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Malarif was almost always alone. He kept himself to himself, bitter at the world and other Soquili with their resplendent beauty and contentment. He would never be content, restless for a life he'd never truly comprehend. He wandered solitary, a grinning shadow in the forest, scented before he was seen, his fur more filthy than most, the grit so deeply ingrained that even rain could not remove it.

Today he had followed a scent into the forest, one he'd never come across before, tracking it across silent paths. It gave him something to do even if he didn't catch up with the Soquili he followed, he didn't normally. Today was to be different it seemed, he looked up, ears perked at the sound of cries nearby, it seemed that someone was in trouble out there.

Trouble. He should really move on and ignore the yells to save his own hide, he figured, but curiosity was an irritating thing. Though he tried to walk on, he didn't get far before, with an irritated snort at his own investigative nature, he turned and, breaking into a gallop, made his way towards Kimi, emerging from the trees like a wickedly grinning shadow of the night. He did not mean her harm but that did not stop him from being a rather intimidating sight, all oily rainbow mane and filthy black fur.

He turned to face her with those bottomless white eyes.

"I am here."

Mal flicked his ears back and shied at Kimi's scream, fretting and fighting the initial urge to run away. He forgot too often these days that having something like him run up on you was a less than reassuring thing to encounter. He calmed himself, nodding at her apology, it was no trouble, nothing out of the ordinary.

"Lost?" he said, looking around the place where they stood. He'd never been lost, having no home or fixed abode, he was always exactly where he wanted to be. "Hmmm. That depends, where are you looking to go? There are many ways out though not all of them, I imagine are routes you'd want to take."

He flicked some of his oil-rainbowed mane out of his face, an apparent habit of his, as he did so trying to ignore the smell of rot and decay that seemed to follow him everywhere, a direct result of fur that had never been groomed or washed since his foalhood.

"Wherever you do want to go though, I can help you get there."

After all, he was never going anywhere.

Malarif listened in quiet interest to what the mare had to say. He'd never had a family, raised by a Soquili known to most as a frankensteed he was used to others preferring not to have to look at what they didn't like. He knew how to stay hidden when he had to, even if his scent would give him away on occasion. He had left the stallion who raised him behind one day without so much as a goodbye and headed out into the big wide world. He hadn't had to say goodbye, goodbyes were final and an end, his journey would bring him back to the thundery plains one day.

"I visited those lands once, though attractive, they were not for me." he smiled, the expression merging into the massive grin that marked the fur on his cheeks, a marking, nothing more but one that gave him a far more sinister look than he intended. He looked eastwards with a slight smile. "I live wherever my hooves decide to place me, but in the deep wintertime I retreat to a forest of pine far to the east, they grow so tightly that daylight nor snow can penetrate their lower branches. It is a safe and warm retreat with enough grass and foliage left over to tide me through the most difficult of months."

Months he noted, that were fast approaching.

"As for running away from one's problems.." his smile became warmer, as though he was sharing an old joke "Let's just say that I have been running for so long that I have forgotten any other way to be."

Mal didn't mind that the mare wasn't interested in telling of her past, he wasn't one to pry and after all relationships seemed so fleeting, what was one day a happy family could be torn apart the next. Instead he simply let the conversation progress naturally, not asking any more questions on a subject that seemed to bring Kimi discomfort.

"Me?" he laughed "I don't know. Other Soquili? The two leggers? I forgot why I started running all that time ago and to this day I don't know whether I set off to get away from something or to simply seek out whatever life had in store for me. All I know is that as long as I keep moving I'll someday find what I seek or it will find me."

He was odd in his philosophies. "And you say your life isn't interesting? Then make it so." he grinned consiprationally. "Life is too short to idle away."

He stamped a hoof. "Oh! So sorry. I didn't introduce myself properly. I'm Malarif, though feel free to call me whatever the heck you want"

Mal noted her name, filing it alongside those few he had met along his way so far, it was a nice name, short and to the point. He nodded though. "That's what I'm hoping. I put myself at the mercy of fate, let her lead me where she will." he had been a bitter and destructive teen, lashing out at anyone who got near, blaming them for his appearance, but these days he had mellowed out a whole lot, resigning himself to whatever destiny lay ahead. There had to be some method to the madness of his birth.

"Like I say, I have no idea other than that I am seeking something, only time would tell for sure if it was that same vein of predestination that led me to you." he was really glad of the company, he had almost thought his voice gone from lack of use.

He tipped his head daintily towards the forest around them. "Shall we walk and talk?"

Walking made Mal feel better, as if simply moving his feet made any of the troubles which threatened to catch up with him, fall away. As he made his way through the trees, he kept one ear turned to Kimi, listening to all she had to say, very few ever saw fit to hang around him let alone confide in him. He nodded sympathetically at her comment. "My grasp on the concept of love is sketchy at best but I always figured that the moment love becomes shackles that bind one's soul it becomes less like love and more like enslavement. Love costs nothing and therefore should be freely given in all things." he swished his braided tail and casually leapt over a fallen log.

"It's as good a thing as any to flee from, binding love kills more souls than any other evil in this world, choking the will to fly from former lovers wings. You just might have saved yourself by fleeing it. And no need to apologise, I love to ramble and be rambled to."

He smirked "After all, you forget, I don't get to talk to anyone much out here."

"Choices we make are only bad ones if we regret them. Never regret and your decisions will always be the right ones. Besides, this world is too big for there to be only one other for each of us." He led the way out into a clearing in the trees with the crisp early winter sky stretched overhead, the grasses declining to a small lake where the water had pooled briefly on it's way down from the hills.

He looked more serious, pausing in his step. "I think I'm just scared to. When you get so used to a life of no connections it's hard to will up the courage to wrought that change. " he laughed almost bitterly "I'm not even that old and I'm already set in my ways."

His smile returned again. "But you are right. I have been running for far too long. It just might be time to take my future into my own power, I'm not a foal any longer."

He grinned at her "Perhaps our meeting was fate's way of telling me I've been out here on my own so long I've lost perspective."