_{Some say you're trouble, boy Just because you like to destroy All the things that bring the idiots joy} Well, what's wrong with a little destruction?

The heartbeat is the drum.

It throbs on, a steady beat, a pulsing cadence that ties the air in a knot of tension; the air around them hums a melody of nature, of mist that chimes against the tender tips of an ear, so hot and sensitive against the blood that begins to surge. He hears her, words slipping from her lips—the initiation, the challenge and the call to battle. He does not need to turn to know how she approaches; she burns the air like the sun, her presence bright enough to blind his lidded eyes.

You, she says. (It had been his line, last time.)

The heartbeat is the drum; the tempo is steady.

He moves to it, in perfect synch with the rhythm of something he loathes and craves, and covets. He turns to face her, his movements flawless in time, eyes of flint coming to rest in those deep pools of darkness, striking a spark there, just as nature herself intended flint to inspire fire in the underbrush. There is a rat here—the same vermin he remembers flitting about his hooves the first time they met here. Ka’Mate wonders if he may dine upon the stringy meat and ugly pelt, and play with those tails. Reginald ignores his bonded’s vague, stupid musings. He is—busy.

He swells before her, neck rising  in a would-be triumphant arch, his chest bursting with all that he is—truly and utterly male. She seems so fragile standing there, so defiant,clothed in orange, golden silks and marked with that ugly thing slashing across her face. He cannot stand her bones (her bones, her bones!) and the way her pelt sits much too loosely on her frame. She is small, she is small, she is small and she will fold so easily beneath him—

The heartbeat is the drum, and he breathes to the rhythm of it. Slow, heavy bursts of air falling from his dark nostrils, that maleness curled under his breath, entwined with the merest suggestion of the serpent sleeping fitfully within a cloak of inflamed flesh. She is a mare, and so she smells, so vilely and so deliciously he loses his head for mere moments.

“Tan-da-vi,” he says, and he caresses her name with a mocking tongue. It feels too good to say, and his hatred intensifies.

He takes a step toward her; stones rattle underneath his weight. His tail thrashes behind him, a swollen giant approaching his prey.

He steps to her once more. It is his dare for her to charge into him—to see her try and fell a giant, a colossus brimming with fire and spunk—

--but she smells so much of a mare--

--and whatever composure he has crafted for himself begins to crumble at his feet—

--and he must—he—

--he—

(she must be destroyed)

--charges.

(The heartbeat is the drum; it pounds in his ears.)

"talk talk talk"