†
He had returned to Atlantis feeling refreshed, his mood buoyed to discover the dry season had finally settled over the verdant jungles of his home. All that dashed in a matter of moments as he was confronted, abruptly, by a strange stallion intent on taking Shiloh away from Paradise. Losses are a part of life. It does not make his failure to protect her any easier to stomach. Temblor cannot sleep for it, and has wandered the jungle for days in a state of incomprehension.
He is not surprised that Shiloh has twice been targeted. She's intelligent and eye-catching, not only for her coat but also her graceful, confident carriage. The stallion's eyes were different, but for all that he resembled almost exactly the flirtatious mare who had come here seeking her father. Rougaru.
And he challenged for Shiloh over Sonorae. He can't have been in the jungle and not caught scent of her: for all that the flea-bitten gray drifts about like a ghost, she leaves marks like any mortal. Her presence here must have been obvious. Why, then, did the silver haired stallion rake his possessive gaze over anyone else?
The only thing more upsetting than that incomprehensible rejection of the mare who has waited here in Paradise for the notorious stallion's return is knowing that Rougaru is considered a threat, an enemy, to Shiloh and her family.
And now she is captive to him.
Temblor follows the circuitous borders of his home for the umpteenth time, pacing as his thoughts roll about useless within his head, his ears ticking forward at the low call undercutting the jungle's usual riot. His eyes pass over the dense foliage unseeing even as his body turns toward the source of the call, but within a few strides he is present again. He must act, and soon.
There is a mare standing pointedly within his territory. He approaches her with a whicker of greeting, a polite expression settling over his broad face. The mare holds herself with an expectant air— a delegate, come to treat? Temblor hardly dares to hope. He knows so little of Rougaru, and the not-knowing has led to a painful assortment of dark assumptions that grow wilder by the day.
"I am Temblor," he introduces himself as he halts on the path. He extends her nose toward her in an automatic gesture, seeking to trade breaths even as he reins his mind away from that horrible onslaught of what-ifs. The mare before him smells familiar, in a vague way. He tries to place it as he meets her eyes. "What can I do for you?"
TEMBLOR
& swallows you whole
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