Feminine tone quavers like the flimsy spring breeze and it implores with a polite note of desperation that they - the eagle and his dove - should vacate the volatile airs of this meeting. Noah cannot ignore her worry and as she leans tentatively agains the rigid figure of his framework, feathers rise in arc above the fine, petite line of her flesh; it stiffens, a reaction perhaps to that spray of putrid silt, but just as quickly the flare of tension dissolves. Softly fluttering, his velvet nostrils turn to reassure her and he whispers for her ears alone, “…stay, I’ll protect you.”

Realising the error in his method, he doesn't so quickly move to abandon her attention, her very valid concern. “She…” he continues, gesturing visibly towards the dainty, snowy creature as she and the naked bay disband their pointless quarrel, “…Beloved. Like Noah, Nora… And he…” Eyes invite her unsettled (though entirely endearing), pink-blue gaze towards the muddied stallion and then the filly (who still stood present above the queer canine), “…is Canaan, and Sansa.” Tenderly he smiles, tries to reassure - to douse the flames of anxiety - and then reiterates softly, with a slow, guiding muzzle, “…Nora, Noah, Beloved, Canaan, Sansa.”

Already the giggling-mare is answering and twin soldiers - perched ever vigilantly above the return of his curious expression - swivel nearer towards the words of the pasty witch, for the riddles (as he feels they are), spilling from her lips are nothing short of entrancing. It had not occurred to him that there should be more than one god, and suddenly he finds himself contemplating and comparing the recent experience above the molten blue sea. Still, he holds his silence carefully, soaking up the very intriguing (albeit disturbingly told) detail of Beloved’s Master.

Noah considers at length.

Her right eye is a whirlpool of blackness, an abyss that threatens to swallow whole his resolve; the other is silvery and bright (friendlier, almost), and though the pupil within it is too small to rouse a feeling of comfort and reassurance inside him, it is this one which Noah’s sparkling gaze strives to contact.

“Beloved,” his tone murmurs tentatively, slowly, trying to bury the note of anticipation within. Helovia, he is learning fast, is a labyrinth of magic and mysticism - it is dangerous - and he recalls soberly his own few experiences, though mild they are in comparison. “Your Master, the Many Named God…” Who was he to challenge the validity of such a potent message; above all of her enticing revelation, one point struck him like the point of a blade. “… I only want Nora to be safe. How should we serve Him?” Skin hums where her warmth lingers upon him, and the wing lingering over her lowers a little, protectively.

Thoughts graze suddenly over the quest which had been dealt by the God of the Earth only weeks prior.

“Is there another God?” he asks suddenly. The eagle is now careful, representing a new worth of respect, for the white-one has become a prophet, less a lunatic, and his eyes embrace her more tenderly. “Nora and I were given a task by ‘the God of the Earth’. What relation is He to the Master?”

Noah

I was born a warrior
I was born a warrior