“I was born on Luthien.” He said, voice short. Though it had been where he’d first drawn breath, Nephilim did not consider it home. She’d made certain he did not feel as if anything were home and only now, only just recently, did Nephilim understand why. Considering his distaste for reflection, he did not linger on the thoughts, instead choosing to speak again. “I lived for the past two years on Crossing. I learned about each island from conversations overheard, they’re location, the easiest way to swim to them, and their attributes.”

He appeared thoughtful as they walked, climbing further from the bay and more inland. Nephilim knew vigilant Fly had probably been standing, watchful and observing as he greeted the new mare; perhaps they would cross paths with her as they walked. “Luthien has a forest, as well as a prairie,” he thought briefly of the sisters he’d met at the end of autumn, Firethorn and Foxglove. “Atlantis has a jungle, and is mainly beaches and the like. Salem is deserts, barely inhabitable spare the few oases, but there are some desert horses that seem to have the island fairly covered.”

They climbed up around the trees, hooves crunching on slushy, frozen snow. They followed paths that had been traveled already, be it by the dwindled herd of Tinuvel or deer and the like, a path packed down where they couldn’t misstep on snow and have their limbs swallowed.

“There are two others that were here in the herd that dispersed before I arrived, you will possibly cross paths with them soon.” If, that is, they decided to stay even knowing the stallion they’d followed before was now gone and the Bay belonged to Nephilim. His head turned and he nodded toward the distance. “The border toward the Inlet lies that way. There’s a stallion living there, I’ve yet to cross paths with him but intend to soon.”