On the broad back of the young stallion, his dragons squabble.

Not for the first time, and not for the last. With Vadir's already impressive size, it's almost impossible for both dragons to fit comfortably upon the beast's back - and both think that they have the divine right to what little space there is. Vérzés, because he is older and Volterra's first dragon, and Vadir because she is the god damned queen. The young gold had settled herself comfortably in the red's favourite space between the behemoth's withers whilst Vérzés was out hunting, and when he returned he was less than pleased, to say the least. Vadir, who expects respect and deference even at her young age, did not take kindly to her ruby brother's attempts to shift her, and the ensuing fight creates an array of cuts across Volterra's back as errant claws and spines fly.

Enough is soon enough, and the behemoth gives a savage bellow that causes both dragons to take to the wing with indignant screams. "Pack it in," he demands, commands, tail lashing against his flanks and neck powerfully arched. His ears pin, losing themselves in his mane as he fixes both gold and red with his savage glare. He is sick to the back teeth of his mind-partners fighting; this isn't how he imagined it would be when he dreamed of bonding to a golden queen. Deep down, he knew the red would initially resent sharing the brute's mind, but he always imagined that the idea of another dragon fighting alongside him and gaining them further strength would override Vérzés' jealousy. He was wrong. He underestimated quite how sexist his red is - so much so he cannot bend the knee to any female, even the queen of dragonkind. The duo have moments of passivity, when they get along reasonably well, but those moments are few and far between. He can only hope that those precious times increase as the dragons get used to each other's presence and calm down their sibling rivalry to become the unstoppable team Volterra knows they can be.

The hellion continues his powerful strides forward into the Blood Falls, his favourite land in Helovia. Whether it's the crimson waterfall that lends the place its name, or its eerie sense of menace, or perhaps the fact the first God fight occured here - whatever the reason, he feels a strange tie to the place, and often spends his days here. His dragons circle above, and the beast can feel Vérzés' simmering anger in the aftermath of the scuffle. Vadir, in contrast, has already put the fight behind her - she isn't as bitter and full of rage as the red, possessing a more refined, colder nature. She lands on the edge of the bloodied pool, scrutinising it with lazy interest, whilst Volterra lowers his massive skulled head to graze and try to shift the headache that his companions' bickering has caused.

It is the red who first spies the dragonmare; from his position high above the eerily blood-coloured trees and waterfall, he sees her golden scales glinting in the weak autumn sunshine. Unlike the other gold, the one he shares his bonded with, Amaris does not receive a deluge of hatred. Quite the contrary; from Volterra's mind, the red has detected that he holds fond memories of his time with the hybrid, and that Amaris is a large part of the reason why the then-colt sought out a dragon of his own.

In a twisted, abstract way, Vérzés owes his life to the dragonmare, the woman who gave Volterra the desire to approach the dying wild green that day and take on the care of her one living egg.

He circles lower and lower, until he's close enough to emit a caw of greeting to the hybrid. Volterra remembers the jealousy he felt when Vérzés lavished Amaris with the attention that he'd only ever given his bonded; now, though, it's not just the red who is happy to see her. A broad wolf's smile bursts onto the leviathan's scarred jaws as he turns to rest his eyes on her once again, drinking in everything that he hadn't allowed himself to last time.

When he saw her last, she was mourning, and it felt wrong to pay too close attention to her. Now, though....now he can see her in all her glory, and there's no feeble ties of decency to stop him. She is iridescent, part woman, part beast, the grace and curves of a mare with the hard lines and lazy power of a dragon. Like Vadir, she is beauty and deadly intent wrapped up into one golden bundle, and the giant's mouth is suddenly as dry as the desert. Heat spreads through his chest and down, and he only thanks the Gods that he has a little more control over his desires than he had a couple of months ago, when he first became a man. Of course, Amaris has always been beautiful - even the young, gangly-legged, milk-dripping version of himself had noticed that - but when he was a boy, he only admired her looks for their eerie draconic resemblance, their uniqueness. Now, he appreciates her on a whole other level, which is both a blessing and a curse.

A blessing, because every man has the right to appreciate the delicious form of a woman, to take said woman beneath him and drink from the well of pleasure that she offers. A curse, because she's his friend and probably still sees him as the question-bombarding boy he once was, not the adult male he now is. If he acted on what his loins are telling him to, she'd laugh in his face. Then kick him in it.

The mare's draconic hum draws Vadir's attention, and she turns from the waterfall towards the stranger. From her mind, Volterra feels pulsing curiosity; she had sung a hymn of sorrow over the dead body of this woman's mother and her golden bonded, yet unlike Vérzés she knows next to nothing about her. Her song had come from instinct, the primal knowledge that an empress of her kind had fallen. With the idle, calculated movements of a queen, the young gold lifts her horned head and scans the mare with evident interest. The things she can feel from Volterra are unusual - this is the first time she's been around him when he's lusting, and it makes the brute's nose shrivel as she lazily pokes and prods around in his emotions. He feels like a zoo exhibit, naked beneath her scrutinising gaze as she takes his decidedly male feelings into her female mind and dissects them.

She finds them mildly interesting, and files them away in her intelligent young mind. Then she discards them, and returns her attention to the dragonmare.

Unlike the eager red, she is not so quick to offer greeting. She sniffs the air, noting each scent that flows from the hybrid, then shifts her crimson gaze to the translucent dragons that accompany her. The red scaled one is not of much interest to her, as she lives her life sharing her bonded with one such hue, but the blue is a colour she has not yet met. She flares her wings and hauls herself upwards, circling over the spirit-dragons and observing them closely. Volterra watches her for a moment, more to take his attention from Amaris and give his thoughts time to settle than anything else, then glances back to the dragonmare as she greets him. "Amaris," he rumbles, his voice as warm as hers. "How do you fare, old friend?" He dares himself to look at her properly, trying to tame the beast that growls hungrily in his stomach. How is he to ask how she is without seeming condescending? She is unlikely to be just peachy when she's just lost her dam.

The red offers a pleased coo as the spirit-red flies along with him. Given that he naturally thinks red to be the superior dragon colour, Vérzés pays a lot more attention to this one than he ever pays to Vadir, and Volterra can feel the young gold's slight puzzlement at this reaction. She thinks that Vérzés simply doesn't like other dragons; it has never occured to her that he just doesn't like her, because, in her eyes, how could anybody not worship at the altar of a queen? She follows the soaring crimsons with her gaze for a moment, before huffing her displeasure and resuming her dance with the blue.

The stallion's eyes follow both his dragons for a moment, fondness emanating from him. They are so alike, yet so different. He often wonders whether Vadir will morph to become more like him and Vérzés as she grows older and becomes more acquainted with their minds, yet a part of him hopes she never changes from what she already is - proud, slightly cold, deviously intelligent and calculating. He needs that sharp contrast from him and the red's impulsive natures, their fiery tempers, their tempestous, hedonistic cravings. He glances back to Amaris, musing over how many different dragon personalities she must encounter with her magic. Perhaps she, more than anybody else, would be able to offer advice on what he can do, if anything, to make his companions' relationship more harmonious.

As this thought enters the minds of both his dragons, they both give a dismissive, disgusted snort. The beast can't help but smirk his amusement - ah, they have something in common, after all. Contempt towards each other.

The dragonmare's muzzle extends and touches the earthen goliath's cheek - her touch is fire, which doesn't help the hunger that gnaws in the depths of his stomach and elsewhere. Then she's standing next to him, and his masculine ego takes a boost at the knowledge that he now looks down to her, instead of the opposite way around as it had been when he was a colt. He makes no move to evade the touch, though, even though it's testing the furthest limits of his self-control. He fixes his gaze on Vadir, but her golden scales only remind him of Amaris', which doesn't exactly help. So he focuses instead on the soaring reds, picking out every detail of their scales. This at least helps cool his heated skin, and he blows a blast of air from his flared nostrils.

She comments that he's grown, and his desire is momentarily forgotten as he grins. "I keep doing that," he says. He thinks he is now at his adult height - any taller and he fears his already lacking agility would be compromised further. Her wing drapes across his withers and his flesh twitches greedily at every point that she's touching; instead of leaning away, as he knows he should, he finds himself leaning into it, savouring it.

Fuck it, he thinks. He leads a relatively lonely life, apart from his dragons and the occasional mare writhing beneath his weight. Friendly touches are things he rarely gets chance to enjoy, and dammit, he's going to enjoy this one. He has always been very touch orientated, for better or for worse, so his outcast life is often torturous for him. Yet he wouldn't give up his freedom for the world, and suffers the consequences gladly.

Are you well? she asks. "I am." And he is, he supposes. He enjoys his life, enjoys growing and fighting and learning, and the fact he has achieved his lifetime ambition of bonding to a royal dragon has only added to his self-satisfaction. Just a shame his companions do not get along..."I don't believe you have properly met Vadir." He jerks his scarred muzzle towards the flying queen, who swings her rudder-like tail as way of recognition. "Say, you must encounter a lot of dragon personalities with your magic. Do you ever get any that...don't get along?" He'd always assumed that simple socialisation with their own kind was enough to make dragons like each other, but now he's older he realises how illogical that is. After all, shove two horses together and they might become best friends, or worst enemies.

And, he muses with a sinking feeling in his gut. Once you've made an enemy, what are the chances of them ever becoming your friend?

He can feel Vadir's excitement as she flies with the blue, echoing Volterra's own excitement at being close to Amaris. She is far more agile than Vérzés, yet she is still relatively inexperienced at flight and it takes every ounce of her concentration to avoid the trees that the spirit-blue soars through with such ease. She is not the playful sort - she is too refined, too regal, too proud, to lower herself to play - so this is extremely rare for her, but Volterra reasons that it's not every day she gets to fly with a wild dragon. Her agility is tested to its limits as she swings side to side through the trees in pursuit of the blue, bouncing off branches, darting under twigs, twisting around gnarled trunks.

It is a beautiful sight, one that makes the stallion shift his attention from the golden queen nestled beside him to the one bonded to his mind.

Admist her dance with the blue, Vadir offers a caw as Amaris hums her name, saying it how it should be said - by the tongue of a dragon. Volterra continues to watch her, even as the dragonmare's flesh sits closely next to his own, so close that he can feel the heat of her body, so close that he thinks she might be able to feel every heightened beat of his traitorous heart...

It comes as a relief when she begins to speak and answer his question. He can focus on this, as it's of genuine interest to him, and take his mind away from the gutter where it's currently making itself a nest. He will try anything to get his companions to, if not like each other, then at least tolerate each other without this constant fighting. As she refers to the arguments as juvenile behaviour, he releases a gravelly chuckle as his mind is suddenly bombarded by indignant thoughts from red and gold alike. Being called juvenile for their dislike of one another has, as expected, bristled against both of their proud natures, but the brute cares not a jot. Hell, maybe they'll stop arguing if they think it reflects badly on them to continue their feud.

She continues, explaining the principles of bonded souls. He nods, somewhat impatiently as he already knows all of this from his extensive dragon research as a boy. Get to the good bit. It does, however, remind him what a heavy responsibility he now carries on his young shoulders, caring for not one but two souls joined to his own. As well as taking care of them, he has to ensure his own safety, too, as his death would mean his two glorious dragons would perish as well...and the thought of that makes him ache inside. Plus, considering he shares every thought and every emotion with his companions, he has a horrible feeling that he would be able to feel the death of either of them, and vice versa.

The thought bids his blackened flesh to shudder. To feel part of your soul snapping off and falling into the abyss...It hardly bears thinking about.

She asks for confirmation that he can hear their thoughts and feelings, and he nods again. It is the closest and most personal of bonds, to have the sanctum of his mind delved by these two beautiful, magnificent creatures. She mentions guarding himself from the thoughts of his bondeds, and he finds himself looking guiltily to Vérzés. "Yes. I have done that with Vérzés in the past, for...a variety of reasons." He swallows hard, remembering his conversation with Isopia where he'd explained that having Vérzés' masculine, testosterone-fuelled presence in his mind when he reached manhood had created a distance between them. They were so similar, so brazenly male, that their personalities had clashed as they both reached maturity. Despite Vérzés being a relatively young dragon, Volterra's mind had accelerated the red's own mental development far faster than it should have been, leading to him becoming confused and irritable as his mind began to tell him things that his body wasn't yet ready for. When Volterra hunted for women, it confused his red and turned him to violence, which, when combined, made them an extremely volatile duo. Vérzés had started taking himself away from his bonded whenever the beast's lusts began to rise, and they would narrow their bond down to the thinnest of tendrils for the sake of everybody around them. It ached, to lose the mental company of his dragon, but they both knew that it was for the best. Until they could both learn to control their primal emotions, it was best they stay apart in times of heightened feelings.

Vadir's hatching has changed everything. She is a strong, feminine presence in his mind now, a stark contrast to the maleness of Volterra and Vérzés. Her mere existence seems to have tamed the hellion's rampant emotions, although until today he hadn't encountered a woman to lust over since he bonded to the gold. This, with Amaris, is the acid test of his new, developing relationship with his dragons, and so far it is a lot less violent than previous incidents. The red doesn't look like he's about murder anything, and Vadir is distracted with the blue. In tandem, his dragons are keeping him from being overwhelmed by his hunger for Amaris, which is a blessing in disguise.

She continues to speak, explaining that he can force his desires upon the dragons and bend them to his will. He hums slightly, pondering this new information. The dragonmare's distaste of this seems obvious, and to an extent Volterra can see why. He enjoys dominating everything, and has, in the past, been extremely strict towards Vérzés to the point of becoming his master. However, he knows this isn't entirely healthy. Their relationship should be that of equals, not to mention that from what little he knows of Vadir's personality, she would not take kindly to any attempt to dominate her. "Yes, I...am not sure I would be comfortable doing that. I don't want either of them to become robots, devoid of their own personalities. I love the fact that they each have their own unique temperaments, that they're individuals, not just pieces of me broken into two bodies. I love the way Vérzés rips his prey apart like his life depends on it, whilst Vadir looks at him like he's just thrown shit in her face. I love how he sleeps sprawled like he hasn't a care in the world, whereas she perches upright with her head under her wing and never allows herself to truly relax. I love how he jumps into anything headfirst without thinking, whereas she takes time to analyse it first, watch it from every angle, poke it, prod it, then eliminate it." He looks fondly from red to gold and back again, and his adoration of them both is plain for all to see.

He loves the fact they're scaled war machines, that they're death on wings, that they can help him become the all-conquering dictator he dreams of being. But equally, he loves that they're invidual little sentient creatures, with thoughts and hopes and likes and dislikes.

He sighs, exhaling a warm breath of air. "I can only hope they grow less distant as they both age. I assumed that scale colour hierarchy would make Vérzés respect her, even if he didn't particularly like her, but it appears I underestimated quite how few fucks he gives towards how a dragon 'should' behave." Because, like Volterra himself, the red will never conform unless he wants to, and bends the knee for nobody and nothing.

Amaris leans against him, causing his flesh to tingle and eyes to darken with feral hunger. His thoughts must spasm into his dragons, as Vadir momentarily stops her agile dance with the blue and circles around to eyeball her bonded from a short distance away. He feels the fierce touch of her mind as, again, she freely explores these new emotions inside Volterra's head. She is unused to such thoughts, and ventures through them without a care for his privacy or dignity. She hums under her breath, curiously poking and prodding the parts of the stallion's brain that control these primal reactions to Amaris' touch - she's too young to understand, but the brute feels her brazen interest in this deep, dark sanctum of his mind.

With her examination over, the young queen takes back to the wing, darting after the spiritual blue. As her mental prodding recedes from his mind, he finds that he isn't quite as frantic about being close to Amaris, that his loins don't ache quite so much as they had before the gold's ministrations. He furrows his brow, confused. Perhaps she has stolen some of his lusts, in a twisted attempt to 'help' him and keep him from doing or saying something he will regret. Or, perhaps, she simply distracted him for long enough for his desires to somewhat lessen.

Either way, the behemoth doesn't know whether to be grateful or concerned at the way in which his newest dragon delves into the most private parts of his mind without giving a thought to asking permission first. She is a queen, he reasons, and queens ask for forgiveness, not permission, and usually not even that. The thought brings a smile to his face. Vadir's boldness and arrogance is evident, yet Volterra gets the impression she doesn't know that she is pushing boundaries. Because of her scale colour, she believes she does not have boundaries. She is the queen of all she sees, and she knows it. Unlike Volterra and Vérzés, both lowborn (Vérzés due to his scale colour, Volterra due to how plain he is, how unremarkable, from bastard blood without even a herd to call his own), Vadir is of royal blood. Unlike her male bondeds, who ooze self-confidence despite their status, Vadir does it because of her status. Whereas theirs is somewhat of an act, hers is simply who she is.

And he wouldn't change it even if he could.

His attention returns to Amaris, his mind slightly more focused now and not as easily distracted by her womanly wiles. He wonders if she knows what she's doing, whether she's teasing him with her proximity, or whether her advances are entirely innocent and it's just his sick mind that twists it into something it's not. She speaks again, describing dragons as wickedly smart but sinfully proud - what an apt way to summarise them. Her words are ominous, and he knows that the conflict between his dragons will tear him apart, like two parts of his own head turning against each other. The red, upon hearing that Vadir will make him respect her, screams his indignance. "NEVER," comes his mental bellow, as hard as a hammer blow. The hellion grimaces, ears pinning, as the red's bombardment of emotions scorches his brain.

He sighs, a deep, throaty sound that deflates his broad body. "I was a fool to not realise this would happen. I have dreamt all my life of bonding to a royal, and when I do, it almost causes a god damn war inside my own head." He stomps a massive hoof, feeling his anger rise and bubble beneath the surface. "Perhaps this is the Gods punishing me for my greed." He does not truly believe that - his greed is part of who he is, what makes him Volterra - but it is certainly something to consider. With narrowed eyes, he allows his mighty head to lower, disappointment bubbling through him. He had been wrong to think Amaris could suggest some magical cure that would make his dragons suddenly become the best of friends, and his shattered hopes ache like bites.

Another deep breath, and he tries to force his magic aside. "But enough of me and my problems. I daresay they seem trivial in comparison to your own." He looks at her, expression guarded but warm, a silent offer of comfort and friendship.

It has not escaped him that the dragonmare's scent holds traces of both horse and queen, and he has likened it to Vadir's own unique aroma. When he breathes in, the air is filled with her, and again he's grateful for the gold's wanton delving in his mind to somewhat ease his turbulent emotions. Around women, Volterra has little control. He has always been a man who lives off his instincts, a stallion in all senses of the word, and mares are his weakness. Self-control is not a friend to the blackened beast, with his temper and hot blood and voracious appetite for the pleasures his flesh can bring him. He lives on the edge, in the delinquent world of hedonism, and his urges grip him like a vice. Around exceptionally attractive women like Amaris and Isopia and Nymeria, he is hard-pressed to keep his emotions in check.

This, he reasons, is why Vadir is a blessing. Her female presence in his mind should hopefully temper the pure, musk-scented testosterone that dominates his brain, and that's why he isn't angry at her for fiddling around in his emotions like he would rifle through a shrub to find the succulent grass beneath.

Amaris speaks again, and he drags his mind from the gutter to listen to her. Even the way she speaks...even as a boy, it had drawn him to her, the feral tones of a dragon. Now, as a man, the steady vibration of her voice seems to resonate into the depths of his very soul. "If I do, then I am unworthy of their minds." He finishes her sentence for her, knowing exactly what she means. For someone of Volterra's rampant arrogance, failure is not something he will contemplate. He is too strong, god dammit, to fall to his own dragons. With steely determination, he looks from red to gold and back again; they will survive this, he vows. It will take more than this to break him, and he absently nods his head, an oath to himself.

He, and his dragons, were born and bred for one another. They will survive this, and become all the stronger for it.

He flinches as her wing touches him, not expecting the gesture. When he realises what it is, however, he leans into it greedily, the hard muscles of his thick neck twitching as her velvet muzzle nudges them. Desire spikes within him, and once again he feels Vadir's firm, soothing interference in the depths of his mind. Gods, is she going to do this each time he feels lust? That could prove...inconvenient. Now, it's a blessing, but if she does it when he has a willing mare before him, spread like a feast to a starving man...He decides to have stern words with her after this, and he feels Vérzés' smug glee at the scolding he knows his golden sister is in for.

She was my mother. He nods; he'd suspected as much. Going by the crowd at her death, she had been a popular woman. "You are more than welcome. My dragons led me there - they must have been drawn by the passing of a queen - but I am glad I was there, for you." What are friends for? He can count on two hooves the number of friends he has, and Amaris is one of them. "The amount of people at her side tells me that she was a woman of renown." He looks at her, somewhat questioning, wondering if she's ready to open up and talk about the black mare. It seems Volterra and Amaris have something in common - mothers whose names are known from horizon to horizon, although probably for very different reasons.

He remembers their first conversation like it happened yesterday, in the same vivid hues that his naiive young eyes observed when they first landed on her. A smirk tilts the corners of his lips as he remembers what he thought she was - a god. Although, he reasons, that initial guess was not too wide of the mark. She does seem to have an almost godly talent to ignite desire in the pits of his body, and she is part dragon, which means she is as close to the heavens as any mortal horse can ever get.

He remembers how she'd called him small, how his boyish arrogance had taken offense to that. The darkest, filthiest corners of his mind wonder if she still thinks him so small now, when he towers over her like a hulking monolith of black brawn and hard, masculine lines, when the thick crest of his neck and the musk of his sweat speaks of a stallion and not a green young colt. He also recalls the tale she told of her sire, Vikram, a great beast of a man who was half bronze dragon, half stallion. It suddenly makes sense why he would choose to bed Amaris' dam; only a woman bonded to a queen would be good enough for a bronze king. At this, his red gives another indignant coo, for he sees himself as the king of dragons regardless of his common-coloured scales. Volterra ignores his protestations, continuing to dwell on that first meeting. "You did," he says, as she reminds him that she told him the story of her father. He remembers it well - the years cannot make him forget the awe that gripped him at her tale. He, the boy who idolised dragons, told the story of a man who embodied dragons, who grew from their loins and hatched from their eggs. He also recalls how she'd remarked upon her mother being a queen, but hadn't elaborated further. So, when Amaris begins to speak again, Volterra listens with the same rapt attention that his younger, more innocent self did almost two years ago.

He wonders if it's the dulcet tones of her voice or the actual content of her stories that makes him listen so attentively - either way, she immediately has him gripped, ensnared. She speaks of the DragonHeart, and Volterra knows that only those of great renown are granted a second name, like his own mother's World Eater title. When she mentions the Qian, the beast tenses; where does he know that word from? Then he remembers - Rikyn had accused him of being a whelp of the Qian during their meeting, to which Volterra had reacted with confused incredulity. Would explain your affinity for things one had to build to hide stolen children behind. His brow furrows, jaw setting into a line as he tries to piece those fragments of information together.

It soon becomes clear, as the dragonmare explains that it was Mirage who chased the unicorns of the north from the Edge. Little wonder Rikyn had been less than complimentary about them, then. "Ah, yes. I once met a unicorn of the Basin who mentioned the Qian. He called them a 'people of dragons', but speculated that they no longer existed." Which, unless some hidden members remain in the shadows, is likely the case, now Mirage is dead. He still wonders about what Rikyn meant by the stealing of children, however. But now really isn't the time to ask, so he remains silent and continues to listen.

The hesistation in the dragonmare's voice when she speaks of wraiths and her mother's disappearance bids him to shuffle closer to her, seeking to rest his heavy head upon her withers and hold her close to him. Personal space has never been a thing for him; he revels in physical contact, especially with a woman as divine and otherworldly as the golden-scaled one before him. "At least you had chance to say goodbye," he murmurs, thinking of his own mother. She had announced her intent to leave, and then she was gone. No chance for her devoted son to bid her farewell, no chance for a loving embrace.

But, he reasons, with a dark look in his eye - when had he and his mother ever had a relationship to be described as loving?

He looks back to Amaris. "Would you not consider rebuilding the Qian?"

Her purr ignites a fire in his chest, and the reaction is so strong that both his dragons turn to eyeball him. It is so draconic, so feminine, that it turns his brain to mush and his loins to aching. Her face presses against his fevered flesh, and his lips peel to expose teeth that seek to gently groom her withers and spine, delighting in every touch. She's so close, so warm, so woman, that it makes him burn. Even Vadir's immediate delving into his mind cannot aid the pull that he feels towards the dragonmare, the primal reactions she creates in his body and the fog she summons in his head. Admittedly, being close to any woman drives him to wildness, but Amaris is so especially untamed and so dragon that it only fuels the fire of his hunger.

Then, just like that, the moment's gone. She moves away, and he grimaces at how easily a well-intended question can force a barrier between them; invisible it may be, but it is as solid as any fortification.

For a moment, his face is a full moon, open and wounded and wanting, but after a fraction of a second he erects hard walls back around himself, steeling his features back into sharp lines and stern furrows. He stays standing, his gaze fixed on where she's moved to, his side cold without her warmth. The Qian will stay resting where my mother burned, never to rise again. "I admire that." And he does; it takes a strong woman to not give in to the temptation to ride the wave of someone else's glory, to finish off the hard work that her mother began and claim the finished product as her own. Volterra has faced a similar conundrum; does he piggy-back on the achievements of his parents, finish off their work and take all the credit for their toil, or does he forge his own path to greatness without the weight of the names upon his back? It had been an easy answer for him - he wants to be known for himself, not for the balls and womb that conspired to create him.

After all, he only has this one life, and it's too short to spend it living for somebody else. He is his own man, and Amaris is her own woman. They are kindred spirits, and perhaps that's why they mesh like puzzle pieces - when he isn't putting his foot in it, of course.

He glances for a moment to his dragons, focusing particularly on Vadir. He imagines that she will be particularly prickly as she ages, easily offended, like Amaris. Such is the perogative of a queen. "What will you do next?" He wonders at her purpose, at her plots and plans and machinations. The beast has his own endgame, his own nefarious hopes and dreams, things to aim for. He's keen to know if she does, as well, even if it's only as small as joining a new herd or obtaining a rank. He hates the idea of her wandering without a purpose, because he knows she's capable of so much more than that.

And who knows - maybe their fates will be entwined throughout future years, their paths entangled, a nest of thorns.

In contrast, he feels pulled towards her, like a magnet. Perhaps it is simply the fact she is a woman and he is a man, and he is naturally drawn towards the fairer sex for the pleasure he knows they can bring him. The fact she is one with dragons only adds to her beauty, and makes her that much harder to resist.

But the leviathan fights his body's desire to move back to her side, and stands his ground with his powerful limbs firmly rooted. He will not appear desperate, a doll in her hooves. His tail arches high, the strands slapping idly against his hocks as he scrutinises her, still hardpressed to comprehend what made her leave his side. Women offend easily, he reminds himself, and Vadir gives a hiss of warning at this notion of an insult.

Her silence after his question has him wondering if he's said something else to upset her, and he narrows his eyes warily. Eventually she speaks, and the beast listens. For a moment, he envies her - envies the fact she doesn't have a plan, a destiny. Himself? He's bred and born to rule. War runs through the blood in his veins, and battle paints his ancestors like fine art. He and Nymeria were even conceived for this very purpose - to wear their parents' legacies like armour, uphold their family name and raise it above and beyond what it has ever been. It's only fortunate that the colossus wants all the things he was bred for, that his personality meshes perfectly with the ideals his mother had for him.

He might be an outcast, with the whole of Helovia to roam. But he has never truly been free, and for one dark moment his gut twists with jealousy. As he mused earlier - he wants to live for himself and be his own man, but he cannot and will not deny his legacy.

But his envy is instantaneous, and gone swiftly. He loves his life, warts and all. If he was born for a different reason, with different parents and different ambitions, he wouldn't be him - brawny, sexual, warmongering, hedonistic Volterra. He might be some sissy weakling, not a man strong enough to harness the souls of two dragons. His neck arches powerfully, his momentary bad mood swiftly dissipated. "My goals?" He hums beneath his breath - whereas when Amaris hums it is a beautiful draconic harmony, when Volterra does it it's a guttural, masculine growl. "Anything and everything, Amaris. I hope to rule one day, but until then I will simply grow, strengthen, and enjoy every moment." He flashes her his wolfish grin at her, flaring his nostrils and shaking his mane with a breathy huff.

With a mental joust to his dragons, he beckons them from their frolics and back towards him. "I know of a fine grazing spot near here. Would you care to join me?" He tilts his colossal head at the dragonmare, an invite to leave this place and spend a little bit more time simply relaxing in each other's company.