After a quick appraisal, they fell into step with one another, although it would be obvious to any outside observer that they had not yet let down their guards. Rehoboam couldn't blame the soot colored stranger; if living away from the Cove had taught him anything, it was that the swampy low-ground was more likely to hold an obstacle to one's goals than a boon.

One coal-rimmed ear tilts towards his nameless companion as they tread to catch his answer, and he suppresses a wan smile at the chaotic nature of what he was saying. In a way, it reminded him of the conversation he'd had with the Kingbreaker with it's obscurity. Reh remembered the steel grey stallion with fondness, despite the undercurrent of danger that had laced every second of their conversation and he wondered if he would come to regard this stranger with the same reverence someday. To the heart of it, the nameless man had said, as if the islands held a secret burning heart he was destined to pursue.

"Not much lays beyond this way save the broken ruins of an island," Reh offered evenly, no judgement in his tone. At least, he was fairly certain that was all that lay in this direction beyond the gentle curve of the Crossing's western shore. He certainly hadn't heard of anything else, other than the mythical Mainland that lay beyond anyone's vision. Silence lapsed for a moment, and the tobiano could feel the weight of his companion's gaze scouring across his body. He was no mammoth like the Lagoon's general, but he had grown in both stature and confidence since his own arrival and did not shrink beneath the weight of appraisal.

Eventually, the stranger spoke again and Reh considered his question for a moment, before exhaling with a smile that was just on the edge of bitter.

"Once upon a time, I was," he said softly, almost rueful in the darkness. "I used to think I would find answers here," Rehoboam answered evenly, his gaze thoughtfully trailing over the foliage that while familiar, had gained an alien quality in the darkness. When he had arrived as a younger stallion, his goal had been to find out more about the mother that had abandoned him without a second glance. She'd delivered him and then almost immediately disappeared without bothering to ensure that he survived.

All he had known about her were the rumors that pointed him back to the Lagoon, where it was said that she had once held some sort of influence. Whatever her history was, it remained buried in the mire of this swampy territory, too illusive for him to grasp. He had fewer answers now than he had when he had entered, but at this point he wasn't sure his search was enough of a reason to keep him here.

"But the swamp does not divulge her secrets easily." He finished with a twitch of his dark tail, and paced another few quiet steps through the snow without saying anything. It wasn't particularly common to come across lone stallions, in Rehoboam's experience. Mares were everywhere, but stallions had a tendency to congregate toward the opposite gender like moths to open flame, and as such, the Lagoon had not welcomed in a new brother in some time.

An invitation rises and nearly tips out of his lips before the tobiano realizes that he does not yet know this man. Normally, that wouldn't matter. The morality of the Lagoon was in a constant state of fluctuation that had forced Rehoboam into scenarios he had never envisioned himself capable of carrying out.

But Bellona was still here.

And Reh would not risk her safety for the sake of his own strange loneliness.

"What will you do, when you reach the heart of things?" He asked instead, as if the pause between this comment and the last hadn't been pregnant with a different sort of pause.