maybe you were the ocean
When they left the meadow Wane had harboured a nagging instinct that they weren’t walking into sunsets together, that all that awaited them there on the horizon was an inevitable disaster. He had taken her home anyways, begrudgingly, lulled into a false sense of obedience by the gentle swing of her hips. The autumn wind had whispered promises against his ears, and though it had delivered, Wane was learning that those promises also came with burgeoning consequences.
At least the view, as he had hoped in the meadow, had been nice.
Because that’s where it had stopped being so pleasant.
Things had unravelled quickly once they’d stepped into Nerine. If he had been asked what he’d pictured, he would not have answered in the way that reality was quickly unfolding. While Wane had anticipated some general discomfort at living with Khuma he had not anticipated the magnitude of it; that here, in a land full of women, he had found himself with a rather venomous ball and chain - because Khuma, all raspy voices and cat-eyes at first chose to live as a snake more often than not (something he had not foreseen and did not entirely care for, either).
He didn’t get to admire the bend of her hips, or lip at the soft patch behind her ears. Cities were not being built upon their backs, and he didn’t get to admire her for the prize that she had been then, with the rain matting her hair down against her neck and her skin slick with water.
But he remembered the expectation in her eyes then, and without another option he’d only watched, mouth agape, as Khuma, heavily pregnant in what felt like only days, busied herself in each of the various caves along the granite cliff face scrutinizing what must have been a hundred before she found one suitable to her standards. The egg that followed afterwards was unexpected, but not entirely unwelcome given that Wane was just egotistical enough to find some thrill in the idea of the creation of another being that might resemble him. He had decided then, after a rather large sigh of defeat, that he would commit himself to ‘keeping her forever’.
Full of discarded bones, shells, and various assortments of other trinkets, the cave had begun to resemble more of a shrine, their egg carefully centred amidst the clutter. Wane is lingering now, awkwardly, at the cave’s entrance deciding if he is willing to risk making his appearance known. He had learned, and quickly, that if Khuma were in a particularly foul mood she was not above striking out at him. A compliment could sometimes sway her, and so he takes a hesitant step forwards and opens his mouth.
“You look…” he had intended to pay her a compliment, but his eyes fall prey to the bulges of her latest meals protruding here and there from her long, serpants body and he loses concentration immediately.
“Full.”
@[Khuma]