. Both ears swivel forward and her dark eyes narrow contemplatively from beneath the tangled mess of her forelock. It was strange to hear it spoken from the lips of a stranger, but apparently he wasn’t a stranger at all. Or at the very least, he was someone who had known the woman that had lived before her. There’s still a part of her that begs to deny that name, but a larger part yet that finds relief realizing she didn’t have to go the route of the Roz bullshit she had been serving the few that had the misfortune to cross paths with her lately.
And she had left Taiga with a craving for answers.
Hadn’t she?
“That’s kind of you to notice,“ she said, finally drawing out a shallow smile. The snowmelt spiraled down from atop her poll, mixing with the narrow path of blood to stripe her dingy coat with trails of muted pink. A growing drop held precariously to the curve of her chin, finally dropping to stain the earth at her feet when the fledgling smile faded from her lips.
The closeness of her company had begun to rattle some repressed part of her, enough for her waxing curiosity to cause her to shift against the weight of the giant oak. The strength she needed to find to push away from the tree came surprisingly easy, and her speckled shoulders roll to align with the square set of her counterpart’s. Unsure of the why behind it, she dared another step forward, reducing the distance between her slight frame and his brilliant gold further, until the deep set of her brown eyes are able to make out the contrast of green tucked into a mask of blue. “Your eyes are so strange,” she murmurs, tilting her head in slow observation, studying him as he had done to the cut on her brow, “but beautiful.”
Something beyond his shoulder moves and her line of vision follows the disruption, her body leaning slightly to better peer around him. It was as if looking into the glassy plane of an agitated pool, the visions behind him are brightly colored, foggy and distorted beyond allowance for significant detail and sound, but the shadows are recognizable to her. It’s them, in the woods - a different, denser wood - but that is not the only thing changed in the fluttering image.
Could he see this too?
“Something...,” she starts before trailing off, taking another step closer with her brow knitting furiously together. “Something’s different. You look.....different,” she says, noticing the lack of something white against his barrel, and noticing the prouder set of her head she held. “I was different.” That annoying pain held captive in her mind began to lessen, though the poignant ache felt as though it had only migrated lower and settled into the most hollow part of her chest. She let her gaze drop from the vision to the snow-covered litter underfoot, and the inquisitive brightness in her eyes softened beneath a flush of sadness.
“Somehow, I can feel that you were important to me, even though I don’t have much to claim for memory.” The ragged woman’s head rises before turning to face him again, a myriad of unspoken questions written over her expression, though she asks him just one.
“Who are you?”
@[Wolfbane] here have a hot, rambly mess!
