The crisp winter air nipped against Evrain's skin and set a chill into his bones as he ambled along the shoreline of the Crossing, moving quietly over the invisible border that separated the Meadow from the Commons. It'd been far too long since he'd left the Hills. Time lately felt like it was passing in a slow blur, the days mixing together until they blended into one mind-numbing amalgamation in his head. All these thoughts of war that plagued him were becoming too much to bear, and when at last he could not take it anymore, growing tired of pacing the same circuitous route around his borders, Evrain dove into the sea and made his way to the mainland.
Almost instantly he had regretted it, the frigid winter air kissing his sea-slick skin and causing his teeth to click together uncomfortably as he shivered. Winter had barely begun but it felt unbearable, his desert-bred body unused to the iciness. If this was even a taste of what life on Tinuvel was like, Evrain wanted no part of it, thank you. How Azalais ever survived there for so long was beyond him.
Evrain ambled his way into the Common, no particular destination in mind. Briefly he'd considered plunging himself back into the sea and headed home, but movement in the distance caught his eye. Evrain's gaze shifted across the meadow, fixing immediately upon the petite figure of a creamy-colored mare as she turned her head skyward, peering up through the branches of the tree she rested beneath.
It was a picturesque scene - the pale woman idle beneath a lone oak, its bare branches reaching like crooked fingers towards the cloud-speckled sky. Evrain paused, briefly, to admire the serenity that seemed to radiate from her, to let his eyes wander each soft pale curve of her figure. It was almost as if she belonged there, nestled among the frost-kissed grasses, her breath coming in thin clouds from her rosy nostrils. But it was her eyes that drew him in, a pale blue reminiscent of the sky above Salem.
The distant sound of hooves pulled Evrain from his staring, his body moving before his mind could hitch together any train of logical thought. He did not know why he was approaching her, he simply knew he had to get to her before anyone else did. Evrain ambled his way towards her, pace unhurried despite the nervous energy that tingled along his topline.
"You'll catch a chill standing about in the cold like this." He said conversationally as he stopped before her, the words disappearing in a pale plume from his ebony lips. "There are places much warmer to be found not far from here, you know." It was the first bumbling step towards corralling her to Salem, to his herd that waited there for him to return, to blue skies and gold sand and warmth. Evrain had never been particularly good at... this. Claiming. The word alone left a bitter taste in his mouth, the implication of it twisting his gut unpleasantly. Like mares were chattel, mere things to be acquired and traded and used as fit. That wasn't the case here, he told himself reassuringly. If she didn't want to go with him he wouldn't object. But he had to at least try, the ugly, childish need to possess bubbling deep within his dark breast.
Shifting his weight, Evrain motioned vaguely southward with his muzzle. "I hear Salem is nice this time of year." A faint grin begins to bloom on his lips, eyes twinkling in the muted winter light.
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