Tender lips traced a fretful pattern from withers masked by tumbling gold, as far back along Rasta’s cream-washed spine as her twisted crest could allow. All the while, her sister introduced them unflinchingly; knees stiffened against a selfless shove, a well-meant push that might have seen her shrink beneath the shadow of the larger male. Africa was a coward; there was no mistaking, but her values and love stemmed from far deeper than simmering fear – had not she followed Sinuhe blindly into the Basin, a lamb dressed in lion’s clothing? The Starry-Eyed would not forsake family, her sister, and she held foolishly her position by the flank of the small palomino.

At last Rasta’s neat hooves began to shuffle, to relinquish the control she had so valiantly maintained – and Africa slipped alongside, ever the fur flinching across blonde hide. Around about the same time, Thor again began to speak, and a single black-rimmed ear turned to heed the gently persuasive note underlining his words.

The dappled mare slipped out of reach of the stranger (presumably); the stallion who reeked of depravity, though she hesitated at the sound of his sly ridicule and mention of her wing - “The Basin wouldn’t spare you even a first glance, fool.” Tone suggested disbelief, and there was no hiding the wound that he had obviously, cruelly, intended to cause. The sparely regrown feather’s lining the remaining appendage to her right prickled as rare bitterness lifted through her core; glazed eyes began to prickle as the nerve pinched began so horribly to sting.

A furious cry resonated through the heavens above, a strident, definite warning that shook a small flock of sparrows clear off their sun-kissed roost. Silas’s obsidian outline appeared overhead and his sharp lilac gaze roamed between wood and shadow, hunting for the face of the stallion he had plucked so easily from the anxious mind of his beloved. He screamed again as he began to descend through twisted, swaying branches, glittery wing beats rattling through time, and the zephyr dissected the scene upon which he was falling with a raptor’s velocity – picking instantly the murky faced aggressor from their midst. Sharp, hooked beak snapped midair, clacking and clicking as he slipped from one bough overhead to the next, lower and lower; magnificent wingspan agape, ostentatious feathering flared and flashing to extend in no uncertain terms his meaning.

The one-winged mare’s pale eyes lifted swiftly towards her bonded the second his livid red-rage had split the troubled churn of her thoughts in two. Relief obliterated the irritation already wrought through her ashen features, and the tension coiling through her slender frame relaxed slightly.