Rowe, it would seem, did not have losses to grieve, or if she did, she failed to mourn them. It’s difficult to be sure, but the patterns of her lineage found her all the same. Willing subject or not.

It’s not the darkness that follows her, that is for certain. Nor is the shadow her cause, because even she could not command the revenants of gloom. Pressing them into the commons and lengthening their presence until they stretched far across the loam of grass. And yet, she succumbed to them all the same, latching on to the nightshade, and curling it around her form, effectively camouflaged against the unlit portions of the meadow. Until she too, perhaps, became a small piece of that darkling setting.

Two amber eyes watched as another approached, and stood against a knoll to overlook his dimmed passageway.

Rowe shouldn’t wonder why, but her curiosity piques nonetheless, and she finds herself approaching the isolated man without worry befretting her emotion. The darkness, though unusual, found the pale mare as a welcome visitor—it brought no spirits to haunt her. Rather, it is possible that she herself was one such phantom, meandering the moors with interest in place of woe.

”Do the shadows bother you?” A voice that lacked all sense of discomfort, she turned a pallid ear to his gruff words, perceiving his observations as annoyance. Though she remained blithe in her own senses, could it be that this man with the lamp-like eyes had a distaste for the dark?

”It’s not so bad,” she assures him, bumping a shoulder against his own dark palette, and then she too looked from the knoll—though she had yet to learn why.

The knoll had become her podium, and she watched the dozing stretch of land in hushed parallel until his words broke the silence like a stone dropped into still water. Ripples disturbing the sleepy surface; maybe she was the pebble afterall.

A small smile tugged at the corner of her lip with the realization, but she left it there where it warmed her, turning her attention back to the sable man beside her. His glowing eyes drifting out along the moors, but her own just as keen to stare alongside him, flicking an ear at his easy ‘no’ and nodding her head ever so slightly. The young mare found herself wondering what had perturbed him, but she stilled her questions before they unraveled like the night along her skin.

The sun assailed her amber eyes, drawing several rapid blinks against the sudden change, collecting a hiss between her teeth that left no room for misconception.

Someone had turned on the light, leaving her momentarily blind, though her eyes dared not shut, there was nothing to soothe them from unseeing. Precious moments pass, she can feel his breath when he turns, ears swivelling toward the tiny nuance of his head twisting and the sound that comes with adjusted movement. The faintest warmth pricked her skin, laughing as it touched her face, her neck and evaded the premise just as quickly.

‘Far worse’, now that should have held some value, and it does in its own sense, but Rowe is drawn to the distraction of seeing such things. Rather, not being able to see them, and that final inflection tugs her ears forward, leaving her lack of caution behind until a gentle, ”Oh, I’m Rowe,” draws itself past her pale mouth.

”Perhaps I can help,” she offers, carefully filling the void with something that is assuredly near to pleasantness, though I’m not convinced I’d call it even that. “I found you, didn’t I?” There’s no offer at smugness, nor would one be able to pin her as proud, but there is something delicious in her certainty, the ease at which she navigates the gloam and asserts herself where others find blank canvas. She watches, she waits, and tilts her head at his stretch.

An obsidian hound, she asides, noting the action and saving it for later. Filing the movement under interesting behavior, one that she might try when no one is looking.

“What are we looking for,” she begins, before an ear turns thoughtfully toward him. “—and what should I call you while we look?”