She is no stranger to cages, whether they are gilded like her coat or iron like Rougaru’s will. For that reason, Chelle expects that her companion will take wing when she unlatches the door of his barred cell, setting him free from the burden of his promise. Instead, the dark stranger’s voice reiterates the vow, this echo more powerful and certain than the soft murmur it was born from. But I do. And— feeling the warm flutter in her chest again— the freckled girl yields to the stallion, too. Tucking herself against the large body that curls around her, forming a barrier between herself and the world. Closing her eyes, Chelle breathes deeply, and then exhales that breath in a wordless hum. She has known prisons and hated them, yearning at their boundaries or lashing out against her captors.

But this wall of warm, quivering flesh is that first that feels like something else. The first that she’s welcomed.

The slender creature must tremble herself, because the roan hastens to reassure her of his intentions— that he is asking nothing, and offering everything. But Chelle is aware of them only vaguely, distantly, just as she is always aware of the gentle murmur of the sea. For the moment, every one of her senses is ensnared by the curve of his lips hovering inches from her own. By the warm wind of his breath, and the shiver that it sends racing down the ridge of her spine. Right now, there isn’t anything she will not give for that touch, for the infinitesimal chasm between them to close. And so— when he asks— the amber mare offers her blessing, not even knowing what it is that she’s agreeing to. All she knows is that she wants him to stay, that she wants to be selfish. That she wants to ask more of him than is right to ask of a stranger, even one as selfless as this one. Especially one who will ask her for nothing in return.

“Yes, I will. I do.” Chelle murmurs anyway, her voice deepened by desire. She is seconds from breaching the sliver of air between them, from pushing her muzzle into the hollow behind his chin. But the stallion’s next words hold this impulse in check, and stretch a long moment of silence between them while she struggles between the desire to be honest and the need that thrums beneath her skin. She wants him to accept her for all that he is, this stranger— but fears the rejection that is an inevitable risk of her confession. For all that he seems determined to protect her from Rougaru, how could he do anything less than try to protect her from herself as well?

It isn’t until after her companion has offered his own name that she finds the strength to smile again, to speak. Not the words she wants to— not yet, anyway— but small things of little significance. A light joke, a breathless laugh; gifts of warmth amidst the solemness they’ve shared. “Compared to you, I am a small thing,” the girl jests, referencing not height but breadth of body. Chelle is tall, but a willowy thing— elegant, but not powerful. Not strong, save as far as her spirit counted. And as if summoned by that errant wisp of thought, that spirit blazed suddenly to life— burning as brightly as the autumn-red sea of her mane when she surged forward to press her muzzle to the curled line of Lafayette’s lips. Her own parting, yielding, as a plea tumbled between them.

“I need— I need to have a choice. And if I am given one, Lafayette, I choose you.” Her lungs ached for air, and she paused only to fulfill that need before plunging recklessly onward, chasing an even greater need. “But I don’t know if you— and I haven’t— I mean, I’ve never—” Feeling the flush of blood pooling in her cheeks, she tucks her chin, turning to face the empty stretch of beach that they share.