The goliath marches through the now-familiar embrace of the Threshold, the ground quaking and quivering beneath the force of his colossal hooves. He creates a war-drum rhythm on the snowy ground, a cacophony of size and sheer brute strength. He is alone, his dragons hunting in the depths of this strange forest - he has commanded them to co-operate and bring down larger prey, so reluctantly they both pursue a large deer together.

Aside from the ravenous emotions of his companions that ebb into his mind, Volterra feels nothing. He is pure beast, a creature of impulses and needs, even moreso than he was before. This is what Isopia has done to him. All he knows is the ground beneath his feet and the chill winter wind in his mane, the tickle of frigid air on his sweating, heaving flesh. He knows only the gnawing of hunger in his belly, the twitch of lust in his loins, and the quivering of his thick muscles which demand to be sated on the battlefield.

He has come here just once before, when he met his brother - there is nothing here for him, not really. Most who come here are seeking homes, or heading out into the wilderness; he half-contemplates following them, to see what he can take outside Helovia. Perhaps he could go and live with his father, and be raised to princehood with his dragons; no doubt his sire would secure him many women to indulge in. After all, what is the point of anything else but the simple cravings of the flesh? The loss of Isopia has left him numb, his emotions turned off to be replaced only with simplistic, animal want.

That, and anger. They are all he knows. When this all passes, when he's normal again, he will look back on this dark, dark period in his life and think it has made him stronger. But now, in the depths of it, he sees no end, no light at the end of the tunnel. So he chooses not to think about it at all.

Then, he smells mare. His nostrils flare, his hunger erupts. He prowls towards her, his neck arched to display each rugged muscle and toned sinew. He bursts out of the trees, sees her, drinks her in.

She is a fine broad, a delicious example of woman. He thinks he would rather like to take her, to delve beneath those four wings and sate his thirst; the fact she is golden only increases her beauty, as the stallion has a keen eye for such royalty. He has gold bonded to his mind, after all. His eyes darken dangerously, the thrill of the hunt, the take...

But then he sees the other. His head jerks away from the grown mare and shifts towards the filly nearby, the familiar white filly... "Erthë?" She has grown since last time they met, at Vadir's hatching - but what is she doing here? Has she been outside Helovia, to those strange untamed lands beyond the Threshold?

The beast looks back to the golden mare, but his desire is somewhat tempered by Erthë's presence. Like a little white cockblock, she's taken his mind away from the woman and onto her - she has a knack for that. He remembers their first meeting, when she distracted him from his newfound two-year-old desires and gave him a few precious moments of relief from the then-unknown aches of his body. "What are you doing here?" His voice is toneless, lacking passion; a clear indication of the nothingness inside.

His ravenous eyes return to the golden mare as she flinches, twitches away from him - is she afraid, daunted by the reek of man? Is she frightened by the wicked gleam in his eye, which leaves nothing to the imagination? She is delicious, and he continues to stare lecherously and openly at her, momentarily disregarding Erthë's presence.

Part of him wants to see how the filly reacts - she is older now, and perhaps she knows things from her time outside Helovia, if indeed that's where she's been during these past months. Perhaps she knows the salacious song of the birds and the bees - or, in Volterra's case, the beast and his beauties. Perhaps she will be intrigued by the feral way in which he is looking at Riel, and perhaps she will look forward to the day she can create those feelings in stallions, too.

But no, there are some things young girls should not see - and she is still a young girl, even if his eye is naturally drawn to her newfound curves and edges. She is not yet a woman grown and flowered, her tender eyes not ready for such things. With what little sanity he has left, the monolith tears his gaze away from the golden mare, bids his burning blood to temper itself, and fixes his attention on Erthë instead.

Is it his imagination, or does she look pleased to see him? Indeed, he is...fond of her, too, in a strange, reluctant way. If only he was in the right mental state to return her smile - alas, he is not, and can only offer a slightly less menacing twist of his scarred face in a crude approximation of a greeting.

He's a bit too grumpy for my tastes. I bet it's the size of his butt that's the reason, I wouldn't be too happy either with all that flabbing going on.

He laughs; a snort, a genuine, joyous exhale of air. It is the first time he has laughed in weeks, and it feels strange, wrong. Like pissing on the casket at a funeral. Like swearing at his sister. But it feels good, too, to experience his ability to create something pure and innocent, something not twisted and tainted by the darkness that froths inside him. There is something childlike about it, something...happier. The stoic, stern-faced behemoth is not one to show levity, but he thinks in this circumstance he wants something to ignite a different emotion inside him, an emotion he does not normally feel even when he is fully sane. He wants something to remind him that there's a light at the end of this dark, dark tunnel, that this numbness is not what the rest of his life is doomed to be.

"My 'butt', as you so eloquently put it, needs to be big - after all, you need a big hammer for a big nail." There's a filthy glimmer in his eye and a deep, satisfying undercurrent of innuendo in his voice; a voice that actually has tone, instead of the cold monotone he's been doomed to since Isopia left. Will the girl know what he means, or will his vulgarity and masculine pride in his size go right over her head? Will she blush?

She moves close, nudges his shoulder. The physical contact feels...odd, and he tells himself that the frisson of heat in his groin is purely because of the joke he's just made. She talks of home, then asks about his dragons. He glances to the heavens, feeling a sudden spark of bloodlust as they swoop at the deer, slashing chunks from its terrified, fleeing flesh...The thrill of the hunt threatens to overwhelm him, and he is forced to sever his link with them down to the smallest tendril. "They are hunting, dear girl. They have needs, as I do." Another glance over to Riel, his eyes hooded and wicked. They flicker unbidden across the new curves of Erthë's body, but it feels wrong, and they slide swiftly to her face instead. "And where is home?"

The other mare speaks, then, the glimmering golden beauty who ignites such things inside him. The filly has already introduced him, so he sees no need to respond to that. "And what is your name?" he questions, having entered after she gave it.