The desert heat is something he’s not built for, that much is true. Still, the thing that had always moved him would continue to– spite. Stubbornness. A desire to prove all the motherfuckers in the world wrong. A deep, burning desire that kept him going. Frey would stick it to all of them, they would see. Frey would stick it to his father. Tyr would see him. Tyr would know. That, or Frey would die trying. While that scenario was equally likely, he wasn’t entirely sure he gave a shit.

The strange melted from the dunes themselves, as if he’d been a part of them. Frey squinted against the harsh light of the evening sun, watching as he approached. The least he could do was stand here and look formidable, which is something he knows well how to do. His posture is regal. Frey would play the part. He was a leader now… perhaps for the first time in his life. Was it that simple, out here in the real world? Frey finds a piece of land that had been abandoned by the claimant and just… declares it his own. No election needed. It was just his now.

His and… hm. Frey’s expression remained neutral as the man spoke his piece, though his ears flickered as he thought. Antares. Antares, who held a herd on this land that was… different. Leaseholders, though this man hadn’t tried to lay claim on the land after the last leader had abandoned it. This struck Frey as deeply strange, though he wouldn’t voice that. “Frey.” He introduces himself, straightforward. Frey was well spoken, perhaps surprisingly so for a man that had cut his teeth within the confines of the Lagoon.

Antares spoke his piece. Frey’s steady gaze doesn’t leave his face. It seemed like a big ask from a stranger, but Frey was intrigued all the same. “What do you have to offer as a leaseholder? And how do I know I can trust you?”” He is wary of the stranger, the one who looks as if he could disappear within the Dunes without a moment’s notice. The man who looks as if the sand itself had shaped him. Frey studies him carefully, reading what he can from the stranger’s face and expression. If this was the place he would rebuild his family, then it was going to be safe.