The Starry-Eyed’s feeble heart raced still faster with each delicate kiss pressed into the warmth of her elegant neck. Every soft, floundering breath taken by velveteen nostrils, seemed to choke on his wickedly intoxicating hue. The pain seeped slowly away into the darkest recesses of her fraught mind; diluted by new passion, raw, potent, and she writhed internally, helplessly, overwhelmed by the hum of this new unexpected pleasure. It was all so perverse given the tortured emotions which had wracked both body and brain barely minutes before...

But she yielded readily to its irresistible energy.

This was like nothing before. Truth resonated through her soul; security lulled all thought.

Like a fool, Africa lingered on beneath the dense cloud of her naivety. Many times after their first meeting (so many years before), an adolescent girl had fantasised about such a moment, a chance to linger so very near to him; to sway beneath the caress of his hot breath alone. Midas had inspired and excited her playful young spirit; touched and complimented the paltry existence which followed. Yet only now - when both minds were stale and emotions warped by the agony of loss - did he tempt that giddy hope back to life. She wanted to surrender entirely...

The cold rush of abandonment slipped gradually between their nestled bodies - night’s loneliest sigh - but she didn’t realise at first. Awareness had been soothed to sleep by the smouldering refuge of his presence, and it was only when exposed hide began to prickle, that the curtain of desire pulled away from her slow, beige eyes. Clarity dawned like a torrent of icy rain, and ashen features; sooty-black ears, all turned to search for his missing heat. Breast murmured against the ridged dent of her hooves, pining, concerned, confused.

He was whispering, and she was straining to hear – struggling to make sense of the shifting mood. Always she had thought herself crude in the shadow of his success, yet another grain on a long sandy beach. Was it that his taste had returned? Hurt pooled beneath light-golden irises as they slipped from the whiter outline of his withdrawn frame, but only empathy fashioned through her expression. “What is it?” she asked quietly, tenderly; masking unusually well the anguish returning to her mind.

White-stockinged legs thrust out from beneath her chest and Africa heaved away from the earth. She dared closer with small hesitant steps and slid worried lips along the frigid line of his spine.

He was worth waiting for - they were worth fighting for...

Right?