Once again, he has let time pass him by. For whole lifetimes he is painfully present, drawing each breath alongside the movers and shakers and doers. For other whole lifetimes, he is as good as gone. He has yet to see a whole centennial (though he's drawing alarmingly close), but even with the unnaturally long lifespans of Beqannians he is practically ancient. He has descendants so far removed from himself that they are practically unrelated, nowadays. Even tracking them down via magic as he is wont to do is now a purposeful activity, rather than a subconscious task. It's a strange world they live in, where the residents mature in a mere three or four years, but even those not gifted with immortality sometimes live for five or six decades. They were not meant to meet their own great-great-great-grandchildren, Brennen muses, and it's not the first time he's had such a thought.

Today's rise from the quiet hold of deep magic is sudden. On other occasions, it has been a slow ascent, like bubbles rising to the surface of the water, but not today. Today he is submerged in the calm depths of the ocean one minute, watching the magic flow along the currents, and the next he is standing beside the river, it's burble and laugh over the flat rocks not quite loud enough to mask the sounds of conversations carrying behind him. Brennen shivers and blinks; physically, he probably never left the surface of Beqanna but mentally it's still more than a little disconcerting. The sheer power of magic carried on ocean currents makes the glint of magic on the river seem like mere faerie dust.

He stretches; first his limbs, rocking back onto his haunches and sinking down in the front in a move more reminiscent of feline than equine. When he straightens again, Brennen extends both wings and gives them a good shake. It's not a proper preening, that, but grooming will have to wait for later. His mind provides a tantalizing memory of his partner doing the careful preening for him, and a part of him is holding out for that. If it comes down to it, he can do it himself with a little reaching or a little magic, but a live friend would be better. With that desire firmly in mind, he turns away from the river and faces the land behind, amber eyes scanning the scattered residents.

Will he see a familiar face today, or will he have to go seeking them in once-familiar lands? Or worse still, start over again?

While his eyes are scanning the physical bodies standing before him, most if not all of them unfamiliar, there is a moment when he considers retreating back into himself. It's work, starting over, and Brennen has little to tie him to the mortal existence. He's always been a creature of intense loyalties, to lands and to people. The lands are not a draw to him right now - he had broken his last ties to Kingdoms and Monarchies shortly before his last disappearance. Yes, the landscapes might remain unchanged by aught but the seasons, but the people inside of them who commanded his loyalty have changed. So it is only for the possibility of people to whom he is loyal that Brennen stays mentally present, and he is afraid of what he might find if he reaches for them.

Who remains alive? Who has died (for real, not the magic-sleep of the water mage)?

He has gone as far as to close his eyes when something changes. There's magic in the wind that skips across his hide and feathers, and it's not the magic of a stranger. Even if he wasn't attuned to 'look' for the magics and minds of those he has cared about, the wind carries special significance for Brennen, and he is always listening to it. Once, before he was a mage, he had a handful of other hard-won powers, and the winds had been among them. He rarely gives serious thought to the limitations of his powers Before, but the ability to harness the wind had gone hand-in-hand with his preference for flight over the tedium of walking, and so it had been precious. Not as handy in his profession as the bone-bending, but closer to his heart.

The mage half-expects to see the other mage when he opens his eyes, but the space immediately around himself is still empty. He waits a moment, a pregnant pause, and is rewarded with the brush of a mind against his own, rich with the Cold that the younger man has embraced. Brennen tolerated the cold of the Tundra because it was the first home he'd ever known, and his loyalty to it and his Kings had run deeper than any river. The dragon-boy had embraced the Cold over time until it seemed he simply Was. Leilan, the mage tastes the name across his mind less as an affirmation of his identity - neither one of them is any particular doubt as to who the other is - but rather as an affirmation that this is Real, and not a dream or a memory, you know if would take more than that to kill me.

Brennen is hard to kill: he's both a formidable warrior in the physical way, and a practiced magician. Oh, and he's fucking stubborn. It's like a shining threefold illustration of 'hard to kill'.

His memories of the altercations directly before he phased himself out into the ocean for a time are hazy, but time awake is sharpening them. The last things Brennen remembers is working magic beyond even his own level of comfort, Taiga burning, and those that had asked him to stand in protection of their Lands and Kingdoms failing to appear to stand beside him. Brennen remembers being incandescently irate, and he is sure that even a memory of that anger will remain in his mind-voice when he speaks again; but any fury he may have felt at the time is tempered by both time and his long history with the younger stallion that had preceded that incident, and the result is a tone that might have an edge, but isn't particularly hostile. He doesn't bother to shield any of those complicated feelings from Leilan, if the boy cares to look. Too lazy to come say a real hello? he teases instead.

There's something...different about the familiar voice. Something off, even, though Brennen can't pin down what it is. He's probably picking up on something to do with Leilan's heart, though he doesn't pry far enough to find out. He doesn't even change his attitude or responses, not really, though perhaps his gaze is a little sharper and his attention that sliver more focused. He says nothing when Leilan snarks back at him, that by-play comforting in its familiarity, and the boy's acquiescence is clear enough anyhow.

Magic coalesces in the air around him, and then the physical signs of the place from where Leilan is traveling. Here, spring has begun to dance its way across the meadows and plains, but the younger stallion is coming from a cold place. Brennen inhales the crisp scent of snow and ice, allowing himself a reminiscent little smile, before focusing once more on his...friend? It seems at this point he would probably consider Leilan a friend, though their ties and history are so much deeper than that. Leilan is one of the ones he will always remember as remarkably young, though standing before Brennen now he doesn't seem particularly youthful, despite the spunky attitude he has never quite shed. The flicker of his eyes reminds Brennen of Scorch, and for a moment he mourns.

But that is all he can allow himself - a moment - because allowing himself to dwell in the past is the start of the downward spiral back into magical hibernation. He can risk only the fond memories of former friends and lovers, unless he's willing to finally give up the chase and join them. He's not ready to do that yet, and thus, he remains.

"The ocean is teaming with life," he reponds placidly, "but the sharks and seamonsters aren't particularly good conversationalists, and the fish are quite dull." There had been a few with whom Brennen had shared dream-time during his Sleep, but it certainly hadn't been the sealife. With the exception of a few of his more aquatically-inclined children, Brennen really has very little fondness for water dwellers. The water itself he loves: the tides, the changes, the cool depths and constant ebb and flow, the magic it holds for him; but he holds no allegiance to its denizens. "Perhaps more interesting - what has been happening above sea level?"