[private] and I never saw you coming

[Altissima]

Her nerves do not abandon her, not while the steam helps to blur the world around them from view and not after they’ve proven his leg is in fine shape after all. Left on her own, these nerves would never leave her - but Tarian does not stray far. He stays with her in the hours that stretch afterwards, does not make an excuse to leave, and when they share teases and jokes it is not at her expense. Not in the cruel way that her fears had begun to whisper about as they told her she was no good at this and she should leave. And then soon she is laughing with him, she is realizing that he will not be leaving, and she continues to relax - coated with sweat as she is but she cannot find it in her to mind. She listens as he tells her stories about his youth and asks questions when she thinks of things - sharing smaller pieces of her past whenever she is reminded of something. She’s seen a lot but does not know how well they translate to stories - she’s never had someone to tell them to, someone who might be interested in hearing them. Her eyes have never been this particular shade of indigo - so deep, so close to violet as peace and happiness mix - when he closes the gap between them again and she sighs softly as his mouth moves across her skin. Altissima tilts her head up to give him better access to her throat and she wonders if he can feel the laugh his comment inspires. “I might be tempted to let you.” At this moment, she can’t imagine leaving his side. Not yet, not in a future near enough to contemplate. When she moves her blue-tinted muzzle across his silver skin, she bends the light so that he shimmers wherever she touches. It takes more concentration to narrow it to parts of his body instead of the whole and this distracts her from telling him exactly what she thinks at first - which is that she is exactly where she'd like to be already. And instead, as she tries to bend the light to catch on the soft feathers of his wings that she brushes against, she says with a smile “Show me everything. I'd like to see Loess from your eyes.”

image by yoricade

@Tarian