He is a fan to the flame she was named to be before motherhood and patricide had sapped the youth right out of her. Her son had become savagely jealous of his father, of his father’s entire kingdom, and the death of her Vulcan’s first father had bitten her straight to the core. Her heart had opened again, of course, but it had taken watching Cain for quite some time to accomplish that. In the end, here she was, here he was, here they were - the coolness of the cave warming with indecent things that left them both as good as flushed.

He had done much to keep their lives peaceful, unmolested by the bad actors that ran others out of their homes or stole them away for their own ends. He had kept watch over her sons, claimed the one not of his own blood as his own. He had spoken to her as an equal, as a valued creature, and there was something in how he comes close to her now that brings out the boldness that she had not realized she’d had inside of her.

Her teeth graze across his chest puckishly, surprised to find him shivering rather than jumping at the sensation. He swears himself to her again, swears that he is hers to do with as she liked, but that smacked wrongly of self-dismissal and she wasn’t going to grow in boldness if it leeched it out of him in exchange. She jibes at him a little, earning a nip at her neck, his voice a purr when he asks what she would have of him and she is almost bold enough to say ‘all of you’ when she decides instead to dance away from him and lunge in to tug a lock of mane.

His ears pin but his eyes hold the heat of the season moreso than the anger that might have doused it if he’d been a man of sensitive ego. His clipping teeth above her ear distract her so he hip checks her into a sideways prance to keep her feet. "The cool air has revived your spirit, I see." He is playful and she rises easily to the intended bait. "I may act ancient, but with you I feel the years of my mind slip away." She lunges forward, "And perhaps, if you catch me, the simple desires that replace those years can find a purpose again."

It is a game for the young, this catch-me-if-you-can, but she indulges in it because she had so rarely been given reason to believe that the pursuer might actually wish her capture. Her legs spin her down deeper into the slot canyon caves, weaving with unusual delicacy down the alleyways. He knew these ways better than she and she counted on it.