Smoldering. Seething. All of these words could describe the feeling that boils beneath his smoky hide. How dare they? His tail lashes across his haunches as he paces in the shadows of a coconut palm. She had set hoof on HIS beach, made assumptions and accusations, and then demands for Tavas to be returned to her rightful home. If Nampeyo had come here to make a deal with him, she had left with a new enemy. Ignorant. Selfish. The words still cling to him.

And to top it all off, this whole showdown was right after he had returned from delivering his withdrawal of support for the War.

He pauses his pacing. He knows what is to happen now. He has made an enemy of Warsaw and most likely Cullen along with him. It seems as if the gods have their own path for him, one that is not what he expects.

With a snort, he pushes away from the shadows and steps into the early afternoon's light. His glacial eyes search for Tavas. He would settle this now. He lets a bugle ring from between parted lips. He does not wait for her to find him, he sets out for the last place that he had seen her. He enters the shadows of the jungle without hesitation, his glacial eyes search for her familiar form. He does not slow until he comes upon her quietly grazing within a clearing. The soft babbling of a brook is only occasionally interrupted by the caw of a parrot in the overhead canopy.

"Tavas," he says as he draws near to her. His glacial eyes find her dark chocolate gaze as he speaks. "It seems Requiem will not stop until you are returned to him," he pauses as he searches her face. "I value you and what you want. If you want to stay here in the Ridge or if you want to return to Requiem, just say the word. You are not my prisoner," he dares to close the distance between them, until there is just a sliver of light separating his smoky skin from her golden touch.