Within seconds, the tide of emotions lingering inside her comes rushing back. Solomon’s lips trail along her back, and the stuttering breath she draws as they press their foreheads together, so quiet, so close, lays heavy with the feelings threatening to overtake her. The sounds of the waves, of their soft inhalations and exhalations, of the birds in the trees and the gentle susurrations of green leaves brushing against each other, fills her pale ears, but all she can focus on in this moment is him, and her, and the unseen energy that crackles like lightning between them. The deal they have cobbled together isn’t perfect, with everybody getting exactly what they want, but then, nothing in life ever is. If it was, she would be in two places at once, both running down the beach with her guardians in the Ridge and kicking up powder-white snow with Solomon in the Cove. She knows deep down that it won’t work, that it can’t happen.

But Çiçek has also seen true happiness in the form of her parents. She knows it’s possible: A life full of laughter, of love, of friendship and good health and even better memories to last a lifetime. But her parents had gone through Hell to win that happiness. Only after years of searching, pining, and grief were they able to get to that joyous place. Her dam, she knew, wanted a love that was easy for her daughter, one that would bring her all of the serenity with none of the trials and tribulations. In the end, though, it was Çiçek’s life, not Azaleya’s, and it was up to her to take the hand she was dealt and either make the most of it or force a new one. Her dam might not have been able to lay everything in her life in neat, easy-to-follow little lines, but she had shown her how to straighten a crooked path to make it passable. Her parents’ love had not come without work… unwilling work, but work, nonetheless. Perhaps her situation - the pushing and pulling between herds, the negotiation, the likelihood that she will feel an absence no matter where she spends the majority of her time - is the work that results in the prosperity she craves. Light, she knows, is nothing without darkness, ecstasy unremarkable without pain. Çiçek had decided earlier, when she’d seen Solomon alone on the beach and broken through the trees to greet him, that she was ready for the work. If she is a spirit who runs headfirst into new adventures, then she will make her way into the darkness, a smile upon her face, and keep her sights set on the light that beckons on the other side.

All of the potential trials of the next year of her life are forgotten, however, as Solomon’s touch encompasses her. His lips trail down her neck, just over her heart, and she wonders at how he doesn’t feel its breakneck pace as it slams over and over against her ribs. He steps forward, his kisses traveling up to her shoulder and then back down, tracing along the place where the white smattering of spots at her stomach meets pale saffron. Çiçek, having pressed her own muzzle to his topline and followed the curve of it as he moves farther back, doesn’t suppress her quivering. Her breath hitches in her chest when he traces breathily over the smooth dip of her flank, a barely-audible whimper pulling from between her lips. “You are worse than the mares,” she murmurs against him, “with how you torture me so.” Her words come slowly, not from hesitation, but from the overwhelming want of him she no longer has any desire to contain.

Hip-to-shoulder, Çiçek angles her neck so that she, too, can press soft kisses at the place upon his own flank where white meets creamy tan. He checks in, wondering if she has anything left to say, and for the first time in a while a high bark of laughter peals from between her pink lips, cutting through the tension in one swipe. “No,” she answers, dipping low to nip gently at the thick muscle of his stifle. Mischief returns to her pale face. Briefly, she considers turning away, running down the coast or into the jungle, making him chase her one last time… but the thought of denying herself another second longer extinguishes that train of thought just as quickly as it comes.

Çiçek leans into him. “Solomon,” she whispers against him, the high notes of her voice clouded by the passion roiling unhindered within. Her head turns, just slightly, so that she can look upon his face one more time, her eyes dark and glimmering. “My King.”

The supple curves of her hips yield beneath the weight of his head. Frangipani and pine fills her senses, overwhelming, and the white banner of her tail, still flecked with remnants of roseate petals, lifts up and to the side, the thick waves no doubt glancing against his dark face. “Come, beloved, and let me give you something else to remember me by.”

Their time together was limited. Soon the afternoon would fade into night, and, Çiçek knew, she would have to send him off to the Cove alone, unable to keep him to herself forever. Though they wouldn’t be together physically, not for many months, the mare knew she would hold him gladly in the wide chambers of her heart, there to remain for safekeeping until she could see him next again. The memories they make here will last her through the winter, through the loneliness and the inevitable disappointment of her guardians and the uncertainty… and then, come Spring, when she emerges from the darkness of the jungle and finds her way towards the light of his smile, she will use her time in the Cove to make many, many more.