Quiet only accompanied him for a moment. Small, but growing each day, Tithe came to Nephilim’s side. As morose as Nephilim was, he did not snap at the colt or drive him away, but allowed him to quietly accompany his painstakingly slow walk. Each step allowed the pain to blossom in an aching soreness, making Nephilim nearly grit his teeth against it, but still, he moved. His gold eyes turned their attention to Tithe just once more, when the boy’s young voice asked two questions Nephilim knew he’d soon hear. He looked back toward the Bay, they’d moved a considerable length up the shoreline, and stopped abruptly. There was no need to move, no need to push himself, especially considering Nephilim knew not which way he intended to go or what goal he was trying to achieve. Maybe he was just moving for the sake of moving, keeping the fog of his mind distracted from sorrow by continuously inflicting pain so he was angry rather than depressed.

He turned his eyes to the waves in the distance, because it was easier to look at a land without eyes that could not look back rather than to young Tithe’s face. What happened? What should Nephilim say? The easiest was a half lie, to say he’d run into an irate band stallion who drove him from his herd while Nephilim was attempting to visit a young mare he’d met a year prior. But each time he tried to press the words forward, he saw her tucking her chin over his sister’s back and pulling her close with love.

Finally he sighed a low, long breath and let his gold eyes turn to Tithe. “One day, kid, you’re going to learn someone who hurt you more than you ever thought you could hurt is capable of still finding another soft spot to get.” Cryptic, confusing, and hardly an answer, but Nephilim’s eyes looked away from the colt again and swallowed back against whatever sorrows threatened to rise up in his throat once more. “I went to go visit an old friend,” he said, eyes on the water, “but ran into someone who didn’t want me around…” He hated the thought that every horse in the Prairie who’d seen the skirmish would of thought he the monster that needed to be driven away. It turned his stomach, pulling at his desperate need to constantly prove he was not the monster, but ultimately driving him to an anger which made him behave like one. He only hoped Foxglove had not seen, he honestly couldn’t recall if she were one of the few that had gathered to watch, he didn’t have time to look.

“Anyways, three on one is not a good way to fight. Keh.” He tried to shrug it off as a joke, but the smile was flat on his lips and the anger and sorrow was still burning like hellfire in his eyes.