He can almost smell the fear on her, nearly taste it alongside the salty tang of the air on the shore as they await the quickly impending approach of the stallion. It sets his teeth on edge, though she had earlier seemed to insist that she didn’t want to leave… or couldn’t. Even as the golden stallion arrives and places himself protectively before her she seemed to cower, though his greeting to her seemed kind enough and he made no move towards the dark stranger on his shores. It brought questions tumbling through his mind, the urge to step forward and protect her himself somehow surfacing, and yet he had promised to keep her secrets and cause no more trouble for her but moments before and he would not break that. There were other ways, Aidoneus content to play a longer game than his testosterone might try to demand as his temper cooled. It kept his voice even as he greeted the leader of the Dunes and provided what should be an adequate explanation for his unorthodox presence here.

It was not until Kore’s own gentle voice spoke that he allowed himself to look back to her once more, her unease seemingly lessened enough to allow her to play along with the justification he had given even if he noticed how her smile was a touch less than genuine. Though something inside of him clenched at the familiar touch she laid across the Teke’s withers he swallowed it once more, it was something he would have to dwell on later. Her willingness to ‘send him off’ so easily was a wound to his pride, but he was not so foolish as to disagree, not when he knew it was the only course that this meeting could take. The lumbering brute even moving to take a step towards the direction she had indicated when Maslakhat’s curt dismissal cut through the night air.

Pausing Aidoneus turned his golden gaze back towards the stallion, refusing to look and see if Kore obeyed or not. Something in the stallion’s tone irked him, even in the few moments he had to share with the slender woman were enough to show him that her emotional state was delicate at best. She did not deserve to be ordered around like some subservient underling and a part of him hoped she would reject his edict even as he hoped she would not. Still his eyes remained trained on the dune’s ruler as he turned that cool gaze back on the Clydesdale. The stallion obviously accustomed to his orders being followed without question an for a split second he considered making him work for it. But that single worded promise he had uttered to the dark mare echoed between his ears and stayed his baser instinct. “Always.” Something flashed across his broad features for just a moment until he made to stride calmly past the desert stallion and back into the dark, tumultuous waters from whence he had come.