Tarek and Persephone have not spent much time in each other's company. Their relationship has been formal, perhaps even professional. Persephone provides him with a place to call home and he provides her with his loyalty. They are not friends, but they are allies. On this night, Tarek's loyalty is put to the test, and he delivers. Tarek will not stand idly by while their home, and their families are threatened. He will take swift and deliberate action. Maybe by the end of all this, he and Persephone will share more than just a territory, but a friendship too. It's difficult to fight alongside someone and not be bonded common cause and an essential trust.

The three horses come together in a clash of teeth and hooves. Tarek is jarred by his collision with Warsaw and hopes Warsaw is thrown enough by the impact to falter. He strikes with angry jaws and tastes the sweet flavor of teeth closing on enemy skin. Tarek feels the pinch of Warsaw issuing a bite of equal force to his own shoulder. It will be another scar to add to the collection already littering his hide.

Their enemy turns to Persephone, taunting her. Tarek takes this window of opportunity to strike again. He closes in on Warsaw, rocks back onto his haunch and strikes out with both forelegs at Warsaw's ribs. Warsaw doesn't let the assault stop him from turning the taunts on Tarek. Tarek lands, shaking his dark head, ears lost under his mane. Nagendra's dark face is a mirror image of his own. There's no way those foals are Warsaw's. Even if they are. A sperm donor is just a sperm donor. That does not make him a father. "No. It doesn't matter who's blood flows through their veins, I raised them. They are my children."

Tarek remembers that day like waking from a fresh nightmare. Hannah left to look for an absent Yngvar and didn't return. A worried Tarek set off to find her, and found her trail disappeared into the ocean north of the commons. After a long day of searching, he was weary, and his muscles ached from the bitter cold. There she was, on Tinuvel, in heat and smelling of Warsaw. Tarek mounted her on the icy shores of Tinuvel that day, a moment of passion in the darkest of times, but he could not bring her home then. He knew he'd lose a fight in his condition. He promised to find a way to bring her home. Tarek never wanted anything but to live in peace with Hannah. He had no quarrel with Warsaw and Warsaw had no quarrel with him. Tarek still doesn't understand why their small family would be targeted.

But the blue stallion doesn't have time to dwell on difficult memories. There are new ones in the making right now. Warsaw diverts his attention from Tarek back to Persephone and bears down upon her in a most inappropriate way. Tarek cries out, his voice haggard with rage. No one will defile his Queen like that. Tarek's hooves leave deep gouges in the soft, forest floor as he launches himself forward. He throws the full force of his body weight at the space between Warsaw and Persephone.