[private] leaving all my past and silhouettes up on the wall; svedka

[Pteron]

and since you’re the only one that matters,----------------
----------------tell me: who do i run to?

Though he has sworn off secrets, the memories of them linger at the edge of this moonlit encounter. This is not the first time Pteron has left a pregnant mate sleeping to consort with another, he finds himself thinking, not the first time he’s done more with the night than the simple patrol that he had promised. It had even been habit, once upon a time, when Pteron would spend his nights in the arms of a nereid and return to his wife and child with the dawn. He did not regret that then, and he does not regret this now.

Not when he means to tell Aegean of it, not when he is demonstrating self-control that he is certain even Aquaria would be proud of. She had accused him once of taking more than he needed, but in the moment he finds it hard to believe that she would not find herself needful beside Svedka. The overo confirms that he means to stay through the night, and though the friction from where they touch at hip and shoulder grows warmer with each step Pteron purposefully shortens, he does finally sidestep in the end to draw them farther apart.

“You are a distraction from my patrol,” The accusation is playful, but there is no hiding the hoarseness in his voice. Pteron reaches toward Svedka with the intent of further soften the teasing accusation, but draws away at the last moment, leaving only the warmth of his breath in the space between them. “Better not,” he says as much to himself as to his companion, and makes an effort to ease the magnetism with humor. “I suspect you might have a record of your own.”

With that, he looks toward the woods again, and turns one blue ear back toward Svedka when the other begins to speak again. He speaks of a mentality Pteron does not share, that of a wanderer, but when he mentions the call of family there appears a small smile of recognition on Pteron’s face. As they walk, the cool chill of the winter air slides alongside him, buffered but not halted entirely by the bulk of his feathered wings. He bites back the offer to share the warmth beneath them with Svedka as they move along, well aware of his limitations, but his self-imposed distancing does little to chill the implication Pteron sense behind the other’s wink before he asks after the dun’s own history.

Grateful for the distraction, he answers.

“This is the most recent home of many,” he admits, “Though I have always longed for one that is more permanent.” He’d tried to make Taiga that home, especially with Adarra’s arrival, but he had failed. He has another chance now, with Aegean and the child they will have in the spring. Pteron does not intend for this empty forest to be where his second child grows up. “Children deserve a home,” he says, and though the pronouncement at first seems out of place, his reasoning clarifies as he continues. “I was raised between the Brilliant Pampas and Loess, then split my time between Taiga and Loess, serving both lands at the behest of my parents. I have never been sure where I belong, but I know it is one place. And I want to find it before this child is born so they, too, know where they belong.”

Pteron sighs, feeling unexpectedly relieved by the admission of this.

Speaking of children also seems to have lessened the distraction from his patrol he feels, though he does still keep his gaze carefully ahead or on his side of the forest. “Do you have any children?” he asks Svedka, and when he meets the other’s eye there is humor dancing behind his own. “Or are you more the love ‘em and leave ‘em type?” Pteron is unaware of the irony in his question, much as he is unaware of the son that he had left behind n Ischia when he had promised never to return.

@[Svedka]

-- pteron --