The idea of ruins is both appealing and disappointing. Whatever climactic act had destroyed the island of which his companion speaks is over and done with, unwitnessed by himself. Some answers might lie among the rubble, but it will forever be a guessing game as to what really happened. He has no interest in such mysteries. He shivers his coat to dislodge the snow still trying to gather on his back and looks ahead through the muddled dark.

His companion is a vulnerable old soul. A poet, even, personifying the very land. No doubt he has ideas about the various motives of weather, as well. His ears swivel casually in the break in conversation. All he can hear is snow hitting snow and the drag of their hooves through that deep, wet cold. Then a flick toward the other, when the pause does not last too long, followed by another glance. Something like amusement touches the corner of his mouth. He stops walking.

His eyes search the dusky face of the other for a moment before he speaks. "Whatever I want," he says, without malice. Land is land, and the horses who cover it are no different here than any other place in the world. He is confident he has not encroached upon a band stallion's territory, for the musk of men is much stronger than that of mare, and in his experience with bachelor herds the hierarchy is determined between fellows and not necessarily the group as a whole. Things might be different here, but only just.

"Unless you mean to stop me?" he adds, still quite conversational, an implication of lifted eyebrows and amusement at the very idea that anyone would, or could.