Gaucho regarded Aithniel through rose-coloured glasses. As a child he had instantly vowed his life for her, promising to protect and guide her as best he could. As an ascendant of the Sun and leader of the Dragon’s Throat, such a vow was only natural one might suppose, and yet the willingness to comply with the obligation stemmed from somewhere deeper and more inherent to Gaucho than mere duty and circumstance. He loved her from the day that she was born, for she was a child of the sun, and he, the Wildfire.

If he had known the circumstances of her birth? Her maternal lineage … would that have changed things? Likely not, for Gaucho’s primal nature was rarely ever deterred. Yet had he known her to be a child of Ampere, perhaps he would have never acted upon his impulses … perhaps he would refrain still…

For what was before him now was no longer the child of the sun, for she was no longer a child. Gaucho had known that Aithniel had reached adulthood while on the sands, and even knew (with a related emotion akin to jealousy) that she had produced a foal, and that she had become a warrior in her own right. But he hadn’t the time to appreciate such things. He was after all, the Sultan and protector of more than just she. But now he did give himself the chance to appreciate. To notice just what it was she had become.

Gaucho’s steely gaze, unapologetic at the best of times, scoured the lines of her body: the length and leanness of her Father, and the hardiness and curvaceousness of (unknown to him or her), Ampere. Was it her youth that compelled him forwards in a way unprecedented by either Ampere or Sohalia? Was it some blasphemous religious need, a piety for her father translated into some other form of worship? Something more physical? More carnal. The dun had never before felt the need to simultaneously dominate and protect before so strongly.

She spoke, and the dun’s black ears flickered forward. Startlingly white teeth appeared behind his blackened lips in a smile, causing the weathered but rugged lines of his face to deepen.

”No.” He rumbled in response, truthfully, his own fiery wings raising slightly to mirror the ashen posture she had assumed before him. No, he was not alright, but for now, that didn’t matter. For now, he didn’t need to be alright. He needed something else..

The hallucinogenic fire that had consumed his mind was suddenly shifted lower in his body. Gaucho’s nostrils flared, but still his blue-grey gaze rested upon Aithniel, whose mere presence slowly began to intoxicate him in a plethora of ways. The allure of a younger woman .. the respect of one warrior regarding another .. the taboo of thinking of her as the daughter of the Sun, but also the overwhelming allure of thinking of her as such. She was right and wrong and hard and soft in seemingly all the right ways.

With the confidence of an older, stronger man who has had the luxury of taking what he has wanted for years, combined by with the appreciation of one who is aware of how valuable a thing is before him, Gaucho stepped forward. Fire bloomed in a high arc across his wings, and his eyes looked steadily forward, unwavering, unapologetic. They promised satisfaction, pleasure, and the right amount of pain. His bone-pierced muzzle stretched forward, meaning to grace the side of her cheek with a maddeningly delicate touched, before moving to the soft skin on her poll. The dun exhaled his need towards her tulip-shaped ears, while taking a step forward to press his much larger, more muscular blue-striped chest against her own.

That she did not wilt before him only intensified the need inside of the dun, and the confidence that the ashen lady was every bit the panacea that he needed her to be.

Neither am I. Her words drew a smirk from him, and a knowing nod, as if this dance was best performed between two damned souls.

Gaucho watched through a gaze made cloudy by the deterioration of his mind as ash fell like a curtain from her wings. Her swaying tail, a hypnotic mixture of white, silver, and gold drew a heady breath from his dark lips. The bites that she left on his skin felt like cooling reminders not to drift too far from the reality that tentatively lingered between them. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought that perhaps a strong breeze might shatter this fragile illusion and he’d be cast back into the shadowy depths of madness, just as quickly as a strong breeze might blow away the ash accumulating around the two.

With a confident willingness, Gaucho followed Aithniel’s flickering tail. The swipes of gold in the darkness of the surrounding hair as well as the vignette-effect his mind superimposed on the world around him caught and held his vision and attention just as a matador might with a swath of red cloth. The bone through his nose traced idle and distracted patterns on her coat as his larger body gradually moved down the length of hers and towards the dancing strands of gold. Mesmerized, everything seemed to drift away from Gaucho’s conscious mind, save for Aithniel. The intermingling sounds of their breathing echoed in his mind, and the heat radiating off of her body was as tangible to him as the geysers that emitted hot air from the Heart.

He wanted to make her scream his name, if only to know that he was still real to someone.