<font color=black>that's when they say i lost my only friend</font> -- Hopeful Valley

Ferns and silver willow grew thick at the banks here, blocking the water from view but hiding the edge as well. Had one not known this place they could have easily stumbled and fell through the branches and into the muck and running water below. It wasn't a long trip, but it could be jarring. It had been many a year that the black had called this his home, the stones beneath the surface clattered in the midst of the splashing when Vegas descended into the stream and out of the bramble. He knew the slouchy banks, the deep holes where the big fish hid, the smaller finned creatures slipping eerily passed his agile legs as he waded through the stream. He knew it all, and yet it didn't matter in the grand scheme--When he was dead and gone all that knowledge would be lost forever. It wasn't his nature to think of death, but as he grazed on the tender waxy grass hidden at the bank his mind was allowed to wander. There would be no one when he was gone...All his children long since disappeared, all his friends cast by the wayside. When White Wolf's Las Vegas lay down in his grave it would be as though he never lived at all. That would be some time from now, he did not feel aged a day, well perhaps emotionally but in truth he felt only as old as the time he'd spent in this form. It was as though he and Reno aged separately and that the time was divided up between their two separate but united bodies. Reno growled somewhere in Vegas' head. He was no old codger, either.

A snort rippled the water, and the black drank slowly, gaze roaming over his narrow hideaway. He loved how the silver willow formed tall thick walls around the water here, making a shaded quiet place for the stallion to withdraw. He'd taken his leave of the others rather soon, it surprised him that after all this time alone he hadn't desired to remain near. Resentment made him lift his head and shake the water from his muzzle, as if trying to rid himself of the feeling. He had felt something before he'd left them, a nagging he'd known long ago, an emotion that conjured images of Red Sun Rising and a few other uninteresting bastards from the past. He didn't try to fool himself, it was Battlecry that had set those pinpricks in his skin. He had guessed at it before, but denied the suspicions. What was there that he did not know? Perhaps his disregard for the other stallion had brought this upon him. He'd never thought of this before now, ignored it maybe. How could she be interested in someone like that? The lovers she'd kept after Vegas himself had always seemed...well... More interactive, though he'd disliked every single one... Not that he held any disdain for Battle at least not now, they just hadn't been the type to socialize with one another. Vegas was a talker, direct, sometimes even a bit of a cad. He got along with most, and those he didn't click with he simply let be.

Foolish. Why create this paranoia when he's seen nothing to support it?

Dragon flies drifted to and fro over the water around him, oblivious to the trespasser in their hidden world, the combined dozens of wings vibrated the air creating the only sound besides the rush and chime of the water where the stream narrowed here and there. A fox paused beneath the branches, she was lovely and gray with golden eyes, Vegas was distracted from his thoughts by her and she from her fishing by him...A branch cracked, and then some splashing up ahead through the bramble. Vegas snorted and the vixen dashed back to where she'd come from.