It took three weeks in the warmth of an eternal spring cave.

The stallion had herded Macius forward, until they'd reached a peaceful, warm meadow. The play of crystals kept it perpetually warm, a perfect spring, never ending.

The weeks blurred, until his body betrayed him. At first it was only restlessness, the need to move. He told himself it was nerves, hunger, shadowing. But the heat grew sharper, a flush he could not master. Tail flicking higher, hips loosening, warmth coiling deep where no blade or prayer could reach.

Macius fought it. He braced each nerve as if against a charge, clamped muscles like a shield-wall. He told himself he was a knight, that discipline was stronger than flesh. But the flesh lifted its tail in treason, muscles softening, heat spreading. The more he clenched, the more it ached.

The stallion knew. He always knew. Breath scorched beneath his tail, muzzle pressed, teeth grazed his rump. Macius stiffened, rage spiking, but the body arched, shameful, ****. A low curse tore from his throat, broken into a whicker. Useless.

Then the weight crashed down. Hooves struck his flanks, chest slammed against his back. Forelegs locked around his ribs, crushing, inescapable. He staggered but the legs held — not knight’s discipline but mare’s reflex. Yielding, braced to take the blow.

The bite came sharp at his withers, a grip of teeth that pinned him as surely as chains. He cried out, high and shrill, his own voice alien in his ears.

The thrust drove fire through him. Sudden, brutal, foreign. He tried to lurch forward, but his body froze, tail lifted high, passage open. His mind screamed denial, clawing for prayer, for steel, for any weapon. But the body shuddered with its own answer — a terrible pulse, a reflexive clutch around what entered. Fear twisted into something hotter, sharper, that spread against his will.

Each stroke jarred him, filled him with a searing fullness. He raged, yet his body trembled in rhythm, muscles betraying him, nerves burning. He had endured blades, endured famine, but never this: his own flesh complicit in his undoing.

Then the stallion surged deep, a shudder running through the massive body above him. Macius felt it, hot and undeniable, filling him with a liquid warmth that sealed his humiliation. His body clenched around it, traitorous, as if to hold what he would have cast out.

When the weight dropped away, the bite released, he stumbled forward and nearly fell. His legs quivered, tail sagging. His hide was slick with sweat, his breath ragged. The stallion turned aside, calm, satisfied, grazing as though nothing had passed.

Macius stood shaking, violated by his own flesh as much as by the beast. No wound marked him, yet he was damaged. Not broken, though... His body still burned with strange fire, his mind hollowed, mocked, made false. He was a knight, he told himself. He was a knight.

Yet the truth pressed with every tremor: knights endured siege and famine.

Knights errant led hardy lives, enduring hardship for their Order.

And he had endured this...