It draws him like nothing else could.

No, that’s not entirely true, he thinks. The last time he was here - at least, the last time he can recall from a mind clogged with the infinite memories that comes with immortality - it was his mother that drew him. The bloody-shouldered Queen had risen from the dead, restored to this plane … but she had been different, not just imbued with magic as he had been following his Alliance victory; magic had been stitched into every fiber of her being - she was magic. It was unnerving, given she had scorned it for as long as he could remember, and their reunion had been short lived, ash on a tongue wanting for water.

The last he remembers talking to was a young mare with a dry sense of humor and affinity for the dead. Though, talking to is not entirely true. She had remarked on something about the morning being lovely - though it had indeed not been - and rather than reply, he had fixed her with a hollow-eyed stare for a few moments and then simply … vanished. Likely it was that had no desire to wallow in his miseries in front of a stranger, and the capriciousness of his spirit does not accommodate for the traditional rules of “civilized” society, so he had just disappeared rather than engage.

He is not sure where he has been since then. In the past, his sense of adventure had led him beyond Beqanna to experience other worlds. He’d even followed Niklas to the underworld once or five times. A chuckle rattles in his lungs at the memory of their last visit, more mischievous brothers than father and son. He inhales and the scent of the pines and home floods his lungs.

His eyes snap open as he starts to run, shaking his head from side to side before crowing with youthful exuberance. He thunders past the scorched tree, hoofbeats thrumming along with the distant drum of a stallion’s sacrificed heart as they find familiar paths again. He is drenched with sweat and foam when he finally reaches one of his childhood haunts. Chest heaving, he thrills in this feeling of being alive, after so many decades spent feeling untethered. He has his back to the mouth of the familiar cave up the side of the southern mountain, (nearly) the entirety of the Chamber stretched out below him. It is just the same as it was before he was forced from her borders; and yet, there at the end of a pine-scented lungful is a warped ripple of unsettling nescience. True to his nature, he tamps the unwanted feeling down. And waits.

“Me,” he replies, the clack of his teeth nearly snapping off the end of the word, a wry smile softening the blow. He rounds on her with the grace of a predator, his head lowered and tilted to the side, yellow eyes curious as they track up and down, then back up again. One corner of his mouth jerks when he blinks, a subtle gesture of approval. Some might find aversion in the gaunt lines of a creature such as she, and while there is a grotesque sort of air about her in a way he cannot entirely pinpoint, his fascination with the unnatural pulls him closer.

She reeks of Death; not the decaying, maggot-infested sort of death, but the cloying, moth-eaten perfume of dead souls … His gaze shifts from her hollow stare, following the rivulets of blood down her face to her chin, where it drips and gathers at her feet, saturating the earth. The dark stain spreads rapidly, as if it were sentient.

“You’re bleeding. Quite a lot.” He points out the obvious with a jerk of his chin, mismatched ears flicking back and then forward again.

In his perusal of her, he wonders if she is another former denizen of the Chamber. This kingdom has a long and storied past. Though his time here and his family's time here had lasted for generations, there are dozens of bloodlines and individuals who can lay claim to some of its memories. He takes another deep breath, wrinkling his nose at the after-scent of the underworld and not so subtly shifting upwind of her. “You didn't happen to see Niklas where you came from, did you?” he asks, as if they are old friends, absently minding the edges of the bloodstain on the ground.

Tell me how he died, she says - demands, in a sickly drawl - and he gathers up the pieces of his son’s name with a scowl, as if her speaking of him as dead could somehow permanently remove the devil from this plane.

“He’s not dead,” he says matter-of-factly, casting his gaze out over the Chamber. Autumn is in full swing, the reds and golds of the deciduous trees crowded by the perpetuity of the evergreens. Turning back to the bleeding stranger, his eyes snag on the corner of her smile, lingering on the ivory stained red and where grime cakes and gathers. It is only a moment or two, though, and then he is moving back to meet her red stare. “He is like you … but not the same as you,” he continues, cryptically, rolling his shoulders as if to shrug. Remembering the unbidden way her undead flesh heaved with life not hers. He knows what he means, but his mind still buzzes with the return of the Chamber, his blood humming with a sense of purpose he has not felt in decades; he does not bother to further elaborate, instead switching subjects.

“Why are you here?”

He shifts his weight, restless. He is distracted and it’s obvious. A deep sigh. When the Chamber rose, he answered its siren’s call. And though his history is rooted in the bedrock of the resurrected kingdom, there are still years and dozens of magical changes that yawn between then and now … his stare traces the blood’s path as it runs down the fine bone structure of her face. Life spilling out over death’s canvas … he blinks, mentally recoiling from that particular existential brink.

“It’s not really about pleasing me,” he says to her with a seemingly self-deprecating grin. “Not here, not anymore. There was a time that I mattered to this kingdom very much.” He is back at the edge now, lowering his head out over empty space, as if he were drinking from the valley below. “And then not at all …,” he finishes. Though he mumbles it so quietly, with his back to her, that she may be hard pressed to hear it. He remains there as if in suspension, the bright gold of his eyes dull and unfocused, no breath in his lungs - oddly still given his restlessness just moments ago; as if he were a bit of painted rock, a statuesque ode to an old, long forgotten, king.

A rogue breeze, one with a chill on the back end of it, picks listlessly at his dreaded locks, breaking whatever spell holds him captive. He is back now, chucking her under her bloodied chin with casual familiarity as he moves past her gaunt form, ignoring blood that now stains the white bit of his muzzle. On second thought … he pauses, cocking his head back in her direction, meeting and holding her gaze from the corner of his, thoughts hidden behind a lifetime of guarding them.

“I hope you’ll stay, Red,” and he chuckles at his very obvious nickname, his face bright with youthful mischief. He runs his tongue along the inside of his teeth. “Though if you do, we will have to do something about the trail you leave behind,” he fades off, frowning. By stay he does not mean here, in the Chamber - though he has no intentions of leaving it any time in the near future, not now that it's back after so long. No, by stay he means with him, in his orbit. She is a curiosity, no doubt, a great power forced to be a shadow of itself here, outside of the afterlife. He cannot help this habit of being drawn to such curiosities, following some innate urge to surround himself with the powerful and interesting alike; even the grotesque and unnatural. Albeit, fewer and fewer pass for unnatural these days in Beqanna.He reaches out with just a bit of magic, a featherlight touch, enough to confirm his suspicions and to arouse new ones. “Who created you, love? Why aren’t you with them?” His tone gives little away, all the restlessness of moments ago gone.