01-10-2020, 09:14 AM
----------------kiss me until i can't speak
But she is gentle, ever so gentle, and Pteron stifles the flinch before it truly surfaces. Aquaria does much the same with the emotion in her voice, the dun stallion hears, and he is grateful for the distraction that her son provides as she speaks. It is nothing he has not thought before, but to hear it from someone else is more of a comfort than he could have imagined. His mother does not speak of the source of her scars, but Pteron has pieced together the story of their origin. She would try to stand against Reia, Pteron knows, but he will not risk her – or his mother’s relationship with Castile. The dragon might be a friend, but he is Reia’s father and the importance of blood is stronger than most anything.
“I once thought dragons lived in isolated caves,” he muses aloud, “I wish that were true.” There is acceptance in his tenor voice, if reluctant. When Aquaria leans against him, Pteron lifts his wing without though, pulling her tighter against him as he rests his chin across the ridge of her mane. They’ve stood like this countless times, a wordless embrace that nevertheless reassures him. The world is still out there – he cannot change that – but the purple eyed nereid is here and on his side. For now, he tells himself that it is enough. Some part of him knows even this nearness will endanger her, that Reia will find the salt-and-sun scent of the grey mare and use it as an excuse to pick a fight. Aquaria has been warned now though, the selfish part of him thinks, and she is capable of protecting herself.
She even says as much, and Pteron manages to stifle a chuckle at the unveiled threat about his wife having another thing coming. He would not let the two of them come to blows. Aquaria is right that he is too noble for that, but the idea of it is intriguing. Fire and water, he thinks; probably an even match, all things considered. He cannot stomach the thought of either mare being harmed though – Aquaria for her own sake though Reia’s only for their daughter.
“I’ve thought of leaving a thousand time,” he admits. “But I accepted responsibility in Taiga, and she will be there waiting no matter how long I took to return.” Because he would return; he cannot leave behind responsibility. It is not who he is, who he was raised to be. “The only way out is for her to leave me on her own, and I can’t imagine her doing that.” Once his wife has her claws dug in, she does not retract them for any amount of pleading. She takes her satisfaction – others be damned, and Pteron is determined that the others be limited only to him.
“I don’t think there’s anything I can do that could make that happen.” There’s nothing that he would do anyway. If he cared less for others, he’d take a dozen lovers to flaunt in her face, to shame her back to Loess. But that would end poorly for everyone but Reia, and Pteron cannot bear to be the source of that. He’d once – briefly – considered finding a foundling and claiming it to be his natural born son, supplanting Adarra in inheritance. But that would hurt his daughter as much as Reia, and he’s still not sure that his wife wouldn’t find some way to surreptitiously murder a child.
-- pteron --
@[Aquaria]