Meadow

What came to them was a dark, worn slip; not so much a creature as a tear in the fabric of the world around them. His body language was alive as a crackling copper wire, but something in his eyes was very distant- not, Heartbreak thought, so very different from his sibling, drifting silently at his side like something not quite rooted to the earth. He'd woken more than once in the past few years wondering if he might not be entirely alone, and the silver shape shivering along at his side nothing more than an illusion, gone with the sanity of wakefulness (but they were always there, when he woke; when he looked; when he called for them the soft thudthudthud of their quick footsteps was just audible; when he touched their flesh it was hot against his skin. When he comforted their wounds their blood was bitter in his mouth.) In much the same way, the appearance of this dark, slippery shape from the mist seemed not quite true, and he squinted his good eye at him as if he might simply vanish like so much smoke as he approached.

Anathema had gone very still at his side, and though their body language was loose and neutral as ever, their stillness was its own message- Heartbreak did not step between the two, but he shifted a step toward the stranger, the passing of his hip grating up Anathema's ribs and making them drift idly to the side like an unmanned ship in the wake of a storm. "New enough to have near-frozen on the way," he rattled, eying the sleek silhouette whose syrupy voice he could all but feel slithering down his twitching muscles.

"Why, you want us?"

Anathema's soft, unsmiling mouth brushed his hipbone in passing, for all the world as if an accidental graze as they glanced over his back at something, but he knew better. He flicked an ear back, chastised and chafing about it, stamping his restless feet in place.

"What illustrious territory are you hunting for, anyway?" he asked, his coughing growl of a voice more than slightly bitter.

"...Or are you new as well?" Anathema's soft, tolling voice was blameless as ever, but Heartbreak chafed again and lowered his mismatched gaze to the stranger's delicate feet. Despite their emotionlessly-soothing tone, however, his sibling was once again fully focused on their company and unsettlingly still, their placid face comfortless.