we built this city on broken glass

Nadya's soft mention of Mongolia holding little but yaks prompted a faint simper to the stallions lips. That amusement danced briefly there for several seconds before his head simply shook at her query. The stallion pausing in that examination of his salad to lift the violet of his gaze to the ever-rich brown of her own.

"I don't recall seeing any yaks. I heard them though. Across the plains. It was an unusually ...peaceful place, for the most part."

He saw little need to inform her of those assassination attempts or just how close Alexander and himself had come, on severa occasions, to meeting their own ends at the hands of Gengis Khan and that demonic creature he'd called a horse. Nadya, he knew, was more than capable of handling that information. Rather, he hardly desired to....have her worry more then he knew she already did each and every time he ventured out for those missions with his companion. Love, after all, was prone to make people worry. Even in mundane circumstances. Frost simply and quietly determined to return to his family after each and every mission. That very promise one he had made to himself long ago and one he remained determined to keep without his mate forced to fret over and over again. Nadya's soft insistence that she hoped he had found what he was looking for prompted yet another small pause in the man. A frown found his features in a clear moment of consideration before his gaze lifted again.

"I discovered something I was not looking for but- it did not displease me. Not entirely."

Just what exactly such words were supposed to mean so surely remained to be seen. That answer as near cryptic as the stallion himself was unintentionally inclined to be in those moments as Frost so finally allowed that frown dissipate from his features and that contemplation to fall to the wayside. The man content to turn the conversation back to where he was assured it should be- difficult though that topic was and reluctant as he was to have it. Those matters of emotion so hardly ones he was comfortable discussing if only for his own struggle to....understand them at the best of times. His upbringing was perhaps largely responsible for his own far more hardened view of the world even if, for Nadya, he so often tried to view it as something other. That shift in conversation rapidly seemed to draw Nadya's gaze downward at his mention of her seeming to need the company of the twins far more than she had before. More than Frost was perhaps so willing to....tolerate. At least within their bed and yet, for the comfort they seemed to bring his mate he had hardly voiced a word of his own concern or that distinct lack of intimacy between them the twins presence only tended to exemplify.

The stallion paused in his consumption of his salad as Nadya seemed to grow all the more uncomfortable in her efforts to explain that she seemed to fear the twins ...growing up? For several moments Frost was merely inclined to stare. The stallion so attempting to understand her distress in what he was certain was both a normal and positive part of child rearing. Were they not supposed to grow? Was she not both proud and pleased that her children had transformed so young? Within his own culture the younger a child transformed and learned to control those transformations the more gifted, the more powerful and stronger that child was thought to be. Micah and Isabella were nothing short of exceptional- of that he was certain and yet this progress seemed to....upset her. Nadya seeming to believe she had failed, somehow, in her duties as a Mother. That miscarriage perhaps having highlighted that ever turning hand of time. Frost, perhaps, so hardly understood just why that night at the hospital had resulted in such obscure thinking and yet, he supposed, it hardly mattered. Nadya was upset by it all the same. While he had met that grief and moved on, Nadya, it seemed, struggled still. Perhaps it was only natural. Mothers were ...different when it came to any manner involving children.

"Naja, i...."

Frost paused once more. The man contemplating those words further before those cool lyrics parted his lips. Frost attempting, as best he knew how, to reassure Nadya, in the least, that a miscarraige surely did not call into question her skills as a parent.

"I do not know exactly how these matters work for predatory species but as you said the twins are nearly five- and only five, Naja. They are not even in school yet. Is their ability to hunt critical at only five years old? I have seen them stalk and hide and pounce. What more do they need at that age? You have taught them everything they should know at such a stage in life. You have not failed to do anything. Just because they are gifted in their ability to transform does not mean you need to rush anything else. Let them play fight with each other for another year. Foals do not learn to be true horses until at least 6 years old, why should kittens worry about being cats any earlier? They have only one childhood. What you have given them is far better then anything I ever had."

Was childhood not more important, in the end, then worrying about those hunting skills? Frost, in the very least, assured Nadya had not failed in that regard. The stallion paused then to take another bite of that salad. Frost further considering Nadya's words before his gaze lifted to her own once more in the wake of that gentle reassurance. The man seeming to taste those words on his tongue before he sighed once more.

"You were very...distant after that night at the hospital. I try to stay out of your mind and leave you to your own thoughts but in the past few weeks you have hardly spoken to me. I thought perhaps you just needed more time, or more time with the twins. I do not know how to help you if you don't tell me you need help, Naja. I am not good at these things at the best of times."

There was hardly any judgement within those words, Frost hardly blaming his mate in any sense. The man simply trying to understand her need for the children rather than her need for....him. Their presence within their bed each night near making it impossible to talk even if he had desired it. Women, Frost had decided, were confusing creatures. Nadya's sudden suggestion of that holiday prompted a look of surprise to his features then. Frost not uninclined to admit that no children or work was nothing short of appealing. The suggested promise of a return of that intimacy was equally tempting. Frost having distinctly.....missed that physical relationship. A simper managing to flicker across his lips once more.

"I would enjoy that."

If it would return them to some semblance of normality Frost was assured he would take her anywhere she desired to go. He took one final bite of that salad, Frost placing that empty container down before reaching to brush several loose locks of white hair from his violet gaze in a gesture near absentminded.

"Do you want to try again, Naja? For another child?"

FrosT