Asche had grown comfortable. Perhaps that was a dangerous thing to be - so it would prove itself in the moments to come, but for now, blissful and unaware he remained, his bay sweetheart tucked in neatly below his neck and their breathing intertwining in a gentle rhythm that fell in with the washing of the waves on the sand down below. He was not sure quite how long he had spent with his body pressed against Sinopa, but the only thing that had broken him out of his endless daze was the cry from her mouth with that all important name.

"Tolinka?" he repeated, body shifting so quickly from perfect stillness to frantic searching, eyes wide and glued to the beach below as the bay girl parted with him and sprinted back down the cliff away from him. Soon he was chasing after her, tail arched behind him as he desperately begged his feet to move more swiftly down the perilous path of pebbles. As the two sisters collided, he loomed backwards, watching intently but hoping to give them their moment to bond before leaping forward to great his loved one with a similar shower of affection to that he had welcomed Sinopa with.

For all one knows, he had treated them all too similarly.

It was only after viewing the slightly strange interaction unfold before him that Asche caught the scent of foreign stallion in the ear and his ears pricked forwards, scanning the beach for the sound of hooves drumming the earth. Was it a raid? The scent was distant, stale almost. Slowly he paced towards the pair, the wind whisking away their words too furiously for him to catch their conversation, yet the man could tell that something was awry and it began to unsettle him, that doubtful mind whirring away with anxious thoughts of all that could be wrong so shortly after things were so right. Slowly, piece by piece, the pale boy began to put two and two together, and rage bubbled in that somewhat pessimistic mind.

"Tolinka," he started, but she was already leaving, starting off towards the jungle with a labour in her step that only confirmed Asche's worst fears. "Oh god," he chocked, having to force himself to breathe evenly as he stared at the red sister, dumbfounded and petrified. "Oh god, I should never have left her." The very freedom he wished upon his mares that he had earlier been praised for now had come back to bite him in the worst way. Array, it seemed, had some sense. Asche still had so much to learn, and nobody to teach him but his own mistakes. He flashed an apologetic look to Sinopa, unaware that he was the cause of their distance, as he had worried for such a minuscule moment that night in the falls, and turned sharp on his heels, kicking up a small flurry of sand as he set off at a trot after his dark one.

"Tolinka! Tolinka!" He cried.

What had he done?