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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura


    [mature]  i've never fallen from quite this high; Aquaria
    #11
    finger trips across my cheek----------------
    ----------------kiss me until i can't speak

    Aquaria doesn’t pull away. The nervous jackhammer of his pulse does not slow, but it feels softer somehow – less desperate, less fearful. Instead, she leans back against him, her scales cool in the warm air, and a sigh of relief passes unencumbered between his lips. He looks up when she speaks, and her earnest smile summons a matching one of his own. He wants to reach out and kiss it, to trace the smooth line of her cheek, but he is unwilling to upset this delicate balance that they might finally have restored. He watches her instead, so enthralled that for a moment he does not even notice the water that arches over them. Only when his gaze slips over her shoulder does the glittering catch his eye.

    Pteron’s ears flick forward sharply at her mention of a promise, and even when it turns out to not be the promise from the woods, his delight is nearly equal. The soft kiss on his nose keeps the memory of that other promise alive, though it is quickly buried in the back of his mind at the sight of her reckless smile. Now that is his Aquaria, as unpredictable and as warm as the sea.

    “Everything I have,” he repeats, glancing up again at the seawater that encloses them. It feels secret, private, and the shimmer of sunlight through the water highlights the curves in a most distracting way. It feels crude, cruel even, to look at her that way though, and so he returns his olive gaze to her violet eyes. His breath catches again, but he takes another breath of the captured air. It tastes like the sea and the sun and himself and Aquaria, and he wonders how long it will be until he succumbs, until he does something that will ruin them irreparably.

    “Show me,” he says, and allows himself one, just one, touch of his mouth to the curve of her neck as he turns to stand beside her. His water-logged wings are a barrier between them when he stands like this, Pteron finds, and this way they can face her world together…whatever that might mean. Magic, he is sure, the kind that she spins as easily as breathing. He does not understand how, but he had meant what he had said about trust, and waits without fear for whatever comes next.

    @[Aquaria]

    -- pteron --

    Reply
    #12
    She held them both in a sphere of salt water, and let time crystallize around them. He was here, and so perfect in the filtered light. What else could she ask? When all the stones fell, when all else was accounted for, he was here with her. That's what mattered. 

    Besides, she found herself thinking. If he loved someone else, even if it wasn't a love returned, why would he let himself be drawn into these interludes with her? Some dangerous rationalization that let her believe that he wouldn't jeopardize love just to be with her. That deep down, there must be more to what he felt if it would let him touch her the way he did. 

    With everything he has, that is what she had waited to hear. He trusts her, and it pulls at her heart with bittersweet strength. Would she have said the same if he had asked her? 

    Her skin shivered when he kissed her, the gentle touch a spark to flame she hadn't known had existed until him. How dreadful was this. How hateful that she could fall so easily under his spell and leave regret for the next day. 

    This was not what good girls did. This was not how sweet, innocent daughters behaved, and she felt that perhaps there was a thread of not so sweet inside her. That little flame that burned so warmly for him and was ready to ignore all reason when he was concerned. 

    "Stay close," she whispered, voice a little distorted by their aqueous bubble. Then she walked, straight into the water, and the bubble kept its shape around them. As the sea enclosed them it became as clear as glass, the wet sand that might never have touched the air exposed beneath their feet. Bits of seaweed and algae drifted past their bubble, fine grained sand whirled where the pocket of air pushed past. 

    The damp bulk of his wings still radiated warmth where the sun had touched them. He was a distracting, impossible to ignore presence when the quarters were this tight. Her eyes drifted between the sea before them and the incongruous sky creature beside her. 

    This was her home, her real home. Where the scales and the fins made sense. Her smile grew with every step, eyes shining as the weight of the sea increased above their heads. This was where the trust came in. The gentle waves pushed and prodded at the intruding air, curious about the strange phenomenon the sea daughter was making. Air filtered in from the water much like it did through her gills when she swam, salty and cool. 

    Along the bottom of the waves they went, until the stony ridge that protected the isle came into view. Vivid color emerged as they neared, purples and oranges, mossy greens and warm reds. It was a riot of life with tiny fishes darting in and out of the natural caves. This was her garden. 

    "This is where I go when the surface is too much for me." She murmured, lips parted in blissful wonder. The ocean never ceased to amaze her, to salve whatever wounds life had inflicted. None so far had been quite as painful as the ones she'd felt today. Perhaps in a twisted way it made sense that she would try to heal with the one who hurt alongside her. 

    She leaned against his shoulder, damp feathers tickling her side. The light danced on the rainbow of scales, a tiny hermit crab skittered in and across their bubble, hardly seeming to notice anything had changed. "What do you think?" She asked, almost hesitant. Even more than the cove they'd just come from, this was her secret place. The heart of her. And she was sharing it with him. 

    She fit against him so well, it only seemed right to lay her own kiss to his neck. An answer to the one he'd given her. Her lips brushed the white hair, drank in the warmth of him. She wanted to taste him again. To remember the clean pine and wind and sweat of him. Her lips parted to let her teeth scrape gentle behind his ear, focusing just enough to keep their bubble strong. The rest of her wanted to fill with him, here where no one but the fish could see them. 

    @[Pteron]
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    #13
    finger trips across my cheek----------------
    ----------------kiss me until i can't speak

    Part of Pteron’s heart lies shattered on the slopes of Hyaline, but the rest still beats in his chest in Ischia, and it beats all the more rapidly as Aquaria skin shivers beneath his touch. She makes it so easy to forget, even without trying, and he lets himself sink – for just a moment – farther into the fantasy that she so easily creates. She loves him, Pteron thinks, and to love her back would be far from a hardship. A life spent here in paradise, sand in his hair and laughter in his chest, waking up each morning to her pretty face. He could bury that broken part of him and let the waves wash him clean.

    He could so easily live that life, and without a single regret.

    Except the one regret, he thinks. That one hard knot in his chest that whispers that Aquaria deserves better. She deserves more than a man to whom she is a consolation prize (he thinks this, scathingly, even though he mostly knows it is not true). When she pulls away, he keeps that knot close, a second shield between them, a reminder that though her scent is thicker and sweeter than the hibiscus they leave behind, that she deserves better.

    And then it becomes easier, for he has never before seen anything like this. It is real, gloriously so, and his curious nose confirms that when it comes away drenched in seawater after prodding too closely at the wall. He laughs at himself – and at the way the orange fish had darted away – and though the sound fades his smile never does. There is far more color here below the sea than he might ever have imagined. Fish flit through the air like bids through the sky, an entire world that he could never have even dreamed. It is beautiful, and it is the perfect place for Aquaria.

    “I don’t know how you ever come to the surface,” Pteron says, his world bright with wonder. His olive gaze turns upward, to where the sunlight streams down through the shimmering water. Too bright, he finds, closing his eyes for a moment to readjust his eyes. He does not want to miss a moment, and there is still a glow to the edges of his vision when he opens his eyes again to find Aquaria looking back at him. She looks like an angel, he thinks, an angel of the sea. Her hesitant question elicits an immediate answer, even though he does not take his eyes from her to answer.

    “It’s incredible. More than I ever even tho…” The words trail off as she nestles against him, and he forces himself to remember. He’s just promised, he thinks, just apologized; what would she think of him if he broke his word so soon? She deserves better, and he forces the words out as though they might help. “It’s better than I could have…”

    They cut off abruptly as her teeth scrape against the tender skin beneath his ear, and he takes in a single shuddering breath before speaking again. “Aquaria,” he says, low and soft and pleading. “Please. I can’t. I ca-” And then he does, because she is soft and tastes so sweet and the struggle to not kiss the delicate skin where her pulse beats is a battle that he doesn’t really want to fight. 

    “Do you want this?” Pteron asks between kisses, each placed tenderly along the base of the shimmering fin that makes up her mane. “Because I do. God help me, I want this. I want you.”

    @[Aquaria]

    -- pteron --

    Reply
    #14
    She needn't have worried about what he would think. The wonder in his eyes as the sea reveals her beauty is all the answer she needed, as much truth in his expression as she would ever hear from his lips. That smile was exactly what she'd been looking for. The way his face lit up like the sun, as beautiful as any wonder she could show him. 

    How she came to leave it though, that was easy enough to answer. A shrug rippled down her, her smile wistful as she answered. "I was lonely. All the fish in the sea and no one to talk to." She'd talked to them, off course, called them her friends. But the fish and the dolphins and the crustaceans never spoke back. They appreciated her care taking, her guardianship of the reef and its inhabitants. But no one asked about her day, or what was on her mind. It was something she missed more as she'd grown up. It was the kind of care she'd found in Pteron. 

    For a moment he looked upwards, eyes dazzled by the sunlight shining down on them. He was too beautiful, too wonderful, as remarkable as any creature that lived here. There was a magic to him, and she knew she was lucky to have him even for these brief moments. She was helpless to reject the one who had such a hold on her heart. May the sea save her, for she could not deny herself the joy of touching him. Of kissing him. Of drawing those breathy gasps from his lips as he had drawn them from her in the forest. 

    "Shhh. I want this. And I want you, every piece you're willing to give me. If I can't have your heart, your love," she paused, looking away to catch her breath. "I will satisfy myself with the time and affection I'm given." She absorbed his kisses, feeling tears prick the corners of her eyes again and willed them away. Surely, this was better than nothing. 

    With a gentle reach of her powers, the nereid summoned a tendril of water to come into their haven. She wound it up the strong pillars of his hind legs, cords of water no thicker than vines that curled and explored the delicate curves of his thighs and higher. Her mouth explored him, from his lips to the smooth skin of his cheeks, the elegant curve of his jaw. The water was a cool counterpoint to the warmth of her breath on his skin. 

    Blood rushed beneath her skin in a torrent of want, her body pushing instantly to be ever nearer to his. The water she commanded clutched tight at his form, coaxing his own passion as well as she could. Her face pressed close against his shoulder, feathers stroking her cheek. "Thank you, my friend, for trusting me." She whispered, laying another kiss where his neck and shoulder met. 

    @[Pteron]
    Reply
    #15
    finger trips across my cheek----------------
    ----------------kiss me until i can't speak

    It was lonely, she explains, and the idea sounds foreign. There is so very much to see down here, so very much to explore. How could there even be time to be lonely when every ridge on the sea floor might hide an unseen treasure like these reef that spreads around them? It is not that he doubts her – he could never – but each glance shows him something he has not even imagined before. There, at his feet, a little bug with a seashell on it’s back. No, not a bug, he finds, but a tiny crab that disappears into the shell as he taps it gingerly with his hoof. Pteron snorts, amused, and then there is suddenly nothing funny at all in the way her breath sends the damp strands of his mane aflutter.

    She hushes his protests, and picks apart the knot of reservation that he means to keep between them with every soft word. She unravels the threads, and with them the control that Pteron has. When she looks away at the mention of his love, he pulls her back, his nose beneath hers, to press a hard kiss to her mouth. His eyes meet hers, cautious despite the racing of his heart, but Aquaria’s words sound sure, and there is little enough reservation in him to question them. So instead he falls back to kissing her, to tracing the pattern of scales along her jaw and chin and throat, to nipping gently at the places on her withers that he had found so delicious from another angle. He thinks of biting harder, to see if she might gasp in the way that had so thrilled him, and then he is the one with the breath forced out of him.

    He had not noticed the water, as temperate as the heat of his own skin. “Not a little fish,” he breathes against the slope of her withers, the words exhaled quickly, before a low groan accompanies a bruising bite to her side, “A witch. A seawitch.” He buries another moan in her side, and gasps My seawitch.” There must be nothing beyond her reach, he realizes, and that she has brought him here, shown him this… Pteron’s teeth break her skin when he spills himself, but he kisses the broken scales with utmost tenderness right after, and murmurs her name between each one, an whispered apology until he has control of himself again.

    “I am a little sad we are beneath the sea,” Pteron says with a smile against her ear as he pivots his hind legs, as he draws her beneath him and kisses the bloody mark (the claiming mark, some primal part of him shout) on her shoulder before pulling her back with his forelegs so she might feel his readiness. “Because I intend to satisfy he uses her own word, what she has said, as he smiles against her neck and buries himself in a warmth far more glorious than the sea, “To satisfy you until all of Ischia knows my name.”

    @[Aquaria]

    -- pteron --



    Okay we are fading to black
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    #16
    Her little trick had worked, and taken him by surprise. A devilish smile painted her lips when the moan she'd been fishing for vibrated from his throat and against her. His teeth had been scraping and teasing the fine scales of her withers, almost massaging as he went, some nips hard enough to bruise. She gasped at these, but the pain did nothing but heighten what other sensations she was feeling. The water answered her suggesting pulls until she feared she'd gone too far. 

    Blunt teeth sank into the tender skin, made her cry out in pain and shock, only for that cry to dwindle into a moan of her own as he soothed the pain away into a dull ache. His seawitch, he'd called her. And now, whether he'd meant to or not, the wound was there to prove it. The pale arc of her neck twisted back to see him, her blood a dark smudge on his blue lips as he kissed at the mark he'd made, exhaling her like a prayer. 

    The pain was easy to forget, when in the next moment he resumed their activities. His weight felt right and good she bore it, feeling as close to the stallion holding her as she had ever felt to anyone. A panting cry was caught by the sphere she held together with suddenly shaking focus, and she realized that the reason he claimed to be disappointed by their location was precisely why she had chosen it. 

    "Pteron!" She cried out as he took control, head thrown back to feel him. The pulse of him and the pulse of the sea rocked inside the sea mare, until her own satisfaction was reached. "Yours, I will be yours for eternity, Pteron." She whispered, sweat stinging the drying mark he had left. The scales would never grow in the same there, she knew. Just as she would never be the same for knowing him. 

    @[Pteron] "fade to black"
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