What does he mean that she is here? The stallion’s audits twitch, watching his companion for any other signs of explanation. His heart pounds loudly in his chest, the thrum beating staccato in his ears, the pulse squeezing tightly around his heart. Noor was not known to be mistaken on things. He did not say words that were meaningless. He wouldn’t dare play tricks on his friend, knowing how the stallion feels about the mare still, all these years later.
He nearly misses the skittering of the rocks, but the stag is the first to draw attention to the otherwise insignificant calamity. “There,” he points, lifting a piston and bowing his decorated crown, urgency in his words as he presses the thought into the stallion’s mind. “She is there, Gareth, I swear to you.”
The desperation in the elk’s tone brings the stallion out of his stupor. Noor himself would not be the kind to emotionally attach himself to a thought such as this one. No, he was doing it because he knew how much this meant to his beloved friend, and the nervous energy was permeating the air. An electric prickle made its way across the dappled pelt of the stallion.
He took one feathered trunk, lifting it cautiously, taking a step towards the direction the stones had finally settled. He lifts his head, eyes darting, searching the darkness. “Salome?” His voice is but a feather on the wind, and it surprises him how soft it is. He lifts another cannon, and another, and he moves to the edge of the trees, hurried now. “Salome?” He calls again, his vocals thick with hope, his amber pools not able to penetrate the consuming shadows beyond. He paces desperately the same ten steps in front of the clatter that had alerted them to some kind of presence.
Noor watches him, a touch of pity in his bright eyes. Perhaps it was only the sixth sense of an animal born as inherent prey, but there had been something… wrong, with the figure he had felt in the darkness. It had looked, and almost even smelled so much like the mare he had known in his youth. A scent he had always thought of as comforting, was now… bitter. Tinged with a sourness that was not unlike old decay. She had the sense of a predator. But the stag could not relay this to his friend, who came to the mountains always desperately looking for her, even if he would never say such a thing. He was perhaps too noble, and Noor could not bear the thought of disintegrating what little good there was left in Gareth. So he watched as the stallion paced, tossing his head back and forth, calling for the spectre.
“Salome!” The name is shattered on his tongue, desperate and lonely, his throat tight and hot. Something akin to tears threaten to invade his vision, but he does not let them. He hangs his head in defeat, his entire frame shrinks, the moonlight distorting his musculature to look almost sickly. He opens his maw again, lyrics hoarse and raw and pleading. “Please.”
