[mature] i've never fallen from quite this high; Aquaria - Printable Version +- Beqanna (https://beqanna.com/forum) +-- Forum: OOC (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=24) +--- Forum: Archive (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=81) +---- Forum: Lands (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=98) +----- Forum: Tephra (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=85) +------ Forum: Ischia (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=87) +------ Thread: [mature] i've never fallen from quite this high; Aquaria (/showthread.php?tid=25614) Pages:
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i've never fallen from quite this high; Aquaria - Pteron - 11-19-2019 RE: i've never fallen from quite this high; Aquaria - Aquaria - 11-19-2019 The gathering is a pleasant one, all lighthearted banter and how d'you do's. It's easy to be happy when the company is so vibrant. Still she found her eyes drifting to him when she hoped he was looking the other way. What she was hoping to find, even the sea mare didn't know. Some sign or signal, some acknowledgment of what had transpired between them? He acted as carefree as ever, though, and she began to feel guilty for not following suite so wholeheartedly. That was the problem though, wasn't it? She'd let him talk her into giving him everything. Body and soul, she longed for the pegasus, only to realize that her body might be all he wanted. She'd teased, told him not to fall in love with her. She only wished she'd know how easy that would be for him. He called her away when the gathering dispersed, and she followed him without a second thought. She'd follow him anyway, if he asked sweetly enough. When they are far enough up the beach, his words fall like darts to her heart, each one a hopeful thing even as it draws blood. He missed her. His kiss set fire to the skin it brushed, light as his feathers. So easy it was for him, to bring the world down into a focus of two. A magic more powerful than anything she herself wielded, it seemed. He'd shown her the stars, and she wanted to show him things equally beautiful. "I missed you too," she admitted, nuzzling the softness of his jaw despite herself. He is her friend before all else, and she can see the worry hanging from him though he tries to brush it away. He seems unwilling to delve into it, however, and so she lets the subject spin to something lighter. She made a mental note to nip Aodhán next time they crossed paths, for where else would Pteron have gotten his information? But that would be later. The shifter and Eva had spilt off, clearly intent on their own piece of paradise. A smile, soft and less certain than usual graced her lips. He is so considerate, so kind, and the thought of him pulling off the feat suggested really did lighten her heart. "I'll be very impressed if you manage that. It would mean you've gotten much better at swimming than I remember you being." Her throat tightened as he leaned closer, and almost instinctively she stepped away. The rejection is softened, she hoped, by her turning it into simply trotting before him, her original destination in mind. "Do you... So do you want to see where I live? Not just Ischia, but my own piece of it when I'm ashore?" She asked, glancing back to see if he would follow. Many nights she preferred to sleep beneath the waves, nestled in a coral grotto that felt as safe as any place she could imagine on land. But some nights, many more since the winter, she had been laying out on the warm beach as the sun drifted beneath the horizon, and counted the stars as they emerged, the memory of him whispering their names into her ear as she drifted to sleep filling her mind. @[Pteron] RE: i've never fallen from quite this high; Aquaria - Pteron - 11-19-2019 RE: i've never fallen from quite this high; Aquaria - Aquaria - 11-19-2019 She should keep him at a distance. She knows this, yet it is so difficult to cling to when he stands so near. The scent of pine and cold mountain air lingers about him, and she could catch whisps of it every time he passed close. So different from the scents she had grown accustomed to on the island. The briny salt water air, the fruit and flowers and warm sand, odors she carried on her own skin. The sky and the sea, and she wanted to watch them combine. She moves because she feels him in her bones. He's a hurricane, the way he moved her, and she a little fish in the sea. Afraid to dive deeper, afraid to rise and let the wind catch her. So she moved on, hearing him catch up and match his longer legs to her stride. He wants to see every piece of her, and she remembered the promises drawn from their lips beneath his trees. "And you shall, my nightingale." She replied, knowing she couldn't deny him. She only made it a few paces beyond him. Hearing her name on his tongue was the most beautiful, heartbreaking music. Heartbreaking, because she realizes that she's hurt him, somehow. She had been trying so hard to keep herself out of harms way, to keep up appearances. She should have known better. He was her friend, after all, and she should have realized he would read her better than that. "Oh Pteron," she circled back to his side, eyes a glossier than usual. "No, darling, you haven't done anything. I'm just distracted, is all." Her neck twined with his, her head tucked against his shoulder. He was warm and solid, her hurricane and her anchor. And she'd been so caught up in her self that she hadn't realized he might be dealing with his own weight. She kisses a path along the muscle of his neck, burying her muzzle in the wind whipped tangles of his mane. "Follow me. And I'll make us both forget our woes." The fine blue hair that rimmed his ear tickled her lips, and she kissed there too. Every inch of him she would kiss until she had undone whatever sadness sat inside him. Maybe it would be enough to undo her own. The path to her den was not hard trodden, a faint sandy trail that wound through the jungle. It was not a long walk, even if it wasn't direct. She glanced back every so often, watching the shadows slide over his face and back. He looked so perfect in the green filtered light. Like one of the many parrots that filled Ischia's skies. At last the trees released them into her secret cove. Rocky arms stretched on both sides to encompass a minute cove, the sand a pale ribbon edging the clear water that lapped near. Her collection of treasures the ocean had given her dotted the sand in swirling patterns. "Well. This is it." She shrugged, smiling back at the winged stallion she had brought here. This was her sanctuary, her safe harbor. The water beckoned and she answered, walking until the warm brine stroked her belly. "Come here." It was a softly spoken command, but a command nonetheless. @[Pteron] RE: i've never fallen from quite this high; Aquaria - Pteron - 11-19-2019 RE: i've never fallen from quite this high; Aquaria - Aquaria - 11-19-2019 He is beautiful on her shore. The way the sunlight strikes him brings rich color from his blue dun marks, makes his feathers and coat like polished stone. His little smile on his lips is a sweet one as he takes in the myriad patterns she'd spent so many days laying into the sand. She wants to remember him, just like this. Looking so very much like he belonged where he stood. The spell breaks when his eyes moved to her, where the water laps at her belly in a meditative rhythm. He is more than a figment of her imagination, more than a passing stranger to smile at and move on from by the next day. He's Pteron, and her traitorous heart couldn't build walls high enough to keep him out. That stupid promise they had made, it had seemed like the safest bet at the time. Idiot girl, she hadn't realized just how alive his touch would make her, just how much like drowning it was to have him gone. That was what it felt like to watch him heed her call. Drowning in the thin air. She wanted to give him what she knew was expected. To uphold her part of the deal. It was what she'd intended every moment from the moment they'd parted in Taiga to that one they were suspended in now. But now. Now he was too close, and she realized that to touch him would hurt as much as it healed. She could have laughed it off, if he had stopped talking. If he hadn't asked for her honesty. It was the one thing that she knew would ruin all. The space between them dwindled, filled with his tender, well meaning words. And a kiss, one that ties her insides in knots when he presses it to her skin. Silent tear tracks glitter on her cheeks, and she quivered with need and want and every unspoken thing. "I'm sorry," she whispers at last, leaning into the warmth of his touch as if it might be the last time. "I've broken a promise, you see." She gave a hiccuping laugh, a wet bubbling thing. "I thought it would be easy to keep, but you're so damn wonderful, Pteron. I guess I should have known better than to hope a bird could love a fish... or to think that I could keep myself from loving you." She bit off the last part, knowing it was the real betrayal. She wanted him, and she wanted him to want her in the same way. It was a stupid game she'd agreed to play and she'd been playing for higher stakes than originally planned. A hard swallow pushed through her throat, as she addressed him while looking at the sea. "Can we just pretend. Just for a little while. That you love me like I love you. I won't ask anything of you again." She blinked rapidly, fighting against the misery at war inside her. There was no way to win that she could see. More than anything, she wanted him to hold her, to tell her she hadn't ruined everything. But perhaps it was too much it ask. @[Pteron] RE: i've never fallen from quite this high; Aquaria - Pteron - 11-19-2019 RE: i've never fallen from quite this high; Aquaria - Aquaria - 11-20-2019 Emotion clamors for attention behind her beast bone, her heart pounding viciously. That seems so wrong for her heart to be thundering when it feels as though it should be laying shattered beneath his hooves. Not enough not enough not enough, that's all it says, over and over until her head spins with the mantra. And he seemed so clueless, so utterly unaware. That she felt anything deeper than friendship seemed to have taken him by surprise, when she felt that her own deeper feelings had been sitting beneath translucent skin, for anyone to see. He had taken her innocence and her heart all at once, and now she felt herself reeling at the loss. His stammered apology falls on ears that can hardly process the words, that can't make sense of what he's trying to apologize for. The sky toned stallion pressed close at her bidding, and she wished his kisses were enough to erase the tears still streaming from her. Little drops of the sea, it felt like, the salt a reminder of who she was when nothing else made sense. She is hurting, cut to the depths of her soul, and yet she hated to see anything like pain in his beautiful eyes. If only she could lose herself in his kisses as she has before. There is something tickling at the back of her mind, the knowledge of why he can't love her. There's someone else. His heart isn't his to give because it's already been given, and not to her. The selfish piece of her mind wants to not care, to take what he offers and to try and let it be enough. To be happy with what she was given because it was all she would get. But that was not love. She could bear her feelings for him if they stayed inside, she could bear touch and physical affection if there was no deep emotion behind it. But to have both with Pteron, and to have it all mean nothing to him. That she couldn't stand. His touch was soft and full of regret, and she let him do it because it helped him. At the last kiss, she pulled away, tears drying on the scales of her cheeks but no longer being replaced by fresh ones. Her head shook, and the words she knew needed saying sat heavy on her tongue. "Please. Please don't say that, Pteron. If I'm not the one for you... Please don't offer me the rope to hang myself by. You love someone else. They are the luckiest horse alive, and I dearly hope they know that." Her girlish dreams, half born, lay in fragments all around her. She had shared her heart and felt his words like a cruel consolation prize in return. They'd gone too far, hadn't they? Too far to get back to the way they'd been before the winter had seen them together. She had felt special, adored. Now all that remained was a sickening sense of being used, and that he was regretting using up a favorite toy. She stepped a little deeper into the suddenly turbulent water, wanting nothing more than to dive beneath the waves and lick her wounds. But she couldn't leave things the way they were. It would be a cruelty she found too harsh to inflict. "I am thankful, that I got even a piece of you. Your friendship has been a treasure to me." The cool water embraced her as she swayed lightly in its hold. The ocean wouldn't let her drown. "Whoever holds your heart? I hope they've given you theirs in turn. This is not a feeling I would wish on anyone. You least of all." She smiled joylessly. The day that had started with such promise now felt drained of any beauty it had held. Stormclouds seemed more fitting to her mood. @[Pteron] RE: i've never fallen from quite this high; Aquaria - Pteron - 11-20-2019 RE: i've never fallen from quite this high; Aquaria - Aquaria - 11-20-2019 He reacts to her words unexpectedly, as if she had drawn darts of her own against him. The horizon is a blue on blue line, the water as blue as his feathers where it touched the sky. The water between them ripples, pushes lightly against her shoulder and hip. It's a precursor to the body she knows rests inches away and coming closer. What effect she's had on him she isn't certain. More so she is afraid to look and see. They had done nothing but disappoint each other, it seemed, and she was tired of the distress weighing both of them down. This wasn't who they were, was it? This was not the freedom they both loved. How much of that was her fault? She is about to let her emotions carry her away. Or the ocean, more the the point. When she is stopped by the lightest touch. His cheek against hers, asking nothing of her except that she be there. Her neck twisted to face her friend, eyes meeting his. So they knew the same pain, then. They were on the same side of a terrible game and neither of them seemed to be winning it. Their pieces didn't match, but they were playing together. And then she hears what she feels like might be enough, or close enough. That he has been made aware of what's changed between them and his own part in it. She is still his little fish. He draws back, and it is then she realizes that she has it in her to miss the space he fills. It would be easy to hate anyone else, but Pteron is not just anyone. He's her best friend and her confidant and yes, her sometimes lover. And she cannot let that space stand empty. Maybe she is weak too. It does not stop her from closing the space between, and fitting her body against his. The water sloshes against their sides, and with a quiet wanting, she lets it rise over them in a thin dome over their heads. "I want to forget hurting. And I want you to forget your hurt." She smiled softly, earnest and aching. The nereid moved toward the horizon, and with her moves their spinning orb of salt water. "Come on. I've been promising you this since we met." She invited, nodding toward the open sea past the stony harbor of her cove. Her lips fell to the curve of his nose, her silent forgiveness. "Right now?" A trace of her reckless grin resurfaced. "Right now, I want you to trust me with everything you have. Let me show you my world." She kissed his cheek, hoping that for the day at least, they could put this behind them. If it was in her power to give him happiness, it would forever be beyond her to deny him. @[Pteron] |