[private] [mature] at me, the sea withdrew

[Oceane]

oceane

at me, the sea withdrew

---

When she starts telling him, she can't stop. Stories of her life in Nau-Aib rise of their own accord and slip from between her purple lips, and all the while she watches her King's mismatched eyes to see if she is sharing too much, or if she has lost his interest. To Castile's praise, he appears to recognize the weight of what she tells him and listens intently. When Oceane draws a picture of her own lineage ─ a Queen mother and peasant father (a father who had died at the King's hooves for her mother's indiscretion) ─ she brushes only minimally over the physical torment that the King and his guard had bestowed upon her.

She may have been granted the opalescent coat of a Court Scholar, due more to the technicality of her mother's title than anything else, but they certainly would not let her forget who her father was.

And she most certainly does not mention to Castile how they'd torn her two newborn sons from her, born two years apart but meeting the same awful fate. It's this that tortures her still, more than the memories of her own pain or the death of her father, and despite the pull she feels to be near and with the painted stallion who stands before her now, those words just won't come out.

He lifts her chin with his nose. The simple act of kindness fills her with gratitude and alights a fire in her belly, fueled by his touch. She laughs at his unexpected jest and feigns exasperation with a roll of her igneous amber eyes. "You never asked if I had my own secrets kept away," she whispers to him playfully as her lips release their tight, thin line and insinuate a smirk. Castile's deep, rumbling voice draws a shiver through her and as he apologizes, Oceane presses the length of her blue face against his, giving herself into the desire she feels and forsaking any worries associated with her past, his title, or his secret.

"I have," she says matter-of-factly, though her voice is still quiet, for his ears only ─ a quiet suggestion that he is the reason Beqanna has brought her more happiness than she could have imagined the day she had happened upon its soil. He has given her everything he had promised he would when he'd met her in the Field ─ a home full of intrigue, curiosities to pursue, a secret behind those mismatched eyes that just adds to the electricity she feels whenever he is near.

Castile severs their touch, only to move beside her and press his winged frame against hers. Oceane nearly melts into him at his crooned request and she closes her eyes to revel in the primal, greedy longing that coils in her loins.

I will keep the nightmares away.

She exhales slowly from flared nostrils and then inhales his pheromones deeply again. Instinctively, her long lavender tail flicks side to side with excited agitation. Coy and lust-driven, she nips at the muscle of his shoulder before whispering back, her voice low and breathy.

"Keep them away, and I will keep you warm."

---

@[Castile]
" "