Desert

The longer he spoke, the less he felt like she cared. It was a strange experience for the patchwork stallion, who had certainly come into this conversation believing the mare had more interest in him than she had expressed. He had never wanted for potential partners, despite his long-standing disinterest in the typical behaviors of a stallion his age.

It wasn't just a woman that Asmodeus wanted, but a specific kind of woman. One who commanded the same sort of respect that he hoped to do on his own someday. One who would elevate his children's potential, not dash it. He'd seen his siblings and knew that he would never sink so low as to couple with the sorts of mares his father did. The ones who were soft and weak and gentle. The ones who coddled him and taught him to accept his failures.

Asmodeus wanted more than that. It just so happened that such women were very few and very far between.

He wondered how much of Nyimara's story Goldenrod had heard before coming here. He knew the gist of it, or rather, he knew the parts that Nyimara wanted him to know, and the parts that his father knew, and the parts that the islands whispered about. Whether any of those three things were really the truth was hard to say. He knew better than to take any of the three as factual recounts of what had happened, but they painted a vivid enough picture of the woman he'd come to call his Queen. A mare so driven, so intense, that she made the islands learn her name. A woman who - no matter what fate befell her, no matter who tried to wrap chains around her ankles - always rose back to the top of whatever dung heap she'd landed in.

It was an admirable trait... and one that kept him wary. Asmodeus did not intend to become just another stepping stone in her story.

He snorted softly, something flickering to life in his dark eyes as she named him Nyimara's humble servant. "Her King." He corrected, a cold grin touching his lips. "One in service to her no doubt," he conceded, that same emotion swimming through his eyes. "But not humble."

Not anymore.

"Consider following her the first wise choice you've made on the islands," he murmured, letting his tail brush his hocks. He didn't believe she was telling him the whole story, if only because she'd basically reiterated the same thing twice. A mare with no goal in mind did not doggedly follow a "servant" home, as she'd put it. Goldenrod had something in mind. What it was, he didn't know, nor was he that interested in trying to drag it out of her. Until such time it became pertinent, she could keep her pretend cards close to her chest.

"But keep in mind that it is I that holds your leash, golden girl. And if you can't cut it?" He murmured with the equivalent of a brow raise shifting his expression as he let a beat of silence develop between them. "Well, we don't keep dead weight in the Desert."