The sun rises over the water, and the stallion stands in the very shallowest water at the edge of the river. There is a bite to the air, but spring has settled into Beqanna deep enough that even this quiet water at the edge is not frozen. Of course because the river moves quickly and is very full, it doesn’t freeze very much, but it’s nice to look at the patterns in the ice at the edge. The boy should know – he had gone back to look, to admire, but then he had returned to the present.

(The present still fits like an old skin he’d already shed: poorly.)

It’s getting easier, to find this time-place, the longer he stays conscious in it. Stays awake, rather than hiding in the pockets of unused time where no one can find him. Even his daughter, though she hadn’t tried very hard; he had been a substandard father, and she had always preferred Brennen’s guidance to his own. Of course, he can’t blame her. Few could live up to the standards of Brennen as a father.

(Even with all of his failings, his father has never given up on him. Even now, he has welcomed him back to the fold.)

Back into the fold, and back into his confidence, as if Cagney were gone a day instead of a decade. He desires to prove himself to his sire now just as much as when he was a child, and Brennen has made a single request so far – see if he can find any more. Any more stallions who would be well-suited and inclined to membership in a Brotherhood, men with the spirit of the Tundra in their blood. Even if they’ve never seen the Tundra, don’t remember the feel of permafrost beneath their hooves. He has come here, first, to look.