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.