[private] never had a chance

[naia]

it's a guarantee that he won't forget me.
my body little, my soul heavy.

“Why would I not mean it?” Naia answers, genuine confusion furrowing her brow. A hesitant smile lifts the corners of her lips, turning a typically serious face into a goofy one. Perhaps the two are both a bit socially inept - the nereid with her lack of personal interaction, and Brazen with her uncertainty. For a brief moment, the girl wishes she could read minds, wishes she could pluck her counterpart’s exact insecurities straight from her brain.

“I would never say something I do not mean,” she murmurs, pale eyes gentle on the bone guarding the roan woman’s face. Her voice is so soft that the ocean’s noise may have carried it away.

Naia redirects her touch to the bone around the other girl’s head. A smile so small it may not even be there curls the corners of her mouth. The blood that mingles with the smooth ivory is wildly beautiful, like spilled ink upon a museum's marble floor. The smell is metallic and strange in Naia’s nose, though she cannot say it is entirely unpleasant. Her muzzle dips back down and her brown eyes follow. A gentility she does not understand is present in her gaze.

“I didn’t grow these,” Naia redirects with a bitter look away. The ocean is just loud enough to keep her from boiling over with anger. “The scales, I mean,” she adds hastily, realizing her companion cannot, in fact, read her mind. “They’re nice underwater but they’re no dragon scales. I think there is much more beauty to be found in the harsh - like the way your blood sits upon your bone.”

Naia

@[Brazen]