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Winter was a blessing and a curse; snow bled against his own paleness and made him stand out less. Tragic, really. Even the bleary gloom of a rainy day could lessen his stark gray. If he had been a lesser kin, he would have wished for more color on his pelt, vibrancy, or a more saturated mane. But he was not a lesser kin. Indeed he knew himself to be handsome. And that was where winter's blessing came in.

From a young age he had made his home near a still, clear pond. The waters made a fine reflection of himself on their surface and he enjoyed taking in gorgeous looks. He did so nearly every day -- except when the sun hid and he found no vision of himself to greet -- and today was no different.

He stood near the pond's edge, grinning smugly at his reflection in the thin layer of ice. He preened and turned to make sure every inch of him was as handsome as ever. There were rare moments when he wished he had a twin; another of himself to converse with. Silence could get very dull.

It was not the doe herself that caught his attention; rather it was the rush of wind that knocked a crinkled brown leaf from it's last precarious hold on the branch above. It drifted and clutched at the wind, floated and dropped into the middle of his pond. A mere passing of plant life that rippled through the water, cracked and distorted his reflection. A hoof stomped in irritation, a snort at the audacity of that dead thing. That was when he caught the ruffle of blue silken strands on another breeze.

Vainmoon turned to a blue doe and blinked in surprise. Where had she come from -- a lovely thing like her was someone he would be bound to notice. She was nowhere near as lovely as he was, of course -- no one could measure up to him -- but she was still rather elegant for a kin. He gave his head a toss, curve notched horns gleaming and white mane settling nicely around him. With a step foward, he gave some semblance of a bow and grinned. All smugness.

"And whoever might you be?" he asked, blue eyes charming as he glanced over her with all the subtly of a tree crashing down.

The Felled Heart. A strange name, he thought, as the meaning brought only one image to mind. Still he smiled, all teeth and more than a little predatory. He could see how lovestruck she was. The best type of doe. To be honest, the only type of doe he cared to ever meet. (Not that he had ever met one that wasn't, beautiful as he was.)

"A lovely thing for you to have met me, isn't it? They call me Vainmoon," he said with a smile. It explained the sentiment quite succinctly. He let his forelegs bend and stretched to loosen any muscles that may well have become taut while admiring his visage. Limber, he glided towards her, ever confident about how perfect he was.

The way she said his name, sweeter than a crisp apple or ripe berries, made his ears twitch in appreciation. Of course it was his name and inherently was beautiful. A pang lurked in her voice and though he could not place it, he found it intriguing. No doubt, a -- perfectly accurate -- wistfulness that she could be as lovely as he. Ah but she would realize on her own how impossible that was and surely admire him all the more for his unique, one-of-a-kind, splendid perfectness.

"You are a blessed, lucky, doe," he decreed. And by her appearance, besotted, she knew it, too. All the more lovely for him. It could be an infuriating chore when others were blind: eyes that saw beautiful and yet were blighted as though he were the sun, too bright a glow to be seen. Foolishness to be sure. "The Moon herself was in my dream," he spoke, as if to solidify that his name was -- as if there was any other way -- fate. Unbreakable. And the Moon, in all her forms, had been in his dream; the white owl and the glittering fish. A pity the former had drowned. (And that part he kept to himself. However else would his reflection ever have been so beautiful as his self?)

It was a grand shame that she had not stumbled upon him, lit by the glistening shafts of moonlight that accented his name. He could see the scene unfold in his mind -- a morning glory that unfurled its petals for the sun, greedily following the warm rays. A doe struck by luck to find him, gloriously spotlit in the moonlight. There was a soft sound that rumbled in his chest.

"It may well have been too much to take in, had it been your first sight of me," he decided. Although that thought did not stop him from smiling, a self-indulgent thing that tore his maw wide. "However, it is not to say that you shall never be granted such a wondrous sight."

"You have found me now," he started -- a hoof scraped against the frozen ground as he considered her. She was clearly enthralled (as any doe with eyes would be). And yet he felt as though her attentions were not quite wholly his. He had to fix that. "And it would be an insult," his voice purred, "if you didn't stay awhile."

The invitation -- his invitation of which there was only one reply (no one could possibly turn him down) -- extended, he turned his eyes to the pond. A subconscious movement, in the rare (impossible) chance she did take leave he would rather not see her go.

Company, he decided, was pleasant -- or her company was pleasant. He was not a stranger to other kin or the occasional company of a doe, for a short period of time. Perhaps it was her, completely captivated by him (and rightly so), that made him wonder.

Vainmoon was not one to ponder the existence of the world or anything at all beside himself. He was the moon; the most splendid being in the sky. But even the moon has stars... She could be a star.

"Are you wanderer, then?" he asks, seemingly out of the blue.

Pride, warmth. A cocky grin. He cannot see fault with that thought, nor does he wish to. "It must be strange to search for anything. I am lucky to have all I need here for I do not leave my pond."