Rougaru does not rush back to Paradise. His defeat against Liland was more than just a setback to the plan. It was a hard blow for more than one reason.

Zjeena.

She had charged him with the task. Even now her near black eyes and hard voice rings in his ears. Go... bring me Liland's head. Her words had freed the creature, ripped open the gate that so long chained it deep down into the recesses of his mind. Her words were those that the beast longed to hear. Too long Liland had haunted his nightmares, lingered with that smug grin in the shadows of the woods. If ever there was a purpose in life, the beast knew it was to see the damned stallion fall bleeding and broken beneath his blood-stained hooves.

However this time it did not happen.

The wolf was not ready to admit defeat. It was the wounds from war that still littered fresh upon his hide. It was the limp in his step that had given Liland the edge. Liland was untried in battle, unwounded from the days and weeks away at war where Rougaru was still vulnerable to weakened body. His mind never tired but it was his body that failed him. This time that loss held so much more weight than a mere lost battle.

His mind reeled now as he limped ackwardly through the shallows and onto the shores of Paradise once more. His shoulder burned where Liland's jagged hooves scraped across bone in a powerful buck. It was not a life threatening wound, but it would take time to heal. Like the other wounds that left his body glistening in crimson droplets.

Liland would pay.

Ears fall backwards as a heavy sigh slides past his lips. He was tired. Defeated? No, but tired nonetheless. The fight for Zjeena's sanity had zapped what remained of his energy after the war. More than anything he made him begin again to realize how pointless the battle for the forest had been. So a mare ruled a herdlands? Big deal. It was not something he himself approved but that did not affect his day to day life. The battle he lost against Liland did.

He grimaces. What would happen to Zjeena now? How could he tell her that he had lost? That he did not have Liland's head to lay before her feet? Would she hate him forever?

Thick cream and caramel tail flicks audibly against his haunches as the thoughts linger in his mind. Flies pepper his hide, his skin shuddering under the tickle of their feet and the sting of their teeth as they sought to relish in the fresh and reopened wounds. Reluctantly he turns away from the dense jungle, not quite sure he had gathered a way to meet Zjeena's expectant eyes.

The wolf relishes in the feel of the hot sand upon his back, again and again he rolls through the white soil, coating his body in the protective layer, hoping to thwart any attempts the annoying flying pests might make to find a free meal. Absently he chews on his cheek, his gaze resting on the treeline. He could not avoid her, his soul would not allow it. But what could he do?