Desert

Titania waits, but not for long. A few scant minutes pass before a shadow tops a nearby dune, and the familiar weight of eyes rests once again upon her. She watches as he glides down the sand towards her, her expression blank, almost bored. She's orchestrated this encounter, planned it to the second -

Until her nostrils flare, and Vanya's scent comes mingled with the hints of silt and sweat on Rougaru's shining coat. Fury blazes hot within her, crying out for blood. Not now, she tells herself as he begins to speak, tamping it far below the surface. Not now, but soon.

At the stallion's final question, Titania tilts her head, a sneer darkening her sunlit features. "Such presumption," she says, "for someone who owes me such a great debt," and closes the distance between them with no more than a few catlike, fluid steps.

"You washed up in my Desert," she says, her voice like a dagger pointed at his throat. "You were at my mercy. It would have been so easy..." She pauses, blowing a hot breath over the point of his withers. "...so simple, to take what little remained of your life between my teeth and end it." The white-streaked mare allows just the whiskers of her muzzle to brush across his skin, clenching her muscles to still the shiver that ran through them. Close - they are so close. Is it fear that makes her heart beat faster, or is it something else? Titania pushes the thought away. She has to stay focused. "But I let you keep it," she continues, tethering her sanity to the steady hum of her words in her chest, "and as payment for my graciousness and generosity, you were to fetch me another to replace it." Not just any life - one equal in value to his own. With great effort, she lifts her head from its place just above his flank and scans the empty horizon. "Well, I'm tired of waiting. Where is it?" Titania pulls back sharply, her voice a snarl in her throat. "Where is she?"

The fire in her eyes, the anger, it's no longer a performance. The ire she holds is real, kindled by years of oppression and fear and hatred, of chasing and chasing and never getting what she wanted. "You have failed to uphold your half of our bargain, Rougaru," she hisses - but in the next moment, her words have turned to velvet on her tongue. "While I would be well within my rights to take it all back - with interest - I'm feeling rather... generous. How old are you now, exactly?" Titania throws him a sidelong glance, a huff of soft laughter drifting like a warm desert breeze over his back. "Maybe the heat has gotten to you... made you forget what truly matters."

She steps beyond him, moving further inland, but as she does, she finally makes contact, letting the press of her body - the drag of her sea-damp skin against his - say what she, breathless with adrenaline, could not. Let me remind you.

The fallen Queen goes a few paces forward, then stops, peering over her white-streaked shoulder at him. "I am your savior," she murmurs, swishing her tail just enough to waft her scent towards him. It would have drawn him regardless, but with the heady addition of her estrus - full-fledged, untouched, yet unclaimed by any this fall season - it would be damned near irresistible. "I bestowed upon you the ultimate gift, wolf-king. What are you going to offer me in return?"

She is deep within the creature's jaws, that much is clear. But what he doesn't know, what he might not even suspect, is that in caging her once more, he's sealed his own fate, too. Her presence is poison, no matter how sweet it tastes, and it will be his ultimate undoing. She'll make sure of it.