The palomino is just beginning to get her bearings, drowned in the scent of Faolain and the crashing sounds of the waves just ahead, when the muscular red mare Rivaini joins them. Çiçek’s face lights up in recognition, beaming, and she joins Faolain in calling out to greet her. Her greeting falls short as she notices a small white shape held in the mare’s mouth, and as she gets close enough, Çiçek barks out another laugh of surprise. A flower. Of course. The palomino mare presses harder against Faolain’s dark flesh as she stretches out her muzzle to greet her… and freezes under her soft touch.

Rivaini’s lips against her forehead send a shock of electricity down her spine. It’s not what Çiçek expects from her; they’re friendly, friends, even, and yet they do not normally share such tenderness. It’s all she can do to keep herself from grabbing a hunk of her creamy forelock as she pulls away and yanking it so that she might chase the spotted mare down the coast. To make matters worse, soon Faolain is brushing her soft muzzle along her pale ears, and as Rivaini sidles along to her other side, her body burns all over. The taut white-speckled skin at her hindquarters twitches, then at her withers, and she wriggles against the feeling of the mares on either side of her, not from the heat of the sun but of her own crackling, restless energy. Poor Çiçek, tortured by so much affection, barely pays attention to the next few moments of their conversation. She is twisted into knots inside and with every delicate touch, the mask of her composure threatens to slip. She’s used to running headlong into things, into throwing herself fully and completely into whatever her next venture was, but she’s always kept control of her own person all throughout the process. She’s not used to the waves of instinct and hormones that rise like a hurricane tide up to her neck, threatening to submerge her.

Çiçek is grounded enough to notice that Rivaini also knows this golden king, and if she wasn’t so self-preoccupied she might find that funny, too. Instead, she is trying to forget how the press of the mares against her flanks scorches like jellyfish stings. The mare raises one whitesplashed hind leg and stomps it down into the sand, hoping for some form of a release, and it helps… but not much. They are all too close, too much, too many, and if she doesn’t put some space between them the pressure will crumble her into dust. Solomon moves his head, and her dark eyes, preoccupied as they had been, flit down the beach, her ears perking to catch his offer. “Yes!” she answers, as soon as he’s done speaking, and raises her head from its place over Faolain’s shoulders, stepping backwards and out from between Faolain and Rivaini’s embrace. Her skin, so sweltering and unbearable a moment ago, shivers now with the absence of their contact.

Before she can crawl her way back in, Çiçek walks around them and to the side, her steps lifting into a bouncy half-trot. “Instead of a walk,” she says, her once heavily-clouded eyes wickedly clear, “how about a race?”

Without waiting for an answer the spotted mare has already pivoted, running headlong down the sand at a wild gallop. “First one to the tide pools!” she calls over her shoulder, indicating the collection of shallow rocky clusters a few hundred yards up ahead. Her hooves pound into the soft sand beneath, and though she is almost sure they’ll give into her games, she doesn’t check to make sure they’re following. All she can - all she wants - to focus on right now is the hammering of her heart in her chest and the feel of the salty breeze whipping around her body. It’s the one thing she can control, in this moment. If she can come to grips with the situation at present, maybe - later, separately, without so many enticing options to choose from - she will feel comfortable enough to truly let loose.