in his subtle mouth a smile as hungry as the sun

The copper-coated beast moves up the mountain slope with a confidence that few stallions can claim any right to. By sight, he recognizes (and is recognized by) most of the women here, but throughout his stay he has kept a respectful distance from most - not even so much as approaching to initiate conversations. But there is one whom he trails like a shadow when he deigns to appear in the open. And there is a cave, partway to the mountain’s peak, that he haunts like a ghost.

It is to the mouth of this cave that he hastens - he has been away from the mountain for days now, having slunk off in the dark with hardly a word, and returning beneath a blood red sky. Always, he seeks for her first - but his smoldering hunger is corrupted this time by something feverish. It’s there in the way his body trembles if he is not mindful of himself and allows his focus to wander. It’s there in the way he calls her name as his fading shadow darkens the mouth of the cave - not a sultry purr, but a growl, quickly cut short. “Naydra!”

It is very fortunate for him that she doesn’t appear to have been lurking in the shadows.

Not that he expected to find her waiting for his return - that is never how things have been between them. But it has become something of a habit of his anyway, to divert to the cave as he ascends. Every moment he spends with her here, in secret and shadow, is a moment he treasures. Not that he’d ever say as much out loud. But he wouldn’t put it past Naydra having discerned the truth anyway.

There was much Starscream never deigned to speak of. The lesser sons he’d scattered to the wind.

Their sons, lost to them. (Starscream had taken his grief and buried it deep as the heart of the mountain.)

When they were alone, him and Naydra, he’d become ever more attentive. When he traversed the mountain’s peak alongside her, he was ever more subdued and subtle in his scrutiny. And where Helis was concerned? He feared that he would become something ferocious and feral were she to come under threat. If it were up to him, he’d want her on this mountain for always, for he had come to know how fiercely these amazon mares protected their own.

Time has changed Starscream in subtle ways. He had become far more dangerous when he was alone. Far less composed when he thought himself unobserved. Tired, and carrying traces of evergreen scent on his skin beneath the salt of the sea (pine and earth and sap, all singing of the place that had once been their home, where his beloved sons had been born), he sagged dramatically against the sloping stone of the rugged mountainside. “Don’t hide away from me, please…”

The next moment, composure regained, complete with the beginnings of a coy little grin curling at the corners of his mouth, he set off in search of his night-dark beauty, longing to see her, but if he came across their daughter first, he would consider himself lucky. Perhaps there would be time enough to plant tender kisses across the filly’s face before she fell asleep, granting him the opportunity to lavish his undivided attention upon her silver-haired mother.

love,
STARSCREAM