[private] i've never fallen from quite this high; Reia

[Pteron]

finger trips across my cheek----------------
----------------kiss me until i can't speak

Pteron arrives on the northern beach, the shadows of the coastal redwoods already growing shorter as noon approaches. This is the latest he has ever returned; he has always abided by his wife’s command of: ’be home by nightfall’. The dun stallion’s heart beats rapidly in his chest as his blue hooves land on rocky shore, his olive eyes flicking through the treeline in search of watching eyes. There is no one, and so Pteron allows the invisibility he holds around himself to fall away. The best place to land is not the best place to enter the rocky waters, and Pteron picks his way down the shoreline toward a shallower cove, where the waves have beaten the large granite boulders into slightly smaller granite boulders (and a few pockets of grey sand).

As the spring nights grew ever shorter, Pteron has become less and less likely to spend them in Taiga.

By mid-spring, he spends most nights away, and this past night had been no exception. What is unusual is the lateness of his return. The dun stallion has always done his best to arrive before Adarra wakes, to keep up the illusion for her of a happy home (even if it is anything but). He would be waiting for her near their resting place, bright-eyed and often wet from an early swim in the ocean (or so he always says). He is planning such a swim this morning, making a beeline for the accessible water.

Pteron steps around a shoulder height boulder and runs directly into his wife.

His broad chest bumps against her scaled one and Pteron draws away quickly, instinctively side-stepping to put space between them. Avoiding physical contact entirely is his preferred sort of interaction with Reia, having told her that he is uncomfortable with touching anyone. Pteron suspects that she does not believe him, and surely she will realize the truth as he draws back farther still from the golden mare. A quick swim in the ocean would have rid him of the smell of Ischia’s hibiscus and honeysuckle and the undeniable evidence that he’d spent the night in another woman’s company.

-- pteron --

@[Reia]