Rarely was Romina comforting. That he found her comforting, was a bi-product of her manipulation of him, but if he really stopped to think about it, he would see just how cold and cutting her words had always been. So to hear Kiada, defendinghim, and offering her own mockery of the Basin's practices brought an uncharacteristic smile to his tusked face, and for a fleeting instant he might have even looked handsome, in his own beastly way.

Ru'in wasn't overly interested in Kiada's recollection of the Edge, her plethora of siblings (he didn't seem to notice the disdain in her voice or her words as she mentioned them), but he was eager to keep her talking. Something about the cadence of her voice was like the malleability of the bronze that he could wield. It sparkled in his mind, full of possibilities. However as she mentioned the griffon, his bi-coloured gaze seemed to steel, or solidify into stone, the way that his body did. If she listened, she would have heard his teeth clenching together, grinding with a sort of instantaneous had hidden furry. Part of him wanted to drag his tusks against the marred patch of flesh, just to see what it would feel like. And then, almost as impulsively and foolishly he allowed himself a moment to think of asking the gods for magic -- magic to heal, so that Kiada would never have to feel pain. That if he was ever not around, he could mend her. He could knit her body back together the way he knit molecules of metal.

But the the gratuitous images of him tending to her body disappeared as she once again began to speak, though it was the closeness of her that really got her attention. He could reach out now with his nose, rather than his tusks, she was that close. The scent of her burned his nostrils and her offering of assistance flooded his mind. "Yahrr ye culd. Aye'd lyke thaht." He mumbled through lips that suddenly felt moist.

But before this something could really turn into a something, she was addressing her vulture in a voice that sounded like crackling lightning, and was suddenly on her hind legs stretching upwards to knock at a branch. He reflected on her gracefulness, but ever the pragmatist, Ru'in immediately moved to help. Being much larger, he hardly had to rear up, before his long tusks help fell a number of other branches caught near the ones she'd already dislodged. Just as his hooves were about to leave the earth once again, he heard a voice from behind him that instantly made his blood run cold, and his face burn hot.

So this is where you've been, Ru'in? Dragged along by our...cousin?

How much had she seen? How long had she been ... wherever she was? His mind frantically searched, and although a normal outsider would likely have seen nothing amiss with Ru'in's or Kiada's actions or their brief moment of proximity, Romina was not just anyone.

The mutant boy turned slowly due to his bulk, bi-coloured gaze falling on his twin. He looked for telltale signs of the fury he thought he heard bridled in her voice. He looked to her enigmatic flames, hoping they would paint the picture he needed to see, but they looked more or less normal. Either she was not angry (unlikely), or she was angry enough to mask her emotions. He knew that Romina and Kiada had been practicing restraining their emotions so that their magics would not give them away, and he knew just how practiced Romina had become at this task.

He moved towards his twin as if tethered by a singing string of steel, within which he was hopelessly bound. Ru'in almost wished Kiada could see this harness around his soul, so that she might understand ... if he could glance back at her, apology in his eyes, that might help, but of course, he couldn't. His stare was upon Romina, and Romina alone.

Just as it should be.

I thought you'd disappeared without a goodbye just like Kiada here!

"Nyevr." He breathes as he reaches her side, a tusk grazing along the curvature of her shoulder as he exhales into the soft rosey blossoms of her coat. Romina, the daintiest of them, has captured the wild beast with nothing more than a word. She has tamed him, controls him in a way which is obvious and powerful. And, in going to her, Ru'in hopes to qwell some of her rage.

He is hers after all, and though his thinking is not sophisticated enough to understand that this show of dominance before a girl who Ro might perceive as a threat to her control of her twin, might be a powerplay, he understands its importance nonetheless.

He could do nothing but go to her.

Ru'in looks to Romina, clearly at her beck and call. He will clear and move and break anything that she tells him to. He only hopes that she will restrain him towards the branches they are meant to clear, and not the beautiful filly.





[oops suddenly a novel. I love you both @Kiada ]