Aidoneus wasn’t the only one suddenly aware of their proximity. As he lowered his massive head, she realized the sheer density of him, and though her pulse quickened in her throat and warmth crept down her spine she did not flinch or move away. For a second, the shine of the silvery scars littering his coat caught her eye, and she wondered how someone so careful with her could have gotten so many. He certainly was big - that much was obvious. But was he really all that bad?

The deep thrum of his voice brought her back, and she forced herself to look into his eyes again. So golden, bright, intelligent - and yet, something deeper lurked beneath, something she couldn’t quite make out. Kore was losing herself in the secrets held therein when he presented leaving as an option, and she paused, her ears tipping to the side. Leave? Leave the Dunes? Where else would she go?

Sure, she’d been feeling lonely, of late, but that was different than feeling vulnerable. Here, she had some semblance of protection, as well as decent company, and the sands reminded her so much of Eleusis. Maslakhat might have been too busy to pay her any special attention, but she certainly did not suffer under his care. Kore was used to being bound by duty, tethered to her responsibilities like a dog to a chain. Leaving for such a selfish reason as her own happiness was unheard of. She had a duty to repay the golden Akhal-Teke who had opened his home so readily to her. The choice to just pack up and go… to Kore, it could never be so simple as the stallion suggested, and her forlorn gaze hardened a bit as she sized him up.

“That’s easy for you to say,” she retorted, the honed edge of her voice more impulsively petulant than scathing. She swung her elegant head to encompass the whole of him. “Look at you! So tall, and strong. You can go wherever, do whatever it is you want, and I bet nobody would be able to stop -”

It was at this moment that his words truly caught up with her. “Wait,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. Had she heard him correctly? He didn’t know Maslakhat? Her nostrils flared, and the scent of his coat, dampened by seawater and completely foreign, flooded her senses. The realization crashed over her like a wave, nearly knocking her asunder: He was, very decidedly, not one of the four men she’d hidden from all season, but someone else entirely.

Every instinct in her, every bit of her upbringing and her own lived experiences, told her to run. Instead, she took one half-step closer, enough to feel his body heat radiating off of his skin, and touched her muzzle to the broad expanse of his cheek, tracing it down the length of his nose and towards his chin.

“Who are you?”

For the briefest moment - barely half of a second, though it felt like a lifetime - things were still, and then a call cut through the darkness, pulling her ears back from the stallion and towards its source. Hoofbeats, pounding over the sand and coming rapidly closer, soon followed, and Kore jerked her head back and stutter-stepped a few paces away. The stallion gave his name, and offered his help, but Kore’s nerves had shot up into the cosmos, and her wild eyes looked inland with renewed apprehension. “Aidoneus,” she repeated, his name searing its way onto her tongue so that she would never forget it.

“My name is Kore. Please,” she said, her voice turning again to a desperate pitch. “If you should wish to help me at all, please remember your promise to me.”

Maslakhat was coming, of this she was absolutely sure, and Aidoneus held her fate in his hands. All she could do was trust that he’d show it the same care he had shown to her.