Satisfied, the young colt clambers onto shore and peers out at the distant landmass of the Crossing, a Cheshire grin on his lips. It wouldn't be long before Vanya finished giving birth and came looking for him, but she would be looking in all the wrong places. Drogon had carefully tracked his scent back and forth across the Peak before laying a clear trail headed straight toward Paradise. It was the most obvious place for her to look anyway, and he knew that if he went home right away that he'd never be free of her control.

It does not occur to him that he may be delivering Vanya straight back to Rougaru. Or that Paradise is the last place that she would want to go. He knows only that this is the best chance he has of getting out from underneath his mother's skirts, and he would damn well take it.

In truth, he isn't entirely certain that he'll be welcome here. His connection to Warsaw is tentative at best, a simple connection in the sire that they shared, and yet he didn't know where else he might turn. Hopefully, his brother would harbor him for at least a few weeks, until he was certain that Vanya was no longer a threat. And then he would go home to the stallion that he considered his father in all the ways that mattered.

As if summoned by his thoughts, Drogon's eyes lift to the interior of the land and see the same stallion he had just been thinking of retreating into the distance. Certain he was hallucinating, the yearling followed at a light jog, intending to race forward and surprise Rougaru. He had imagined their reunion more times than he could count, and he wanted nothin more than to race to him and bait him into some sort of game. However, the tableau before him stills his steps. He recognizes the grey stallion that leans against the darker colored son, but something about the whole scene fills him with a heavy sense of dread and he does not approach.

He stays distant for now, a satellite on the periphery of their conversation with avid, watchful eyes. His reunion could wait for whatever this was.