Even with Rehoboam's careful shifting, drawing back and away in the interest of regaining some sense of his own space, they remain close enough to kiss without effort. It is a strange observation for the colt who has not yet felt someone for whom his heart dances, and even now, the potential of touching Kingbreaker does not fill him with anything other than anxiety borne of fear, rather than lust. Still, pulling further away seems cowardly, as if conceding the obvious advantage. If he had a back up plan, he might have risked it, but this whole venture had been composed solely of moments where he was simply winging it.

And so he balances precipitously on the edge of too far and not far enough, and waits for the monster's answer with black-rimmed ears thrust forward and teeth pressed tightly together.

When the answer finally comes, he is not prepared. It's not the sort of shocking revelation that leaves delight or condemnation in its wake, but a surprise that builds slowly as he considers each new angle of meaning. I am here because I love you, the beast murmurs and Rehoboam is helpless to stop his brows from drawing downward in suspicion. Love, he'd said. What even was love, truly? For some it seemed to be a feeling that just happened to them. For his father at least, this was often how it was described. But his mother had made it seem that sometimes love was something you had to work toward, and work at. That it didn't always come easy or naturally. That it was sometimes messy and grim and painful.

Furthermore, how did you love something you did not know? Keres had known him, and had chosen not to love him. How was this stranger - this creature of blood and bone and menace - any different?

You have a name now? The follow-up question - a logical one, given the aimless wandering of their conversation - tugs him insistently from the halls of musing and a short-lived smile ghosts across his charcoal lips without ever lightening the dark umber of his gaze. "I do," he affirms, glad to be (however momentarily) on solid ground again. His name, at least, he knew. He considers, for a moment, giving himself a new name. One that no one else knew. One that no one could track back to the Cove. One that his father wouldn't recognize.

"It's Rehoboam," he says finally, his voice even to hide the subterranean quiver in his body. But you can call me Reh, the familiar addendum rises to the back of his lips but he cages it against his tongue, his gaze cautiously appraising his companion. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the massive grey stallion's proximity was doing more to dissipate his fear than anything else had, and the soft, almost-frantic pant of his breath against the other's muzzle was growing slower as his heartbeat eased.

"You said you loved me?" He repeated, his tone quirking upwards into a question at the end. Suspending his own disbelief for a moment, the boy-not-boy swallowed and lifted his head fractionally and carefully, deliberately, with no idea of how it would be taken, moved another pawn. "Those who love me call me Reh."

And then, hoof trembling, the painted stallion took a half step forward, pushing warily into the miniscule space remaining between them. "And what do I call you?"