Beneath the ripple of the aurora, Leokadia follows Ciri back toward the blackened beach. That mysterious celestial event lingers over them, a living river across the heavens, and the beauty of it draws her gaze once more. It’s not a long trip to the cave, and when they arrive Ciri moves inside at a walk but without hesitation. It smells like her here, like Ciri. Leokadia’s nostrils flare as she extends her neck to cautiously inspect the enclosed space. It is neither a large cave nor particularly interesting but Lo has never spent the night beneath any shelter but trees. She steps back, uncertain for a moment. It’s not like her to back away from the unfamiliar, and snorting at herself she moves into the space, joining Ciri.
Once she does, the two of them stand facing one another making awkward adjustments to their wings. Amusement does not register on the cremello’s face in response to Ciri’s joke, she is looking around quietly at the granite walls that feel close but not uncomfortably so. It is not the walls that make her feel pressed, held, secured there. It’s a sensation that makes her chest ache, her stomach twisting, flipping strangely. A flush rises to her light skin, but it is dark and Ciri will not see it, perhaps she would feel it if she herself were not so warm beside the little mare. They meet each other’s eyes then, starlit silver to moonlight-pale. Leokadia’s reply to her friend’s hesitant question arrives on a plume of warm fog. “Yes. I… like it very much.”
Ciri’s stars hang over them in the cave, reddish fairy lights. Leokadia’s wingtips drop to the floor the brush of her own blanket of feathers a comfort as she wills herself to relax. Her heart races away. Is it supposed to? Is this what it is to have someone to care for? As a...friend?
“Ciri…” Breathes Leokadia. Tension coils throughout her lithe body, and she knows that it is something beyond that. A painful shot of anxiety spears her heart and buries itself in her belly. It has been a long time since she’s felt such honest, certain fear. It doesn’t stop her from stepping closer, their muzzles so close that she can smell the sweetness of Ciri’s breath. Leokadia cannot remember what she was going to say, there are a million things that she could fill the silence with but any of it might break whatever is twisting into being between them.
@Ciri