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.