[open] Shadows for Skin [ANY]

[Obscene]

I can see through you, see your true colors
Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me

Aela’s snippy retort would have once made him smile, would have coaxed a sly and suggestive grin to his mouth as he pressed it to the golden velvet of her skin with the promise that she could explain better by showing him exactly how Wherewolf had come to be a father. Instead, he simply glances at her with annoyance and can think of nothing but death until she turns away. Once he would have given anything to hear her sigh in pleasure again, be it by his touch or causing chaos until she had brightened with satisfaction. It wasn’t until his chat with Skandar that he realized how foolish such a dream had been. That was what it had always been between them, a fantasy. It didn’t mean that he didn’t care about her, that he wouldn’t be by her side when and if she needed him. Aela had taught him much in many ways, had shown him things about himself that he had long denied. He owed her in that regard and despite his rather abrasive nature at times, he was loyal to a fault to those that had proven themselves worthy of it. Yet when he looks at her now, there is no pang of unrequited desire. There is no love lost. Not anymore.

Her tone is not lost on him (and his irritation was not reserved for her) but she no longer has his attention. It’s all directed on Cheri who seems to shift beneath his unwavering stare as the weight of Aela’s words fall on both of them. Months. A year. All he can do is stare at her as she deflects away from the missing time stolen from him, avoiding him by questioning their guide and turning her jaded eyes to her. He doesn’t give her the release she desires as he continues to glare. To let his penetrating scrutiny run along the curve of her hollowed cheeks as she sucks in breath. There is one glaringly obvious question that hangs between them but he keeps his mouth firmly shut. In this they at least will agree, a conversation better held when its just the two of them. But there would be a reckoning and with the building anger flaring in the pit of his stomach, it wasn’t likely to be pretty. It feels better than the numbness though, this looming storm of fury. Eases it back just a little. 

Obscene had always despised magic. It had been born of intense jealousy when he had realized how different he was compared to everyone else around him. Traitless, plain, a clean slate. His mother had told him of times before the Reckoning, back when she had once been a Queen. Magic had been a rarity in the Beqanna she had grown up in, a world where he would have flourished being exactly who he was from the start. That had changed though (even she had adapted with the wings that he can still vividly remember, black feathers tracing against his dark cheek) and now types like him, born without magic, were the anomalies of Beqanna. More than that, they were vulnerable. Weak. So he was driven to seek that which he detested and he had succeeded in spades. And yet even with the begrudging acceptance of the magic he held (the loathing to admit that at times he even enjoyed it), he had never truly trusted it. What exactly had Cheri done? Despite her rather frail appearance now, he had always known she was powerful. More powerful than most probably knew. What if she was the reason the South was gone? If Obsidio was dead because of her….

He rips viciously at another flower if only to bite back the heated remarks rising on his tongue and then starts to move again, stalking past the two of them in the direction Aela had initially been headed towards. Not trusting himself to be idle next to Cheri a second longer in case he said or did something he would later regret.

obscene

@Aela @Cheri
Someone's pouty