He doesn’t have to see her to know that she is there. He can feel her, feels the shadows that are her body, feel her move through the portals. Rhynn had been teaching him how to control this new skill of his. How to accept the shadows, and in accepting the shadows, accepting everything he had done to become what he is now. Noah lingers on the outskirts of his vision, and Rhonan has found that in his time alone, he now enjoys the peripheral presence of his dead friend.  

Rhonan had been too late too save him. Too selfish to turn around before Noah had. To selfish to dive into the horde to try and stop it. Too late to save Gero from Azula. Too selfish not to vote away the others to be tortured. He was a monster, nothing more. And now the shadows obeyed him.

He no longer fell through the shadows, landing god only know where or on top of Fennick anymore. He could form them into most anything, solidify them, do as he wishes with the darkness in the world. And he could feel them. All around him he could feel the way they moved against the light, could feel them as other manipulated them.

Today, he is not purposefully in the field. He was passing by on the way to the meadow, where he spend enough of his time given his general apathy for working in a kingdom. Maybe he would one day. Maybe he’d just linger in the Valley till they kicked him out. But either way, he feels the mare. Not a horse playing with shadows, but shadows that create a horse.

And he cannot help but be drawn to her.

He wears darkness like a coat, covering his gold and white form. He’s always hated his coloring, so he pulls the darkness around him and makes it look like a part of him. Like he’s always been black, rather than gold.  He finds her without much effort. Her eyes are bright, though he doesn’t need those to guide him either. He simply knows where she is. Because she is made of shadow, and he was given the ability to understand the darkness completely. Because there is nothing good or light or kind about him.

Not anymore.

“Rhonan,” he says, and then nothing more. The darkness around them seems to tighten slightly, like a blanket almost. Not a bad pressure, but loving. And he leaves it just like that.

rhonan.

It doesn’t take her long to figure out what he is. A puppeteer; a master of shadows. She pops through portals around him, reappearing here and there around him. He does not move, does not flinch. He can feel where she goes through the portals, track her from one place to the next. At first, behind her, and there’s a part of him that’s vaguely tempted to stop her before she throws up a second portal.

He could stop her, after all. She is made of shadows, and he controls the darkness. At least, he thinks he could stop her. He knows, certainly, he could rip the shadow portals away from her. But he does nothing of the sort. He lets her pop around, out of anger or uncertainty or just because that’s what she does, he has no idea. Rhonan’s strong suit has never been reading emotions. He’s no empath, and doesn’t have even a normal horse’s level of empathy.

Though he understands her more than he can understand anyone else. But of course, he understands all shadows. Still, emotions baffle him. Though her dislike of his power is clear enough. He may not be able to read between the lines, but he’s not stupid either. She’s pretty obvious about it.

She’s touching him now, nose to his shadow coat. Still, he doesn’t move. He simply says, “I do not tell. I ask.” Because he cannot tell the shadows what to do. When he tried that, he kept falling through portals and ending up on top of other horses. But Rhynn talk him acceptance, and when he accepted the shadows, they accepted him. He asks, and they listen. It is that simple.

Finally, finally he turns to her. In the darkness, the orange ring in his eyes is bright and noticeable. In the daytime, his eyes are simply muddy brown. But of course, Rhonan has become a creature of the night. “Imagine what we could do together, Anatasia.”

Around them, the darkness takes shape. Not just portals, but animal shapes, solidifying into creatures with teeth and claws, eyes drawn to the shadow mare just as Rhonan’s are. The slink forward, as if waiting for a command. But they do not look to Rhonan, and he does not ask them to.

rhonan.

He’s still figuring out what level of control he has as well. Anastasia probably knows about as well as he does just how much control he has. It’s anyone’s guess still. He’s new at this puppeteer thing. New to the shadows, and newer still to his acceptance of them (and in return, their acceptance of him). It is strange, how different he has become. How quickly. It was not the quest itself that changed him (not so completely, anyway). It was the darkness.

Not that is necessarily made him darker. He doesn’t have some new found desire to eat meat or anything. He simply feels more in control of his life, more capable. Less like a pretty pretty princess, made of gold and white, and more like a prince. A prince of what though? That is the question he has yet to answer.

Does he desire to rule a kingdom? Does he want a herd? Does he simply want to be a prince of darkness, living in the shadows and doing as he pleases?

Maybe he wants to be all of these things. Or maybe, nothing at all.

He wonders briefly what it is she feasts on. Wonders even more if he would, in fact, enjoy it. Perhaps. He won’t know until he tries, and perhaps he will try. But she laughs, pulling him out of his thoughts, yelling “Pop!” And he can’t help but return that laugh, a low rumble more than a laugh though. The idea of popping like the shadows portals she flits in and out of seems really somewhat fitting.

She’s quick to lose the good mood though. Are all women like this? He honestly doesn’t know. He’s never spent much time with girls, other than Azula. And Azula snapped and ate one of their friends, so you know, he’s trying not to judge to hard. Granted, has he really found different company in a mare made of shadows, with jagged teeth? Probably not.

Still, he can’t help but be drawn to her. Maybe even like her. He has no idea. But she and him are not so terribly different, in the one way that matters to creatures of the shadows. “Simply if they would like to play. They chose their own form, and I have not asked them to do anything more.”

rhonan.

She is quickly pleased at the idea of playing, her mood ping ponging back and forth. It’s beginning to make his head spin, honestly. Social skills are not his strong suit  - never had been – and this mare is testing him more than the normal horse. Rhonan is very good at simply lurking, listening, fighting when he needs too. He’s very good at simply surviving. He is absolutely terrible at making friends and carrying on normal conversations. This probably explains why he lives in the Valley, with horses like Gallows and Fennick who were far from normal as well.

But the girl certainly likes to play, though her definition of the word is far from a typical child’s definition. Though to be fair, she does frolic. Sort of. He can see how popping in and out of the shadow portals is rather like frolicking. And then she goes after the animal, and that too, is something of a child’s game. Tag. Only the loser dies.

It makes sense though, for them. They are creatures of the darkness. Why wouldn’t their play be darker, just slightly twisted out of the usual? Rhonan has never played. Not really. His brother and he had mostly bantered and bickered and periodically beat the crap out of one another. But they didn’t play. And then Rhonan was sent through his myriad of lives, forced to eek out a terrible existence more often than not. And even when life was good, it always came to some horrid end. What good would play have done him then?

He doesn’t even have time to decide what he should do before Ana is back in front of him, a dead hare in her mouth and then, in front of him. She looks expectant, and then nudges it with her foot. Even Rhonan, with his general inability to read social cues, can figure this one well. Well, guess today he’s going to try something new.

But he stares at the hare for a moment. He can’t help it. Can’t help but see Azula as she tore into Gero’s neck, can’t help but hear the screams. The hare is not Gero, and this mare is not Azula. But Ana isn’t all that different from Azula either, and for what is perhaps a moment too long, Rhonan hesitates.

But he knows he can’t turn down the gift. Not if he wants Ana to stick around. And this is something he does want. Because imagine what they could accomplish together. Perhaps with Rhynn as well. A trio of horses that belonged in the shadows. How powerful would they be together? And at this thought he grins, something a bit wicked, a bit of a new feeling for him. He’s getting used to this though, letting the darkness seep in and take over. There’s something freeing about it.

He drops his head and rips a piece of meat from the hare. It’s warm and chewy and blood trickles off his lips. It is strange and not entirely natural, and he almost spits it back out. But the shadow animals hop and trot and slither closer, almost like they are pleased, like they are encouraging him. So he chews, and swallows, and grins again, looking back to Ana with a nod at the hare. He does have a few social graces, and he knows enough to share. Besides, an entire hare might make him sick. He’s not entirely used to meat yet.

After a moment, he finally figures he ought to actually speak. Words are not his strong suit, and he prefers communicating with them anyway. But still, they are in the field. “So what kind of home are you looking for?”

rhonan.

He laughs at her response. Not at her, but at himself. His own stupidity. Of course rabbit is gross. But still, she had seemed rather happy that he’d taken a bite of the thing, and he can’t say he completed hated it. Though he’s also relieved. In the end, he still prefers grass. Unlike her, he has to eat to live, and he really doesn’t mind plain old boring grass. After all, even that had been a luxury in one of his lives, the one where Beqanna burned to the ground. As abundant as grass might be in this life, he doesn’t take it for granted. Not anymore.

Maybe that’s why he’s not completely disgusted by the idea of eating meat. He knows what it’s like to starve, and to watch his friends starve even more than he had. Food was food, and he needed it to live. Though horses’ stomachs were not made for meat, and he cannot imagine making an entire diet of it.

He just shakes his head instead. “Well then,” he begins, pretending to be insulted. Though it’s obvious he’s not even remotely annoyed by being offered a ‘gross’ gift. He’s a terrible actor. And besides, he thinks she meant well. It’s the thought that counts, right? “Thanks?”

But he laughs all the same, something that both feels and sounds foreign on his tongue. He’d never laughed much, in his last lives. Perhaps this life wouldn’t burn to the ground around him, though he didn’t hold out much hope of that. All his lives had. Why would his luck change now?

She looks a little sad when he poses the question, but at the same time she says what he wants to hear. And no, he doesn’t want to hear it because it would earn him some promotion (he’s not even in a caste), but simply because he likes spending time with the girl. They are similar, they are creatures of the shadows, and he finds comfort in surrounding himself with others like him. He isn’t entirely sure how the girl will react to Rhynn, but they’d soon find out.

“I do, sort of. Mostly, my home is in the shadows. But there are many shadows in the Valley. He grins then. “We will bring every shadow we can find. And play with them all. Yes?”

And this is perhaps the most he’s ever spoken. But it’s becoming easier, particularly with her. He’ll probably manage to set her off an infinite number of times, because he’s too clueless to do otherwise. But he thinks he’s getting a little better. And with that, he nods in the direction of the Valley, taking a few steps toward a shadow portal that he pulls into existence. No point in walking, is there?

rhonan.