He doesn’t entirely know what to do when others approach him. So he just stands there, as he usually does, letting her muzzle touch him briefly, accepting the compliment. He’s never been entirely skilled with social graces, having never much cared for the finer points of them anyway. Perhaps he should care. It might make him better at life, better for the Valley, less awkward and useless and sometimes ridiculous.

But he doesn’t care. He’s made of shadows now, in a way, and the shadows don’t care if he’s awkward or strange. He understands them, and that is enough. He asks and they listen, and that is more than he could have ever dreamed. He is more than he dreamed, in truth, and far less than he could be. But that’s never really bothered him.

“Rhonan,” he offers, when she asks for his name. He hadn’t even thought about it. Names don’t really mean much to him, though they are useful. This much he realizes, if nothing else. “And you?”

He begins to lead her from the field at this point, mostly in silence, keeping the shadows around them as they wander through Beqanna to the Valley. He leads her through the firewall, adding “That is leaving. “ Because he hates the firewall. Doesn’t like cowering behind it, doesn’t like how it casts too many of the shadows away.

When they are finally inside the Valley and well away from the firewall, trees dotting the landscape and casting shadows on the ground, he stops. “I’d be surprised if you managed to hurt anyone here. They are terribly capable creatures.” He doesn’t know what this mare is capable of, not really. But he knows his kingdom mates are far from weak and defenseless. He trusts they’ll be all right. And perhaps, in time, so will this mare.

rhonan.