"Is he courting someone?" Everyone in the lair has been speculating on it ever since this mysterious fae arrived unannounced (not that an invitation is ever required at Solstice-and-Sandoval's lair), carrying a fresh bouquet carefully clutched in his tail and uttering only a single word: "Vliet!"

"Vliet! Vliet! Vliet!" he hums as he wanders the landscape with a fresh bunch of flowers.

"Do you think he's looking for a lost sweetheart?" Sandoval mumbles to Solstice, who shrugs her little shoulders and continues combing out the tangles in his winter coat.

"I've tried to talk to him," she seems to say with a long and warbling sigh, clearly just as exasperated with the solemn fellow as everyone else is.

In the distance, the newcomer takes a perch on a bendy stalk of bamboo. "Vliet?" he asks the sun hovering above the cloudy horizon. "Vliet?"

Sandoval and Solstice share a look. The wind shifts (as it often does on the steppes) but they can still hear his faint plea:

"Vliet?"