They walk together, compatriots in war. Fighting alongside her, in synch with the beauty and power of their movements, has aroused more parts of him than he cares to admit. They are alone; the red has taken himself off to hunt, and their mental bond has thinned to a small thread of consciousness. Their emotions remain flowing from beast to dragon, but there is a distance to their conjoined minds. Volterra thinks Vérzés has taken himself away on purpose; he likes Isopia, but gets rather jealous when his bonded is around her, when his mind is taken up so fully with her. So, rather than be abandoned like a spare part, the proud crimson king has taken himself away, to leave the horses be.

Volterra doesn't mind. As much as he adores the partner of his mind, it does them good to spend time apart sometimes.

The fact that alone time coincides with him meeting with Isopia is pure coincidence, of course.

As he walks, he begins to feel a little...odd. Not odd like he felt last time he was with her - the best kind of odd - but a tad queasy. For a second, he wonders if those blasted boils have come back. Yet this feels different, and when he snorts, a black liquid oozes from his nostrils. He huffs, disgusted, then flattens his ears when the noise sounds like a damn herd of elephants in his head. As they walk towards the Endless Blue, the sound of the crashing waves is agony to his tender ears. He can hear every wave slam against the sand, every greedy handful of grit being dragged down into the swell and then thrown back again...It is a cacophony of sound, and his pulse throbs in his skull. "Can you hear that?" he rumbles, shaking his head as if that is going to help. He can hear everything - a fly buzzing past his ear, the wingbeat of a bird in the trees, and those fucking waves.

Isopia speaks, and her voice is like a caress to his tender ears. He sighs, then winces as that grates on his senses, too. He manages a throaty chuckle, but cuts it off abruptly because the sound is like torture. And the smells - has Isopia always smelled so potent, so delicious? She smelled like mare last time they met, but now she's like....mare squared. He wants to plant his tongue on her like she did on his earth-spike ice-pop, to see if he can taste everything his nostrils are detecting. Hell, he can even smell the salty tang of the sea from this distance, as well as less savoury aromas like bird shit.

Something is very wrong.

But she's spoken, and he manages to respond. "Only if you're liable to turn into a giant wolf and start rampaging around," he says with a grin. God, he can even hear the sound of his own lips peeling away from his teeth! "But no - you never have to worry, kis holló." And he means it - God she may be, but he cannot imagine turning his body against her with the intent to cause pain. Pleasure, maybe, but never pain. "Several Helovians turned on the Moon Goddess during the fight. Were you not tempted?" He tilts his massive head, grimacing at the aching sound of sinews tugging against flesh. After all, the Goddess had killed her brother, even if Isopia had made it clear that she did not entirely object to her reasons.