With darkness thick on all sides, Asbel's only light flickered lower and lower as he crept deeper into woods uncomfortably silent. Where were the birds? Where were the insects? Even if they were too far south for the latter, he should still have been able to hear the former. Instead, all that reached him was the occasional creak of stressed wood, a howl (of [i]course[/i]) from something hunting closer to the mountains, a whisper of wind through fallen leaves that sounded just too much like whispering for Asbel's comfort.

So when he stumbled at last across someone upright and vaguely human-shaped, he [i]flared[/i]. For the space of a breath, the phoenix wreathed himself in a halo of orange and gold, a whirlwind of spark and flame and miniature inferno. He was not going to flee, not now, even if his legs shook like reeds. But neither was he going to die. Not here.

"Get back," he hissed, voice deepened by panic. "Don't you [i]dare[/i]--"

With a fizz of recognition, the second human-shape clicked into focus: Frey. Prince Frey. And Asbel put out his fire with such speed that cold air rushed in on him from all sides in the sudden vacuum left by the dissipated heat.

He had expected, as before, to find Frey screaming and halfway into shock, and the surprise of being the one out of breath and on the verge of panic when Frey himself seemed fine brought a flush to -- Asbel was sure -- every inch of his face. He had never intended to appear so... discomposed in front of the princes, and he certainly did not want to appear so in front of whoever this stranger was.

"Frey--" he broke off, tried again. "Are you alright?" His voice was tight with polite reserve -- a far cry from the anxiety still trapped against his sternum. "Did you fall in a river again? Are you bleeding?" He reached out as if to move to Frey's side, to investigate with touch, then shot another glance at the dark, handsome stranger between them and fell back without taking so much as a step closer. "And, er, who-- who is this?"