Nerine has not been his home for a long time - not since she left, and he strongly believes that her return wouldn’t change things now - and they haven’t honestly made the Icicles the same offer as once before; yet, he uses the northernmost moors as often as he needs to, and hasn’t been told off yet.

Then again not many would have the courage to walk up to a disguised dragon and tell them to shove it. Especially when they’re just grazing and the population is small enough to miss out on the stalks he takes. He very much believes Nev simply doesn’t really care.

He frequently wonders if anyone really cares, anyway. Nerine has never much involved herself with her territories, and while that pleased all parties involved right up until Taiga became the source of squabbling over land and titles with other kingdoms, it amazes him how little has been done about the absolute burning of one. He doesn’t know how to feel about it. Sad? Maybe. Offended? Just a little. Surprised? Hmm. Not really if he’s honest.

He shakes his head, getting rid of that train of thought entirely. What’s more important is finding out why Nerine has been so particularly silent lately. It’s unusual even for her, and although he doesn’t want to be involved with whatever issue the ladies currently have with whichever other kingdom these days, it does worry him to see the land so... barren. The howling north wind no longer sings of freedom, but of emptiness. These women used to rule an empire here, but it seems that the Amazons could not live forever, but only in name. A melancholic grimace crosses his face at the thought of what else he’ll see go down, what else he’ll lose, during his lifetime.

No wonder Brennen had retreated to Ischia with whomever was his lover this time.

(He’d laugh so hard if he knew it was his nephew though.)

As the night breaks into a cold spring dawn, the ice-scaled stallion in the north-Nerine point catches a few rays of sunlight; then, he pulls up the shadows that were given to him, hiding the shiny from the world. It doesn’t fit today to be shiny - none of it does. His patch of slightly unusual darkness might be noticed in the twilight of the meadow, but he doesn’t care about being noticed or not currently.

As the blue glows of the northern island make way for the orange sunlight, the male wanders leisurely towards the south. Outward calm and inner storm seemingly don’t match, but he’s used to it by now. His eyes betray him however, the colors swirling, trying to compete for the best-fitting color to his numerous, alternating feelings for today.

He stops when he finally notices someone else - Neverwhere - and a little shadow at her side.

She’s not looking at the horse-shaped shadow approaching her, not for the moment. He studies her as she seems to study the colt, and almost snorts when she calls her kid to her. She sounds impatient, though for what, he doesn’t know.

He’s waited long enough to come nearer. He approaches, dropping the cloak of darkness enough not to blind her (again, hehe), but that he is still recognizable. ”Never, where in the world did you get that?”

It must have been longer than he’d thought since he’d seen her in the Field. Has she lost her mind? No - she looks a little broken, but the fire in her eyes is still burning. But she has lost something, he thinks as he studies her. He’s taken in enough lost ladies in his time to know the look of someone who’s lost a part of herself. ”Lost your quills, Porcupine?” he frowns.

He drops... most of the act, when Neverwhere's usual snide comments start into something like true anger. With it, also most, nearly all of the aura - his face clear between the dark fog, but keeping just enough to remove the ever-available shine and glitter of the morning sun on metallic mane and ice-made scales. Her physical snapping at him is new, and it stops him just enough, but a comment cannot be held in. "Ouch, Grumpy, you're hurting me." If not physically - of course not - this is nearing the line of actually lashing out, and he doesn't think it's anywhere near hormonal talk.

Brennen arrives then, before anything else is said, and perhaps that's for the best. He gets greeted first and he nods respectfully, though as always with the black-winged bay, the not-really-an-uncle incites something of humour in the dragon-boy's eyes. Perhaps it's their odd relationship that he still thinks of as kind of funny, or the way the Champion interacted with the Queen. Brennen takes almost a dry tone - or maybe he just imagines it - with the dappled mare, and Leilan takes the time to examine the colt behind her. Winged, his dapples gold and almost glowing, and a dark sort of buckskin. Honestly, it's not something he immediately recognizes; although Brennen might probably know through his magic, Leilan would have to guess based on looks - and possibly whatever traits the kid has - to know.

But, he doesn't - in fact, Neverwhere and Lilliana never really told him about the boy's father so what does he know anyway. It's a kid, and kids never have the chance to do anything wrong at that age. Neverwhere's thundercloud probably indicates something to do with his making, or the father, or whatever he reminded her of - he suddenly wonders what Neverwhere had been like in her youth, and grins a bit at the mare, though he keeps his thought to himself; knowing she would truly bite whatever she could find on him - turning his attention to the colt, he seems to shrug a little as he lets one shoulder roll. Brennen is here to apparently get orders from the Queen, and Leilan... well, he's just hanging about, not unlike the young colt.

So, to entertain himself and the young boy, he snorts a bit of ice on a patch of grass, watching the insects crawl away from it, his gaze seemingly on the grass - just waiting for whatever Never's next move is.

There’s surprise when the colt splits himself in two, and he wonders if he could split into more than that - then, he starts to suspect he got it from his mother. He may not use such information, but he notices more than he usually lets on, and this is a prime example; he remembers the strange shadows and figures that plagued them last time he visited Nerine - and Neverwhere. Brennen had been present too, but the magician had not sired the kid.

However, occupied - or pretend-occupied really - as he is, he only nods to the approaching lavender mare and otherwise slashes his tail at one of the colts, and grows a wing on one side to flap at the other to make them stop running and occupy him the kid(s?) moment. He scrutinises the mare who sent the one looking for Brennen away, though he is less concerned with her not referring to the magician - Brennen’s voice is dry ice and he doesn’t want to tests his limits with the man, besides it is more fun to see if she’ll wriggle or fight - but he does interject one sharp question. ”And what shape exactly would that be?” A monstrous one with tentacles and several heads maybe? His horse shape - probably not, and if so, would he still impersonate someone else? Or a dragon shape like Castile, to burn more of the lands? Really there is too much wiggle room there, and he doesn’t think this mare who apparently thought to take the matter in her own hooves, had told the boy she talks about, all the details.

He doesn’t care much for the competition between the lavender mare and Brennen though - he still perks one ear at them when looking back at Neverwhere’s colt. Wolfbane, of course. Spinal mane and iridescent markings, though the colt looks otherwise like his dam. The kid’s breath is fogging his scales but otherwise does nothing, but he eyes Neverwhere suspiciously when she mentions more than one. How the heck did Wolfbane not visit him, but managed to breed so much in the north anyway - but then, she had said he was cursed. A multiple-shape curse according to the other mare, he could be anywhere. Drawn to his children though - some form of decency might still linger.

The gold-and-ice stallion ruffles the kid’s head, then looks to the others present. ”And I thought he was a pain in the ass before he got cursed,” he shakes his head, but mentally calling up the images of the blue-striped stallion whom he once knew - making eye contact with Brennen once as an invite to watch with him and learn what he could. Of his arrival in Loess, his excessive time spent with Arthas, the visit in Ischia he made and the small party in the Resort where they good-heartedly called eachother names in the presence of Leliana. Good times, and nothing too worrisome; otherwise he had only heard some things about him and Lepis taking over Taiga back in the day, but he’d thought that was the mare’s idea at the time. Who could tell though? How far had he been willing to go then, how far would he go now? The roan diverts his attention between Neverwhere and the colt - that Wolfbane would never in his life gotten Neverwhere so far as to be with him, let alone want to even try. Somehow he doesn’t want to know what exactly happened to Neverwhere. He can guess enough.