Noah

In recent weeks, his dove has ballooned beyond the elegant outline of entrancing youth (the unbelievable transformation has all but blown the simpleness of his mind), and also her discomfort has peaked - to his dismay - along with an ever shifting disposition; in one breath he catches glimpse of the innocent treasure she had been not so long before, but in the next, she seems more a broody hen, fussing about the freezing foothills and gathering what seems to be an endless hoard of rubbish.

Though he makes every effort to help her, to listen and to follow her (waddling figure) around, the entire situation is just too difficult to understand – often she cries, sobs with despair, and when the ever-enduring, highly confronted eagle queries as to why, his lover professes some entirely unreasonable justification, like the thread of tired yellow which had been in an otherwise emerald tussock…

As a weakening sun sinks from its pinnacle in the late-autumn sky, Nora settles to nap and the silver and gold stallion stands by. Doting eyes stroke the canvas of painted skin stretched around her –wondering inwardly if it could pull any tighter - until the nerves laid beneath it begin to flinch and tweak; as her secret dream-world descends, he places a soft kiss against her cheek and slides with painful slowness from her highly sensitive side.

For days he has been hoping to find the alabaster woman plucked from the Threshold.

It would be a year soon (a small exaggeration), since the ‘pushy-prince’ had delivered he and Nora so unwittingly into the bosom of this place, and in contrast the eagle is more than determined to assist his recruit – and the ones to follow – as she settles into herd life and hierarchy; the same courtesy had not been offered to him and so the infection of his ill-opinion, so to speak, had been let to fester for far too long.

The harry of the bitter mountain wind drives down in his face, forcing blonde lashes to fall across eyes, so that the world he views is barely a slit of white light. His long, flaxen forelock has back-flipped and it streams at length beyond pricked ears, meshing with the fluid, flying body of his mane; nevertheless his gait feels unfazed as he presses on at a canter, and his thoughts are fixed steadily upon the impression of his target where last she’d been spotted – exploring the walls to the west.

His time is brief; the dove soon will stir, so the drumming rhythm of his hooves breaks into a swifter gallop.

At last the shadow of that monster mountain looms, and he sinks beneath its ominous glare reluctantly, aqua eyes tracing the slender form of the paler as she grows ever nearer. "Zona!" he sings forth brightly, a little louder than expected; but within seconds he realises the object of her attention and slides to an ungainly halt (sheets of muddied snow spray out to either side). "Zona…" he calls again, and the note of his voice is far softer, for the amber-eyed canines beyond have focused upon him. "What in the world are you doing?"