She has never met the King of Loess.

She has no reason to recognize his patchwork coat, and so, she does not, but it is hard to miss him when he enters, his otherwise sensible black and white marked with gold and hidden beneath enormous wings. The wind brings the smell of brimstone to her nostrils, faintly sulphuric as it finds its way to her from across the distance between them. Neverwhere calls no greetings, she is still and he does not seem to have noticed her, instead lost in the views around him, grasped either by memory, or by the magic of the austere landscape, and she - watching with lips set in a firm, stubborn line - waits. She doesn't mind the waiting, everything about waiting is simple, it's where waiting ends that the complications begin.

Everything is a complication, now.

And all visitors are here for her, now, too, even the ones that don't know it at first, so she lets him take his bearings because, eventually, he will turn to her. He will see her. He will approach her. He will probably ask her where Heartfire has gone. Nobody has explicitly asked her that yet, but the question lingers in their eyes, stains their tongues and colors all the other questions that are asked of her. There are no satisfactory answers, though, nor to the question of how she happened to come to power in the roan's place, playing a game she agreed to without hearing the rules... Actually, when put like that, it's exactly her way, it's how she ended up in Nerine in the first place.

So, am I winning, or losing?

The thought etches into her scarred lips a faint smile, a smirk, really, only the corners upturned and the bright red, wind-chapped skin of her nostrils drawn tight with wry amusement. Winning or losing? It remains to be seen.

The waiting ends.

She is ice to his flame, the thaw of her quiet welcome melting no further than that slight upward curl at the corners of her lips. Castile, King of Loess, and likely to be irritating as a stone bruise.

"Congratulations, Castile, I think that's the fastest anyone has ever complicated things for me. One word," her voice is cool against his smokey charm, "Impressive."

This may not be entirely accurate, but it is close enough for her, and he won't know any different. She shifts her weight back, resting one rear hoof on its edge as he deduces and congratulates her on her ascension. It it not a recognition she welcomes, but she remains impassive, that barely-there smile unflinching, though it cannot, and does not try to, match the ease of his. So many easy smiles in this place, hiding rot behind their friendly distraction.

“Neverwhere," she says, bluntly, "and thanks, I hate it.” One shoulder shrugs, nonchalantly. So many responsible for this mess she has inherited, this high-wire of international conflict she must walk. A snarl curls in her breast at the thought, but she guards her face from it. She has always been good at building such walls around herself – when she wanted to be. It was, perhaps, why Heartfire had brought her here in the first place, why Heartfire had anchored her with that gift of land-linked sight, and why it was Neverwhere she had reached out to in those brief moments before she disappeared. Or perhaps it had simply been because there was no one else. The roan’s reasoning is opaque, the former Queen had never been forthcoming with answers, and Neverwhere does not bother wasting her time on thoughts of why she did what she did.

She does not bother wasting her time on pleasantries with the painted stallion, either. The careless nature of her voice falls away with a flick of one ear, her bored expression turning skeptical. She is not Lilliana, she will not pretend at friendliness when it does not exist, she barely manages civility most days.

“Why are you here?”

Has he come to retrieve the memories she cannot see? To tell her that she must answer for an argument in which she had no part? (Nothing personal, of course, it's just politics.)

Maybe he's just here for the view, she thinks, drily.

She might do without the difficulties, but her life, like his, would not be what it is without them. She would not be who she is. She has crossed many miles with eyes like milk and skin that burns in the sun, and she has survived those miles where many others would not. This was not a complication that she had intended to take up, yet here they are, and as he ponders over the unwelcome nature of her rise in status she lets her head fall quizzically to one side.

"A bit rude-- I suppose you never met Heartfire?" There is something to the quirk of her lips that implies this is not a serious question. Castile has led Loess long enough that their paths must have crossed, for better or worse Probably worse, if she knows Heartfire the way she thinks she does, almost definitely worse. If she could ask the mare - and actually get an answer - then perhaps she would have a better understanding, but there was no time, no way to explain all the reasons in pictures. The frustration of it burns, but Neverwhere does not linger. Move on, move forward.

"I would not say there were no other options, she has relations that live here still, " she shrugs. It was true that there had been other choices, but there were not many, and those either too resistant or too absent to rely on, "but Heartfire loves a joke."

She wonders if he will agree with her, but it does not matter because she is confident in her perception of their friendship - and it had been one, once you cut through all the sarcasm. Their humors had lined up in an odd, abrasive way, like two glaciers crashing into one another in the sea. Their entire relationship had been a joke, but it was the roan who had gotten the last jab in. To some extent, Neverwhere supposes it is a strange respect for that which made her pick up the empty crown. She lifts her head beneath the weight of it, matching his odd-eyed gazed.

"I don't much see the point of kingdoms and boundaries," She was not raised in a world with controlled and maintained boundaries, the herds drifted, apart, together, apart again. The land had no name, it was wild as the horses that lived there, and would not be claimed. It was only when she arrived in Beqanna that she discovered others lived differently, and she struggles fruitlessly against the idea like a wild bird caught in a cage, bruised by the bars.

Neverwhere brushes his mispronunciation of her name aside with a snort and nods as he admits to missing Nerine because the land has hooked itself under her skin, as well, "I am not," but she is already turning, stepping forward to take up the path ahead of him, "but I am sure things have changed little enough that you can share your thoughts on the hoof."

There was never much of a chance for Neverwhere's patience with Heartfire to be tested, the roan had been secretive and quiet, but had never pressed her hard or forced her to choose a path. Perhaps the trick with the eyesight had been a... suggestion but there hadn't been any harm in it once she understood its limits, and it didn't corral her in any way - the decision to stay within Nerine to take advantage of the unasked for gift had been her own. In any case, if she had ever thought that Heartfire might have done more for her, she is soothed by full vision that she now enjoys, and she directs a clouded eye on the black and white stallion as he travels beside her, taking in the scenery of Nerine.

His dry opinion does not surprise her, and not simply because of the tense relations that Loess and Nerine have enjoyed recently. The silvered mare has heard whispers of others' opinions, and also because, in some aspects, the two mares were similar, and she knows very well the sort of reactions she is capable of eliciting. But being disliked did not seem to be a problem that concerned Heartfire, nor is it a problem for Neverwhere, and, she suspects, not one for Castile, either, though he tries to hide the edge beneath downy layers of charm and a voice thick as tobacco. He stops, and her clouded eyes narrow slightly - she is slow to do the same, drawing further ahead, and does not turn right away as he speaks. Neverwhere is not generally curious about others by nature and his proposal of a game leaves her cold. Games are not her forte, and she has fewer than twenty-one questions to throw back at him without asking after subjects she could not care about much less. So...

"Usually everyone just tells me their life story without my having to guess at the correct questions," She finally cranes her neck to look back at him fully, the rest of her follows, body angled slightly away from his, "Probably because I never ask."

Has she never asked? The words fall from her lips as most do, careless, without a second thought, and even as she says them, she wonders if they are true. She can't remember a time the she has asked anything so banal as how long someone has lived in a place except with thickly layered cynicism. She smirks slightly, remembering how she had asked after Lepis as she needled Lilliana and Wolfbane in the Taigan woods, but the humor melts away, remembering another conversation involving many of the same characters.

She does have a question, after all.

"Four years, more or less. Three in Nerine." Enough time to trace its boundaries, to see the invisible lines by the fade in-and-out of her vision before Heartfire gave it back in full. She wonders if he will think her question an unfair trade - age for purpose. Well, never mind.

"What do dragons want with a rainforest?"