Bellisma

The small, golden mare had slipped into the maze of bamboo the moment she’d relinquished Kianzo to his family—or, perhaps more accurately, the moment she had withdrawn herself from the golden prince. There had been many reasons she had pulled away from the ashen colt. The small, gilded pixie told herself it was because she had accomplished her intentions: she had softened the brutal and malicious edge in Kianzo. Where she had seen malevolent demons begin to take hold, she felt she saw something kinder weaken their hold.

But, all the rationale she poured into that reason was to silence the other reason she had withdrawn from the dark prince. The longing.

At first, the beaten woman had kept her distance—figuratively and physically—from the colt. The touches of others had brought her nothing but pain for most of her life. But the mare was a social creature—despite the beatings—and Kianzo was naught but a colt. Unthreatening, slowly bending to her teachings and listening to her suggestions. So, eventually her instant recoils ended, no longer fearful of the accidental brushes of foal-fuzz against her thin, golden skin as they walked.

And, slowly, she had began to relax; allowing her hide to absentmindedly brush against his; a tail-brush to sweep across both their flanks in dual-pest-patrol. That hadn’t been a problem. That had been… nice. Wonderful, even. The first time touches and nearness hadn’t immediately brought pain or shame.

But then…

Then the small mare found herself reaching for that contact. Allowing her small, delicate muzzle to linger along his dark, foal-fuzz mane. Pushing her golden side along his youthful one—because that was all she knew from her past: forced intimacy. Her young, tortured mind never had a chance to explore friendship or other relations besides sexual ones.

And she knew it was wrong. She knew she had stolen this colt from his family—much as she had been stolen from hers. He was so young…

Her copper hide twitched in humiliation, as she remembered how she had to force herself to leave the colt. How she had craved for his companionship, his warmth, his scent while she hid from her longings deep in the maze of bamboo stalks.

Though, it was fear that pushed her out of the misty maze—she had felt the lift of Kaos’ bubble—like taking a step up stairs when you’ve already reached the top. That heart-dropping moment when you think the entire world was dropping away…

So the tiny, painfully elegant golden woman stepped towards the edge of the Labyrinth.

Kianzo

While you burn at the stake, I dance with the flames.

The dark prince wasn’t quite sure how he had ended up in the Labyrinth. He had been walking among the Marshes and then… something had happened. Like the memory slip between waking from dreams and falling back into them. He shook his darkly lined head for a moment, blinking away the (unknowingly Kaos induced) glaze over his eyes, trying to find focus amid the mist and tangled bamboo rods—

And then he froze.

Bellisma.

There was no mistaking the small, golden form. He would know it anywhere—he’d likely know it for the rest of his life. He had seen it in his dreams, he had seen it in his thoughts… especially of late, when taunted by Oizys and teased by the Kia’s fiery foxes. He had been naught but a colt when he was with Bellisma but now… testosterone swelled his frame and clouded his childhood recollections of the mare.

His nostrils flared, ears straining towards the mist wreathed, etched beauty. Ethereal in the mist—was she another dream his mind had been plaguing on him since Kiada awoke this heat in his veins with her fiery words? …He watched for a few moments longer, waiting to see if she would dissolve into some primal act, driven by the heat that continually waxed and waned through his body and in his groin. Though sometimes enjoyable, he found these sensation more irritating and distracting than pleasurable. He needed to focus—was it her?

“Bellisma?” His deep voice called out. Though a question, his low rumble was never uncertain.

Bellisma

”Bellisma?”

The voice made her small body freeze—and then begin to tremble. Though it was different—deeper, surer—it was still familiar. Slowly, after a few long moments of quaking stillness, the golden pixie regained enough control to cautiously turn her head towards the source of the voice.

And there he was. Nearly fully grown—certainly no longer colt. Stallion. And the sight sent a thrill of fear through her chest; her heart leaping into a frantic gallop as her legs begged to do the same. There was no good that came of stallions—especially young stallions so swamped in testosterone as this one reeked of.

Delicate, black nostrils quiver, taking in the deadly, warning scent that pushed her a stutter-step away. But, amid that swamping smell was Kianzo—that familiar colt hood safety she had come to trust; that she had come to yearn for.

Green eyes framed with thick lashes blinked a few times; the whites around them slowly relaxing and receding away. A deep, shaky breath pushed out of her barrel in a whoosh; trembling finally ceasing as her small hooves settled into the lush earth, no longer threatening to flee.

“Zo,” her sweet, soft, musical thrum quietly called back through the reeds and mists. Again she blinked, though this time it harbored a soft smile on her tiny, delicate muzzle. Though uncertainty still gripped her chest, she would not flee—

Not yet.

Kianzo

While you burn at the stake, I dance with the flames.

Black rimmed ears flicker forward and backwards at such a response to him—was that fear? She had never been fearful around him. The thought struck him with a dark rage in his chest and barrel—some possessively protective urge pushing his ink-dipped limbs closer to the soft and quivering curves of the golden mare.

His intensely blue gaze grew sharp as he watched her; they traveled over every inch of her copper skin—searching for what? He didn’t know. Perhaps injuries. Perhaps some answer as the why she had left him. Or why she had taken him. Just searching, roaming, wandering. Instead of answers, they found more questions: questions of was her skin still as abnormally warm as when he was a colt? Or as satin smooth? And her scars—could he touch them, now?

His gaze ceased its drifting along those white hairs then he saw her tiny black hooves settle back into the rich grass. This was a place untouched by Orangemoon’s dryness. Eyes and ears sweep away from her body and towards her face, sharp blue crashing into soft green.

Though, his own ears quivered slightly as she spoke his name in her quiet, dulcet voice. And it visibly softened his edges; youthfully grown muscles eased beneath testosterone-gleaming gold skin. “I thought—” his low voice broke off, uncertain as to where his words going as he wasn’t sure where they had begun.

Then, again, he his deep voice tried, “I don’t know why you left…but I missed you.” He shifted, uncertain. He was no colt any longer, no more there to be swayed by her teachings. But he still wanted her there. An ear cast sideways, “I told my mother about you—I don't think she understands.” His voice grew softer, blue gaze glancing towards the green carpet at her hooves as he remembered Rexanna’s angry shadowed face and flicker of ears. A sigh pushed out his nostrils as he fell silent… waiting, wanting.

Bellisma

She remained still, painfully slender legs rooted to the misted earth, as her dark ashen prince approached. His sharp gaze met hers—and she visibly relaxed the moment she saw him soften to her.

And her green eyes drank him in as he neared. She had not seen him in…over a year? The crest of his neck had filled, flexing beneath a two-toned mane with each step. His jaw- it had firmed and grown to a masculine jowls, set off by the inked markings that lent an elegant masculinity to his face. The stripes of his back gleamed in prisms, the small spots leaping and shining over bands of sinew. And his height—how he had grown! Towering over her small frame with height and brawn! He was a colt no longer.

But, what would normally send fear racing through her veins, sent some other thrill— excitement.

”I told my mother about you.”

Fluted ears perked, nearly tipping towards each other as her small, dished face cocked slightly. She wasn’t certain how she felt about her colt’s family knowing about her… Though Kianzo’s next words brought about a decided reaction in her: “I don’t think she understands.”

A soft, short snort pushed out of her nostrils as a single fore hoof stamped in the grass—and she shocked herself with the depth of such irritation that boiled through her. Of course Kianzo’s dam wouldn’t understand; of course this beautiful colt’s mother would try to come between what the gold pixie had shared with him. She had taught him lessons worth learning! She had spent time with him, honest hours learning and talking and simply listening. Far more than that absent, pretty-faced mother had done. Zo’s dam been far too wrapped around her King to see her son for what he may have become, if not for Bellisma’s intervention.

So her green eyes were wide, white-rimmed, as such a fierce emotion in her brought out her instinctive and ever-present fear alongside her anger. She took a half-step towards him, bringing her face close to his—an unheard of display of brashness in the timid, broken creature. But this was Kianzo, her colt and pupil. He couldn’t harm her.

“But do you understand?” Her voice, although persistently pleasant to the ear, held a bite to it. Her small, curved chest was puffed out (nearly comically), as she stared up at the young stallion, “Do you understand what we shared?” …now there was a different edge to her voice. Desperation? Need?

The small woman, so beaten by years of mental torment and abusive use of her beautiful body, needed this colt to understand. To understand that he had given her hope, in addition to what she had taught him.

He had given her freedom to be brave.

Kianzo

While you burn at the stake, I dance with the flames.

The dark prince's head jerked back at Bellisma’s sudden, rash response to his simple revelation. His own bright blue gaze widened as he watched her, felt her. She was suddenly in his space, her gilded, hot, small body pressed close as she leaned towards him; her rounded, gold breast pushed towards his deep, ashen one. Over-large, verdant eyes are probing his, and so beautifully framed in thick lashes set in her delicately sculpted face…

Her heated body rekindled the blaze in his veins that Kiada had awoken. It stiffened the bands of his sinew; pulsed in his groin with each beat of his heart; robbed his mind of its careful and analytical thoughts with each stroke. His eyes only saw the gleam of muted light over the soft curves of her body; his ears only heard the low thrum of need beneath her demanding question; his mind only recalled the days that memories of Bellisma had tortured him with heated, confused thoughts.

“I… thought I did,” his deep voice finally rumbles quietly, haltingly.

His dark lips reached out, pressing softly and then firmly against the skin of her neck—and it is as satin-smooth and as hot as he remembers from his colthood. A deep, long breath pulls in a scent—a familiar one, but he now realizes how foreign it is to Helovia. It is one of sand and heat and dry air, even amid the Labyrinth’s greenery.

His lips then encountered a lock of thin, golden, straw silk—her mane. And the strands broke the trance of touch. He realized he head stepped even closer to her, his black jaw nearly pressing against the side of hers as his muzzle laid against the upper part of her neck. His taller chest nearly touching hers, though their heights made him tower over her.

He realized, then, that his breaths were coming in deep, hard gulps. So he paused, uncertain, not knowing what his body was wanting or needing. Only know that he wanted and needed it feirely.

It was this unknown desire, coupled with his innate trust of the mare that had taught him much in his foalhood, that allowed him to push aside his pride and ego. Instead of hiding his confused longing beneath sharp and barbed words, his low voice simply asked, “But…but will you show me, again?”

Bellisma

The painfully small, beaten woman wasn’t certain what response she expected; she wasn’t sure what she had even wanted. This was entirely new to the mare: this brazen courage and these brash words. Though, despite this sudden bravery, her fragmented mind wasn’t at all prepared for what happened next.

He was crowding her; his taller body suddenly even closer in her space— and his muzzle was reaching out closer and closer. Then it was on the apex of her neck, sending heat and blood rushing to the surface to meet those lips. And while her body wished to instinctively recoil from such a touch, she didn’t—because Kianzo’s scent swamped her. It was a safe and non-threatening smell; one she had been able to relax around. So only a small shudder rippled her thin, delicate hide around where the young stallion’s lips gently pressed.

There had never been an act of intimacy she had chosen. Never a time where she had been dominate, where it had been her wants and needs that dictated what and how things would be done.

There was some part of her mind that whispered of wrongness. It hissed that she had seen, done, been subjected to things that this young stallion should never know of—that she was somehow dirty, and should not share this passionate, primal act with him.

But there was another part, a (surprisingly) louder part, that claimed she should be the one to show Kianzo this. She had taught him so much already; showed him parts of himself that could combat his innate darkness. Was not this intimate act part of a stallion that could culminate in absolute darkness? The mare knew it could be, she had seen it, had been beneath it—had felt it.

It was this louder, stronger voice that won (no matter how right or wrong). It silenced those dastardly hisses in her mind, and pushed her into the ashen gold prince. “Step back,” her voice was quiet and still dulcet, but barely recognizable by the sudden huskiness that swamped it.

Her tail flagged, traitorous body already prepared for him by years of pavlovian conditioning—testosterone, a stallion's touch, heat; it was all her body needed to brace itself for whatever beating or pounding may come next. She turned, haunches presenting— nearly trembling now, for this was in equal parts alien and disgustingly familiar.

“Gently,” she said softly, a hoarse whisper. How many times had she uttered that plea to whatever hulking man stood behind her? How many times had it been ruthlessly (brutally) ignored?

Not this time. Never again.

————fade———