The connection, comfort and understanding of body language - of touch, warmth and the reassurance each provides - is something fondly familiar to Noah. He is a sensual creature, intuitive and impulsive, driven by an inclination to understand, provide, the only real way he knows how; yet she, the pale princess, the delicate dove, challenges his very constitution in almost every possible respect. He accommodates and cares about her unnatural need for space, pandering to her creatively, cunningly, through other avenues like food, flattery and conversation (though the latter tires his trying brain so quickly); in recent days however, she has accepted the odd collision of skin – the first had been accidental, each time later less so. To him, it almost seemed as though his slight, slow and very calculated advances were making a little headway.

There is no rush as he continues in gradual motion along the soft, moist path etched down between the grasses. Occasionally he pauses to collect a sweet, golden dandelion as it bends and smiles in the canopy-filtered sunlight, or mouthful of soft, sour lichen where it beds in dull swirls upon a trunk; though he is careful to maintain momentum, for memory of savage slayers is stamped hard into his thoughts. Shadows grow tall around him, like wisp-thin sentinels stirring from long slumber, and he eyes them carefully, consciously, and maintains a strong alertness for the billow of scent and sound around him. This time, he is prepared for anything.

The strident screech of a psittacine rises from the thicket ahead…

Though his every effort is earnest, and his mind seldom strays from the task, the creature who watches manages to perfectly evade all attention. Noah is unskilled, no matter how bold, and experience beckons his focus near to the floor – for it was down in the murky depths, risen as though from the belly of hell itself, that a demon had ambushed them before. Then, there is a fleet-footed scramble to the rear and like the dove in his slipstream, narrowed gaze diverts instantly to the cause.

The familiar face of a creature, nay, a mare - whether horse or serpent, he still could not decide - unexpectedly emerges from behind the twisted girth of a tree and his stride instantly pauses as incredulous eyes indulge upon the exquisite detail of her image; in fact, her arrival inspires within him an aggravated sense of restless discontent, at least towards the place which had captured them. It seems rather appropriate that one from the beginning (who, though having played a very vital role in their rescue, was more or less shunned by louder types) should present now, when barely-there loyalties to the north (and same louder fools who live there), is at its frailest yet.

She barely stands smaller, with those wonderfully strange, naked wings perched to either side; quickly his notice is drawn back to the unusual shimmer of bright, golden eyes, the same hue too, colouring the snake-like scaling down the bridge of her nose between them (and down her sleek, strong throat. ”Hello…” humbled vocals answer immediately in return; a fusion of surprised delight glitters their note. Though he delves deeply into the recesses of his mind, recollection of her name escapes him, and the hum of an unfinished sentence fades awkwardly into the abyss between them.

Nora leans close beside his thigh, and the flash of her bodily warmth thereon is noticed, cherished – but all the same ignored.

Without intending to displace the nervous dove, he turns to meet their acquaintance head on, closing a little of the space left politely, and the smile which has found peace upon his lips begins to broaden (it is so unlike the tortured fear once before); a weak greeting stirs behind him and one golden soldier swings in reverse to acknowledge. There was an easiness to the other’s grand posture (though it seemed hardly to fit one so marvellous, Noah welcomed it all the same), gentleness and sureness, enough to call for all rigidness to fail. “Thank you for your help… that day… All too aware is he, of the crude, rude conduct in those previous moments, and though they are a blur of blood and rile, he cannt help but feel the weight of a guilty heart.

Noah

I was born a warrior
I was born a warrior