I felt more at ease as the Haruspex moved closer to me, laying beside me. There was almost something different about this moment, as if a switch had been pressed in his brain. Once so bloodthirsty, now so tender. I wanted to hold onto this moment and enjoy it, but before I had the time to, the warmth between our bodies grew stronger. His heartbeat vibrating against my skin as my chest began to stop bleeding. I moved my head, hovering it across the ground and leaned into him slightly. He pressed his nose into mine, gently, caring, and dare I say, loving. I allowed him what he wanted in seeing my wounds, and then something strange happened.

My heartbeat was different all of a sudden, full of a primal instinct that i had remembered having from back home. It flooded memories of escaping the soldiers that came searching for me and how I had seduced them instead. That heartbeat, the art of pleasure, the bouncing boundries of which a true heart never knew. Patterns of irregularity that vibrated in my being seemed almost enlightening. And for a moment I completely forgot about my wounds. I turned my head to him, blue eyes gazing up at the painted stag who I called my friend with an almost new light. I reached for his neck briefly, wishing to run my velveteen muzzle across his throat tenderly.

"Rexanna... let me help, I can - We can..." I watched him trying to figure out just what the Haruspex planned on saying. When I came for advice that day, I hadn't expected things to go this way, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't something I didn't need. "Rexanna, I want you to get up." He seemed to speak to me in that authorative voice he held so beautifully. With that, I pushed myself away from him. Legs stretching out across the snow ever so slowly. Aching pain swarmed up from my knees, but I knew he was right. We needed this. Perhaps more than he could imagine.

I pulled myself up slowly, chest aching and quick breaths escaping my lungs from the pain of the movement, but at last I was standing. I flicked my tail to him, ears perked and watching him. My heartbeat slowing with an overcoming feeling of need. That was when I knew that I needed the Haruspex. Perhaps in a way that would be frowned upon, but I needed him.

Blue eyes scanned over him for mere moments before I lifted my head to him, golden crown dancing with the golden chains that he had nearly ripped from my head in the battle. I smiled to him as he pleaded me to come closer, and I couldn't help but to agree. "Thank you..." I whispered to him, moving my head to where it was level with his before pushing forward to run my lips across his cheekbone, hoping to delicately trace the defined features that the stag held so well. The pain I felt began to numb, from either Ashamin or the ice, I was unsure. But for that I was thankful. "Let's make a story to remember, my Haruspex." My once chiming and timid voice had grown more lustrious toward the stag. If my sudden change in heartbeat told me one thing, we both needed this. And what a story that would be; a creature with the divine, succumbed by the temptress in her weakest hour.

"Talk."

— got to sleep,

spent the whole night running.