The same flush that filled his body soon after filled his heart. He felt Rexanna's slow beat following his own, his magic recognizing a power in her breast that all had--all felt. At the moment of impact he knew that he had gone too far. When he landed, when he turned, when he heard her cough and when he sidestepped her attack (made clumsy with her injuries) he knew.

All of this, it had gone too far.

But there was nothing to say it wouldn't go farther, save for the wounds of the mare that Ashamin cared for so much. He watched her closely, black eyes narrowing in concern. The blood that dripped from her chest stained the white earth red. His ears pounded with the sounds of the fight at the blood falls. How like that scene she looked now, how like its chaos was their touch. When Rexanna began to charge at where Ashamin no longer was he wanted to stop her, stand in front of her and put a wall between this thief and the world that she threw herself into. She would have stabbed him in the chest, spiked him right in the heart, and still he wanted to stand before her. Even now, when the fight was so clearly done, Ashamin wanted to close that distance.

It was just one thing, though, that held him back. And though perhaps he had changed, there was one thing that lingered from his very first spar with Torleik the Bloodskald, since missing from Ashamin's life. He found himself frozen. As much as he wished to, as much as he wanted, Ashamin the haruspex once again could not move. So he watched, helpless, barely bruised, as Rexanna bled and hurt and still, still, pressed on.

Ashamin, she had said before the motion. Save me, he had begged in a whisper as he'd dodged. Though the haruspex didn't know what that meant, not really or exactly, he knew that he could only do one thing. As his sidestep took him farther from this passionate, gilded mare, he made a decision to stop. So he stopped thinking of this as a spar, regained slowly the mobility he had lost, and circled her back and walked towards her right. Whenever she stopped pushing, moving, trying, Ashamin would be there. He would reach out, try to touch, perhaps place his head on her withers and let the delicate warmth of his breath play on the base of her mane.

He would bring himself closer to that bleeding, hurting, agent of erotic strife and death--if only to keep them both warm.
""