speak

She is fresh and young—so ripe for the picking.

…She is also scrawny, but he looks past this for now, for the urgency of a thick, throbbing something in his blood snarls against the limitations of taste. She is a woman. She smells of a woman.

Good enough.

He watches her, her image plastered against the rays of a setting, dying sun; she is pale against the brilliance of golds and reds, wreathed in them even as fire ignites the pyre. Shadows lengthen even as she trots and gambols about, prancing along the boundaries of heaven and earth; she seems so happy, so thrilled and enticing in her energy, she does not even care that night will surely come to fall, and everything, everything will be dark soon.

An eagle cries in the distance.

(They know what happens when their master goes to hunt—)

He can catch her scent—laden with mud and salt water, but the sand of the desert is unmistakable on in the air about her. She is a herd member to him—one might even dare to call her family if Reginald had not found the idea so repugnant. He wonders, as he ever does, if a woman in the same herd is fair game to him; if womanflesh of the wilderness if forbidden now, and if there were any daring enough to stop him once he’s made his choice. He remembers that girl (Sia? Sica? He cannot remember her name—) and how she had fucked his brother under the covers of a grove’s sultry shadow. He wonders if those shadows had been a deliberate ploy.

…no matter. His thoughts grow sluggish as his blood begins to throb even harder. Her tail curls behind her as she moves, and he must recognize a smooth, well-formed gait when he sees it. Small she may be—but he sees how well formed she is.

He approaches. (They sense their master’s attack.)

Yes she breathes, and her smoky sigh raises as many questions as hairs along the back of his neck. He controls the shiver of anticipation; he controls himself. (The serpent is coiled.) “…Yes?” he repeats, his voice a masculine growl even as her’s is a purr, the question embedded in the lilt of his tone. Why are you so giddy, girl? Everything about him is granite and stone; powerful chest, muscled neck carrying a heavy, chiseled head held cocked in the guise of pleasant curiosity, those grey eyes sitting deeply in his skull, framed as they are by wild locks of his hair, glinting with something as he gazes at the sunset-clad filly.

Hmph. Filly. The term barely suits her—his nose tells him she is more than enough of a mare.

speak

The Dragon’s Throat is a land of fire, where the flames of a sunlit god burn for eternity. It seems her people are lit with such a flame, as well.

He does not know if it is fearlessness or naivety that forces her to meet him in this way—no matter. He is enthralled instantly, pulled into interest by her brazen step, her ashen eyes that blaze with something. She fans her stupid feathers about her, waiting for a beast, and Reginald wonders if it is a challenge.

Yes she says to him. Yes says her tail, as it arches. (She is a mare.)

A sunset is a quiet thing that flares about, the fanfare of the day’s finale. It caresses them, barely hesitant in its brilliance as it slides across the pale body, the rough edges of a man. It’s enticing, or threatens to be; the salt hangs heavy and eagles hold their breath, eager, anxious, curious in equal measure. (He hunts, he hunts, he hunts, they think.) Ka’Mate wonders briefly in his capriciously mad mind if he will ever feel this pulse in his blood, if his younger sister would be good practice later in life. Ka’Ora wonders (and fears) if master would allow such a thing.

This filly is fire; Reginald sees this. He does not know of her godsblood, of the veins within her that make her worth more than all of the jewels on the planet. He only knows she is of the Dragon’s Throat, and he wonders if, perhaps, she is a warrior. Whatever the case may be, he likes what he sees in her: tempered steel unafraid to look into the eyes of a serpent with a tongue that bites yes.

Finally, he wonders. A mare with a spine.

Tail lashes across his hocks; he catches her scent. She says yes, and he chuckles at the challenge, stones grinding in his throat as he—

--approaches.


[WUH I'm actually the worst .__. Also! I left the ending a little ambiguous because I didn't know how graphic you wanted them to be! We can take this further if you'd like or they could fade to black here!]