The expletives rip through the air, bidding Volterra's head to lift from its grazing and his ears to bat casually forwards. On his back, Vadir irritably unfurls her long, golden body, displeased at having her nap disturbed. She rises into a sitting position, her claws hooked into the hard flesh of her bonded's flanks - his scarred skin is so used to this rough treatment that he hardly notices. Smoke curls from her nostrils as she exhales loudly, making her distaste quite clear. A queen needs her sleep, so woe betide he who disturbs it!

Vérzés - who, having been beaten to the prime sleeping-spot of Volterra's back by his golden sister, has taken to the skies to hunt for something to eat - sends his bonded an image of a horned horse seemingly trapped amongst the thorns. This, the beast assumes, is the source of the foul language. Volterra himself has numerous scratches on his legs and underbelly from the sharpened foliage, but his sleek black fur - with its winter fuzz freshly shed - prevents the thorns from gaining any kind of hold.

Out of sheer boredom, he decides to go and visit the phantom swearer. Maybe, if he is lucky, it will be a mare who he can rescue from the thorny grip of the plants, a mare who will fall gleefully into his waiting arms (or, to put it less poetically, onto his waiting dick) when he saves her from her plight. He walks quite gingerly, to avoid the thistles snagging said dick, but Vadir swiftly solves his problems for him by blasting any offending bushes out of the way with a torrent of flame. The queen has only recently discovered her firebreathing ability, and she uses it at any available opportunity. Mildly concerned that the gold might cause a wildfire with her over-enthusiastic gardening, the leviathan commands her to use her razor-sharp tail tip to slash the thistles out of the way instead. Vadir huffs, but agrees to smother her flame and hack the plants with her scythe-like weapon rather than burning them. Volterra plods easily behind her massive scaled body, free from the grasp of the thorns.

Heralded by his golden queen, the beast quickly arrives at the snagged unicorn. Alas, it immediately becomes apparent that it is not a mare - his heart sinks and his loins unclench at this realisation - but a tall, lanky stallion. Grey hairs and wasted muscle indicate that the man is quite old, although Volterra would struggle to determine quite how old. Instead of a mane on the top of his neck, the unicorn has a great ruff of hair running down the underside of his body, which seems to be the cause of his unfortunate situation. It doesn't take the behemoth long to notice the painful area that the other stallion has been ensnared by, and he winces sympathetically. Sympathy isn't an emotion the warmongering brute often feels, but there surely cannot be a man alive who wouldn't at least have some compassion towards a poor bastard with thorns stuck in his junk.

A small vindictive part of him feels a short stab of amusement at the other male's plight, but it's only a swift burst of that particular emotion. Vadir springs from the ground up onto Volterra's withers, her golden gaze travelling down the unicorn's lifted hindleg towards the source of his ire, and she, unlike Volterra, makes no attempt to hide her amusement. She sniggers quite unpleasantly, which is a rather odd sound coming from a dragon. Vérzés, circling high above, snorts his disgust at his sister's cold dismissal of the situation - he, like Volterra, knows that no man deserves to have his favourite place damaged so cruelly. "Quite a, uh, delicate situation you've found yourself in there, mate," says the stud with an elevated eyebrow. His voice is monotone, although there's a small undercurrent of amusement that he simply cannot smother.

Chances are, he'll end up helping the poor fucker out of his sticky situation. But he'll need to be asked, first - altruism is not a thing Volterra indulges in.

He casts another cursory glance across the older male, wondering what brought the daft old fool into a land so riddled with thorns. He also attempts to gauge quite how old this stallion is, but finds himself unable to hazard a guess - Volterra is young, only a month or so away from entering his third year, and he cannot truly imagine living to such an age that his fur turns grey and his back grows bowed. He expects he will die in battle long before then, although this is not something he muses on very often. The brute is too young to yet pay much thought to his own mortality - it is simply a thing that he will one day have to face, far in the future.

He reasons that one must be either brutally strong or extremely clever to last to such an age. There is something to be respected in that, and it does indeed seem quite wrong that a man who has reached such an age should find his undoing in a patch of thorns.

That is why Volterra will help him - because one of this man's advanced years deserves a more dignified death than this. The hellion does not normally do things for no reward, and there is certainly nothing to be gained from freeing this stranger. But Volterra does have some morals, as skewed as they can sometimes be, and it does not sit right with him to leave an old man to die slowly and cruelly - a man who has proved his right to life by succeeding in surviving this long. The young warlord has no qualms delivering death with a single flick of his giant hoof, but there is no glory in watching an elderly kinsman suffer - and there is no shame in preventing it.

The older male asks if Volterra has the power of telekinesis, and the brute shakes his massive head. "Alas, no." Vadir ruffles up her scales as the old one's gaze reaches her, inflating herself to her full and impressive size whilst continuing to fix him with her contemptous, superior glare. At the mention of a small-handed companion, the queen snorts loudly in a manner that says, quite clearly, like hell am I helping you.

But, whether out of true masculine sympathy for the unicorn or purely out of spite towards his golden sister, Vérzés descends like a crimson bullet from the skies and lands heavily in front of his goliath bonded. "I could do," comes his rasping voice in Volterra's head, whilst his sharp-snouted head looks between his bonded's cocked eyebrow and the strange stallion's beseeching expression. Vadir huffs, disgusted at the thought of helping for no reason - she'd far rather wait for the male to grow weak with starvation then pick his flesh from his bones - and flutters away into the undergrowth to inflict misery on an unsuspecting burrow of rabbits.

The beast looks from his golden companion back to the trapped unicorn. "My dragon could help, but you would have to remain perfectly still whilst he removes the thorns." He looks down to the red's savagely hooked talons - Volterra knows how easily they can carve through flesh, and he would not like them anywhere near that particular area when one inadvertent twitch could turn him into a gelding. But needs must, and the leviathan daresay that this unicorn would sooner risk such a fate than succumb to a guaranteed slow death trapped in these thistles.

Okay. The goliath breathes steadily, and looks down to Vérzés. Be careful, Vérzés. I very much doubt the old fellow still uses that particular area, but that does not mean you should remove it. Surely there must come an age when a stallion's desire for women retreats down into the depths of his bones to be replaced by simpler, more mature hungers, such as those for food and shelter? Volterra assumes so, because it would be a fate worse than death to be old, decrepit and unable to perform, but to still have the desire to.

He suppresses a shudder, then stands back so as not to distract his dragon whilst the red works.

Vérzés moves forwards, determination oozing from his brain into his bonded's. He doesn't fully understand Volterra's reasoning behind wanting to help this random trapped stranger (besides the obvious issue of masculine pride), but as he has been commanded to help, help he will. He ducks beneath the folded leg, folding his wings close to his body so the clawed tips don't accidentally rasp the trapped man's underbelly. He takes a moment to assess the situation through sharp crimson eyes, then begins the process of unhooking the thorns from the unicorn's flesh with the long, nubile fingers of his paws.

The stallion inhales a deep breath as he watches his dragon's careful movements. He is unused to seeing Vérzés so....dextrous. The red lacks Vadir's royal refinement, her calculated precision in everything she does. Vérzés, like Volterra, is a creature of impulses and instincts, of heavy footfalls and loud, obnoxious movements - subtleties are lost on the brute and his crimson war-dragon. Volterra has seen those claws rip the heads clean from the shoulders of his prey, hook deep into the flesh of creatures as large as horses and deer - he has seen the brutality they can create, so it is quite odd for him to witness how....gentle they can be when necessary.

Several times, a thorn won't budge and the red's temper begins to flare, but Volterra calms him with soothing presses of the mind. Normally, he harnesses Vérzés' temper like a precious gem and wields it like a weapon, but now is not the time for the red to snap. Slowly, all the thorns are removed from the unicorn's underside and from the tender regions thereabouts; the dragon has tried his best to limit the pain involved, but alas, he expects there to have been some discomfort involved in the process. He ducks away, retreating back towards Volterra's colossal forelimbs and looking hopefully up at his bonded, expecting praise.

It is given in the form of a nuzzle from the beast's nose to Vérzés' gleaming scales; a rare and unusual gesture of affection. "You should be able to move now," he rumbles.

The somewhat unconventional words that first leave the lips of the other are what Volterra assumes is his way of saying thank you; although the stallion himself would have preferred something a bit more tangible, Vérzés seems quite pleased by the offer. He huffs a small ring of frost towards the elder's lowered muzzle, his way of accepting the gesture, then launches himself up onto Volterra's broad haunches to cleanse his gleaming scales and smugly contemplate a job well done.

The beast is amused by the pride radiating from his dragon, a great warm rush of pleasure that tangles in his mind from the red's own. He rarely feels such an emotion when Vérzés lazily beheads an unfortunate herbivore or freezes a fish into a solid block of ice, so he can only assume that the crimson, like Volterra, is impressed by the unusual show of dexerity required for the thorn removal. Vérzés seems quite taken with the nimbleness of his own fingers, a skill he has never before been required to use.

Vadir snorts her contempt from the skies, then swoops down to scoop up the stem of a plant. She proceeds to wind this into a tight knot using her own fingers, as if to prove that she, too, possesses the sharpness of mind to complete such a task, without needing to lower herself to plucking thorns out of an old man's groin. Volterra smothers a chuckle at the queen's competetive narcissism, but does not remark on it.

The unicorn asks if the dragons are full-grown, and Volterra glances up to Vadir. Although the gold is already larger than the red, he still thinks she has some growing to do - a fearsome prospect, although one that makes him glow with anticipation. "The red is, but the gold still has some growing to do. In dragon society, golds are the largest and the strongest of all scale colours - they are the queens of their species." Vérzés gives a loud and very obvious harrumph of disgust at this, whilst in contrast Vadir visibly preens at the description. "Are they the first dragons you've seen?" Somehow, he doubts it - unless the old fellow has lived in a box for his whole long life, he must surely have encountered dragons at some point.

He grins as the elder mentions only having seen dragons from a distance. "It's safer to observe dragons from a distance, unless you're bonded to them." Which, fortunately, Volterra is. He still bears the scars on his forelegs, lost beneath the dense feathering, from when Abraham's white set him on fire when he refused to call her a queen. Well, she wasn't. Vadir shudders in disgust at the notion that a white runt could even think itself a queen, and the beast worries for the fate of any plain dragon who attempts to proclaim themselves royal in front of the massive gold.

The older male asks how Volterra came to be lucky enough to bond to two dragons; the behemoth tries his best to hunt for any sign of envy underneath the unicorn's tones, but he is far from the most perceptive of creatures and if it's there, he doesn't notice it. He wants it to be there, though. He likes to feel envied, to incite avarice in the minds of those he meets. He wants them to look at him and wish they could have what he has. The women, the dragons, the magic, the power. Those who truly understand dragon hierarchy know what a coup it is to bond to a gold. Vadir is basically a scaly extension of his dick, and he's shameless in flaunting her.

She does not approve of this analogy, and gives an outraged gargle at it. Prude, he murmurs to her, whilst Vérzés chuckles down his ear like a hyena.

"I believe I was simply born with the ability to bond to two. My father's dragon detected it in both me and my twin sister at our birth - I didn't realise until I was much older that it's a rather rare and unusual mutation. I obtained the red first, when I was a wet-furred colt still reliant on my dam's milk, and I found the gold just after my second birthday. Whilst I admit that I was lucky to be born with the ability to bond to two, it took more than luck to actually find their eggs and ensure they hatched." With Vérzés, he displayed an emotion not familiar to him; empathy. That earnt the precious red egg from the dying wild green. With Vadir, the necessary skill was something far more primal, not to mention more natural to the black beast - violence. He fought wolves for her egg. He killed for her egg.

He shifts his attention away from his gleaming companions and down towards the old male. "If we're speaking of luck, how did you get to be so old?" It isn't meant to be insulting, and the stallion's tones are placidly curious rather than confrontational. Maybe he can pick up some tips on how to live until he's a crotchety old man.

Kept. The giant's ears pivot and his head tilts with interest. "Kept? Like, by the two-leggeds?" He has heard of captivity, of course - legends of horses like himself being used as beasts of burden, being ridden, by creatures with paws instead of hooves and pale, flat faces. Whether they are just legends dreamt up by his mother to scare him into obedience as a child, or whether they're actually true, he does not know. But the notion of one of his kind being kept makes him think of those tales, and his curiosity is piqued.

The elder one continues, even offering a modicum of advice. Volterra inclines his skull in acknowledgement, a knowing smile spreading across his mouth. Oh, he knows all about living for himself. That's why he's still an Outcast, why he's resisted all temptations to join a herd. He cannot imagine following anyone except himself - he fully intends to only join a herd when the time is right for him to rule it. He is his own man; the notion of bending to rules and regulations sickens him.

He asks how somebody might find a dragon egg - he lifts a scarred brow, thinking that he might have converted another to the path of dragon obsession. "Now that, I'm afraid, is largely down to luck. Sometimes, there's events around Helovia, strange happenings that grant one particular horse a prize such as magic or a companion. A dragon egg could be obtained that way, but these events are very popular - the chances of being deemed the winner are extremely small." He's attended several, and not won a thing. "Otherwise, it's just a case of keeping an eye out wherever you go. I found both of mine in the Deep Forest, where wild dragons tend to frequent." Perhaps that's why he has such an affinity for that particular land.

He looks up to the red and the gold, then back to the older male with a slight frown in place. "But, ah...to my knowledge, only those of equine blood, like myself, can bond to dragons." His crimson gaze darts up, to the horns upon the other's head - horns that might doom him to a life of dragonlessness.

Only horses can bond to dragons? There's accusation in the voice, as though Volterra himself made the rules about who can bond to what. "As far as I know," he says. There are exceptions, of course - he thinks of Isopia, her wings and horns, but she is the daughter of a God. It is safe to assume that normal rules do not apply to her. According to his mother, in Isilme only equines could bond to anything. In Helovia, at least the winged and horned can have companions, albeit considerably lesser ones to dragons.

Both gold and red give a pompous sniff. Everything is lesser to dragons, they point out.

The elder's ears bat backwards and the giant shoots a quizzical glance in his general direction; that sort of body language is pretty self-explanatory. And it was all going so well. A rough hmmph and a comment about looking and seeing for himself follows, and Volterra takes it as a hint that the conversation is drawing to a close. It is probably best to bid a hasty retreat before either of them lose their temper - it would not be befitting for the goliath to beat up the old fella. There is nothing to be respected in punching somebody of that advanced age, so it's probably best for both of them that the conversation ends before it sours further.

"Well, I'd best be going," he rumbles, glancing up for a moment at the red and gold. They chime their agreement - there's hunting to be done around these parts. "Watch out for those thorns." He flashes the old man his attempt at a good-natured grin, then turns his large form and begins to amble away through the scorched wreckage of the thickets that Vadir had so helpfully blasted out of the way earlier on. There's a strange lightness in the giant's chest; he did a Good Thing today, and that's quite unlike him. It is a new sensation, and one he decides he will have to examine more closely as soon as he is alone.