Shadow Mountain tell me what color the sun really is

A simple yes had been expected, as well as desired. A reason for him to stay even if the home was not what he expected it to be, and a way for her to always keep him nearby. But there had been only silence, neither confirmation nor denial. For a moment, she'd believed herself to have made a mistake. That by offering him the title, she'd pushed him away rather than drawing him closer. Luckily, any regret that she might have felt had evaporated from her system when his tongue had slid over the side of her muzzle. Surely that was not something that he would have done had the plan been to leave all along, for from the gesture she'd felt some form of reassurance. What followed, though, had resulted in it becoming her turn to fall silent.

"I–," she'd stumbled over her words, mouth shutting hardly a second after it'd opened. There was no romantic bond between them, there simply couldn't be on account of how little they truly knew of one another. And so she felt lost, for was that not what it meant to be bonded to another? Perhaps not. Their union could be purely business-driven, such as ones she'd heard of in her youth. It was not a concept that she felt especially attached to on normal occasions, but with him she could see no other way to get what she wanted. "If you will be my second, then I will be your mate," was her decision. "But if ever either of us are drawn to another, we will end this." For the time being, she was fine with the arrangement, but knew that she would someday wish to settle down with someone that she actually harboured affections for; it was only an assumption, but she also believed that he would eventually want the same thing for himself.