Armed I am with love. Disarmed I am.

Buried beneath more recent and far fonder times, apprehension yet lurked like a toxic cloud in waiting (like the black smoke, there, just beyond his touch), memory of merciless feline hunters and their sharp-toothed slaves lay motionless—but not forgotten—below blankets of hope and revolution. Time and neglect had thinned those defensive, though entirely necessary, layers (for there could be no progress in their absence), and now, as he caressed his beloved’s warm, trembling, wet skin, as they stood baitedly in the neon glare of this new, horrid, alien world, Noah began to think of them… Noah knew his dove well enough to trace agonised lines of trauma as they ricocheted violently through the beautifully patterned canvas of her skin; so too did her strangled, bi-toned eyes reflect fear unfelt for perhaps more than four seasons. He could only presume the cause of such grief: writhing, living shadow with smouldering white eyes blinking out, sinister, predatory. This gloom’s jaws had engulfed whim wholly only moments prior and ravaged the blessed power bubbling through his veins. Unable to evade the churn of more paranoid suspicion, the eagle's bright eyes ventured thither, scouting the wood behind her for sign of greater devastating strife. Even the rain could not drown the intoxicating bind of her perfect perfume, and his hide bristled wildly in response, primal, protective instinct delivering a fresh assault of adrenaline through his frame. The stallion stood all the taller, broader above her lamb-like impression: feathers fanning just enough, crest arching upwards beneath shimmying cascades of long, waterlogged mane. Crimson winked warningly as nares thinned and rattled softly against the damp breeze and perched proudly at the pinnacle of his skull satellite-style ears swivelled with incessant vigilance. “I’m alright,” he answered believably, all the better with the weight of delicate bodice crammed in close. “…I don’t like this place… the strange light and the shadows…” he murmured immediately afterwards, eyes still trawling their unfamiliar surroundings and the note of his voice mirrored the discontent written through his body language. Wherever they had arrived—and however—seemed to have no readily available exit. “Let’s find cover.” Presuming, of course, that the Rift had to offer any refuge, or held any similarity to Loorien, at all…

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