The blue pill, or the red pill?

The weather had turned quite unexpectedly, overnight in fact, and Noah quickly realised that their nightmarish new abode was far from average. Torrential rain, endless, relentless, unimaginable, ceased as though heavens tap had been suddenly plugged and without reason or logic the puddles beneath their hooves began to freeze, frost glittered across every available surface and the air grew so bitingly cold that he could feel his bones rattling beneath his sleek, summery hide. The coastal wind buffeting the island, the lush masterpiece they had discovered after venturing across the sea, had only amplified the effect of the ambitious, gnawing winter, and the eagle had insisted he and the dove return to the mainland—inland—where perhaps the ice had not fastened so fiercely its grip. Also, there they might have a greater chance of locating both stray bond-mates. Of course, Noah’s very best intentions had not played out as predictably as anticipated. Through the course of the day (if of course those queerly lit, freezing hours could be called that), he had guided their path through the rainforest somewhat familiar; what should have been an uneventful, progressive expedition became a gut-wrenching lesson in survival. They discovered screaming flora as hooves brushed unassumingly against the slippery face of mossed rockery and fled from a monstrous reptilian hunter whose swiftness—tail, wings and razor-blade scales—defied belief. As it were, the exasperated stallion began to wonder whether their deaths would have been more peaceful, freezing. As the evening descended around them, a curtain of equally uncomfortable shadow shrugged too tightly around his shoulders, the eagle was relieved to find that the giant timber was thinning at last. What had felt increasingly like an impossible labyrinth of foliage and frights, had become a growing glade with space and circulation, air—albeit, so cold a long inhale burned his throat—and Noah turned to his lover with a meek, hopeful smile igniting through an otherwise strained expression. “Which way do you prefer, sweet?” he asked gently, feeling a little liberated and ever willing anyway, to accommodate the stunning creature’s preference; his bright aquamarine gaze swam adoringly through the bicoloured glow of her own, falling, of course, to the softer sister, whose look of vulnerability seemed always to summon forth his stalwart masculinity. There was a downward slope from their position and it allowed fair vantage to the regions beyond. To the West, the shadowy impression of the portal which had unceremoniously spat them into this hell loomed ominously like storm-clouds on the horizon; a wild shiver ricocheted down the length of his spine as he turned to note the various opportunities ahead. There was a part of him that silently begged her attention to ignore that option. Noah’s eyes shifted North, tracing the vague outline of unnaturally sharp, tall peaks before the darkness of night engulfed them entirely and when he glanced East, there was less to behold still. A heavy sigh erupted from slit nostrils. It seemed whatever direction they chose would deliver them in to more unknown. Unless they spent the night atop this poll and reassessed their situation in the light of new day— A bone-chilling howl split the pleasant enough tranquility around them.

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@Nora first/only? not sure. Starts on the northernmost fringe of rainforest cliffs.