Her words were gentle and sweet, and before Mikhail replied, he was met with a warmth against his neck, a soft nose pressed against the sensitive flesh there. Her breath tickled his ear, her voice soft and low, and he wondered what to do next. Part of him wanted to step back and away from this vulgar intrusion of personal space. But that seemed rude, and he was not a rude person - at least in comparison to those he had spent his formative years with.
Despite his inner desire to move from his spot, he stayed still, instead leaning into Katla's warmth with a gentle sigh of his own. 'I'll show you the way,' she said, and Mikhail swallowed against the tightness in his throat, his mouth suddenly feeling too dry. A life spent alone had conditioned him to find his own way, to struggle against a world that would see him dead before it ever blessed him with good fortune. If he had been one to believe in the divine, he might have thought Katla some type of guardian angel. Indeed, perhaps there was a place for her in his life yet to be determined.
In the blackness of the night, the only thing he knew was her skin against his and the sound of her voice in his ear. If he pressed his nose to the junction of her cheek and neck, he thought he might be able to feel the steady thrum of her pulse against silken skin. Her neck rested delicately upon him, and he couldn't help but wonder what he was supposed to do now. Physical contact - beyond that experienced in early foalhood - had been a rarity for him, something given only when needed most, or taken by force from another. He had never been brave enough (perhaps demented was the right word) to do that, unable to subjugate another living creature as his brothers so often did. Evren had been the last (and first) who had ever offered him any comforts of the bodily nature, and their coupling had given him pause at first. Even still, this was unfamiliar.
Feeling confused, Mikhail simply pressed his nose to Katla's shoulder, enjoying the warmth and closeness of her body while it was given freely to him. He was vaguely aware of the fact that she had spoken again, an answer he found oddly relatable. He, too, was a wanderer, a vagrant with no destination and no place to call home. "I see." He replied simply, silence stretching between them for several moments. "You believe in fate, then?" He had never been one to believe in destiny or the predetermination of events. It was by his own hoof that he carved his future, no one else's.