The sound of a thousand hooves at speed resonates wildly in his ears and it’s sound is deafening in the  muted silence of their cave. Loud as the very call of nature, intoxicating, he submits at last to the whim of his aching heart (it is all he can do), the butterfly song of affection it hears, the overbearing pull of attraction he feels; those eyes still upon her, glaze beneath slow the turn of this mood. He has has spent almost every waking minute with her, enough time easily, to imbed that certain gravity of trust, the bond that has become more steel-like than the frayed fabric of mere camaraderie. Noah feels it, the thrum of it echoes in his pulse - it has for weeks - though he is only young, and his mind bleeds a dilution of sweet ignorance. Still, it calls him, and as the sound of that rich, romantic accent tempts nearer to the rattling walls of his mind, his skin begins suddenly to tremble as though the snow of many winters has bitten.

He burns fiercely with fever however, and dulling sweat betrays him, leaks across the gleam of an ivory girth.

There she stands, so close that his pores scream for contact, craving the heat of that womanly curve (he has touched her before, he knows); nearly months ago her angles were wickedly sharp, the flesh had been harried from her exotic bones by fear induced travel (or so he assumes), but now she appears before him like a goddess, an angel aglow that he dares not defile. He wants to hold back, shrill nerves drive a dagger down through his lust, they work to derail him, but fear and uncertainty arrive far too late. He cannot help but be lured a step closer, her succulent perfume in the stagnant atmosphere, so ripe for the taking, guides hungry nares in - something within him grows ravenous - and lips quiver, pressed together as they venture for collision.

She - every exquisite part of her - is bewitching, stunning, like the sun to night; more glorious even than his brazen expectation in this moment, and his vulnerable male verve reels backwards (eyes sealed beneath quaking lashes, roll), and his lungs are robbed completely of breath. It takes him a minute to recover, chin pitched desperately towards the dark ceiling (for he was drowning indeed), and he wavers on the spot in a drunken stupor, with wings dropped limply to the cold, dewy-stone floor. The breath he draws - steals from the bubble they are forced to share - is long, pronounced, but it restores and invigorates him; banishes the fog of boyish infatuation from all thought. Bright aquamarine plunges at last, lured back from oblivion by the shuffle of hooves; still nearer has he slid, defying the barrier that once existed between them, to sweep away silken forelock from her perfectly enticing eyes.

Noah

I was born a warrior
I was born a warrior