Every minute detail of his touch was becoming something that was intricately branded into her mind. The simple brush of his nose against her nape was a plethora of sensations: the velvet down of the skin between his nostrils was felt even through the course dark hairs of her nape, the longer whiskers sprouting from the tender skin of his maw tickled her skin as they whisked ever-so-gently across her taut pelt. Under her gaze, the FrostHeart seemed to melt, but rather than shrinking, he grew, almost as though to live up to her unspoken expectations and desires. Something almost smug lurked beneath the warmth of his eyes, and she wondered if that satisfaction’s roots lay in her newfound freedom and affections.

An unintentional slip of the tongue left her breathless as he pulled away, but it would seem that he was as drawn to her for the time being as she to him, for the absence of his touch did not last long. A cheek was laid along her nape, one eye closed in relaxation, one peering at her thoughtfully from beneath a snow-colored forelock. It was odd, the stark contrast between the two of them, his light coat pressed against her dark, when she had never felt so close to another being, so… so similar. His words were joking, that much was clear from his tone and the spark in his orbs, but mixed into the humor was a genuine sense of possession. This, too, was foreign to the shadow-mare, and she wanted to dispel the thought that there were, perhaps, more of him

There is only you, she might have said, and the words were on the tip of her tongue as he pulled away from her again. The space between them was charged with energy, but his absence still left her cold, lonely, despite their still-touching bodies. He asked her to impress him, and in the three simple words that he spoke there was a challenge that she wasn’t sure that she could rise to. How was she to impress him? What could she do that he had not already seen, already experienced? How does one impress the object of one’s affections – the only object of any affection that one might feel? It has always been you, she amended her previous thought, but still the statement refused to part with her.

The moment was long as she regarded him with a shadowed half-smile on her face, a mysterious and previously unseen expression in her oddly heated gaze. They had been through much, the FrostHeart and the Dark Empress, but never before had she looked upon him with such desire, though she could not have explained precisely what she wanted from him. Partnership, for a certainty, but had she not already gotten that?

Did she want more?

What was more?

A joking pout settled on her features, set off by the sparkling amusement of her eyes. ”Well, I’m the Queen, aren’t you supposed to impress me?” she teased. But there was no pressure, no venom in her words to make them real, and instead of awaiting his response she reached out to tug playfully at his hanging mane. She grinned then, and tossed her head as though about to move away, about to start their dancing ritual about the cavern once more, but she seemed to think better of it. His warmth was impossible to resist, she found, and she settled herself. Taking a few steps backward, her hide skimmed lightly against his before she halted, pressing herself against him once more; she pushed her maw into the crook of his neck, the place where it met his jaw. The side of her head lay against his nape, against the coarse hairs of his mane, and she took a deep breath of him.

More.

"Talk talk talk."