Rade remembered little of his flight from Atlantis. The events that had occurred in Paradise eclipsed everything, even the shameful moment when he'd surrendered Fatale to the Vulcan sisters. Eclipsed. The sun could not penetrate the darkness that surrounded him. After another evening spent pacing the Lagoon's shore, the roan stallion had sought shelter - and solitude - in a dense, thorny thicket. There, lying buried beneath the twin burdens of his guilt and his grief, Rade felt as if he would never rise again - like Debonaire, whose bones had surely crumbled to dust by now.

An ember of anger flared into being amidst the ashen remnants of Rade's heart when his thoughts turned to his father. Though he would not deny that he had struck the blow that had ended the buckskin's life, he had never intended to harm the man. In the beginning, he hadn't even defended himself for fear of inadvertently injuring his sire - taking kicks to his shoulder, his barrel, even his spine. But when Debonaire's teeth grabbed one of Rade's ears, fear - instinctive and overpowering - had seized control of his actions. The roan stallion reared, his hooves pawing at the air in panic.

The next seconds were inseparable from one another in the chaos and confusion of his memories. Debonaire had given a terrible, tearing cry as his injured hind leg buckled beneath him, spilling him sideways onto the sand. And Rade, too slow to alter the course of his downward arc - he remembered the sensation of bone yielding beneath his hooves. He could still hear the crunch - like the sound of treading over one of the fragile shells that littered the beach on Atlantis, but magnified a thousandfold - echoing across the silence of his sanctuary. He could still smell the rusty scent of blood intermingled with the salty tang of the sea, and the light perfume of orchids. Borne to him by the wind, the scents swirled around him, and Rade slowly realized that they were real. Someone from Atlantis was here, nearby, in the Lagoon.

Conquistador.

In an instant he had lunged into a stand, scattering the detritus of leaves that littered the ground in his haste to escape the confines of the copse. Rade forced his way through the tangle of bracken, heedless of the thorns that scraped across his skin, and stumbled out into the daylight, his hooves sinking into the sodden ground. The soft murmur of a familiar voice broke his stride only briefly, and then Rade was running again, the dank air heavy in his lungs, to throw his golden form between his son and the stallion who was not his brother.

Their visitor was only a stranger.

“There's nothing left to take,” Rade said, his voice rough with emotion - anger and agony existing in harmony. “Either get out, or give me a good reason not to kill you right now.”

His amber eyes flicked briefly behind him, warning the boy not to intervene. It was his duty to defend the Lagoon, and his lenience toward intruders had already cost them dearly.


stallion // mongrel // 15.1hh // 8 // palomino roan // reba
debonaire x neassa