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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura


    [private]  i've never fallen from quite this high; Aquaria
    #11
    aquaria
    - THE TIDE IS HIGH, IT'S SINK OR SWIM -


    It felt wonderful to be pressed up against the solid form that was Pteron. He always seemed so much warmer than she was, and she wondered if it had something to do with the difference between scales and hair. She leaned into the embrace comfortably, trying to ignore the pressing knowledge that all of this was borrowed time. 

    The sensation of his lips against the membrane of her fins was a strange one, the pressure of his mouth a dull pressure. He'd always been fascinated by her usual crest; most horses were. Few touched her the way he did though, with such casual interest. As if she were not so very strange as a fish out of water. The winged stallion had grown used to her looks, it seemed. 

    The press of his kiss to her jawline was a heady joy that was only vaguely interrupted by his words. She wanted to keep pretending that this was their reality, yet he kept bringing things back around to the life waiting for him beyond her. He mingled it with praise, and yet-- "Adarra?" She asked, catching on the name, the context. An unsettled frown pulled at her mouth. She had no business feeling jealous. No reason to feel it squeeze her heart with unforgiving aggression as she realized what he was saying. 

    He'd arrived to find her with a child. That he might have one of his own should only be fair, and yet it didn't feel that way. She had found Halcyon. There had been no stallion present when she had taken on his upbringing, or involved in any way with her relationship to the cub. Somehow, she figured that her situation was not a mirror of Pteron's. If he had a child, it would be his. Her reservoir of pity for his situation began to wither as her mind raced ahead with that fact. A child. A wife. As much as he decried the mare, well, he must feel closer to her than he was letting on to her to give her foal. That made his next sentence much more vexing. 

    Her expression turned stormy as he turned from her to observe the tigerling wrestling his catch ashore. The young cat had been working hard at the skill of fishing ever since he'd grown too big for her meager supply of milk and the supplemental coconut water to keep him satisfied. She had helped at first, by herding bass and herring into the shallows of their bay. By now, he had grown as a fisherman, and she felt the glow of pride at his accomplishments. 

    This morning, however, that pride was offset by her newfound irritation at the winged stallion. She'd never felt that emotion in conjunction with him before, though perhaps it was overdue. His reaction to her son's triumph laid her ears across her skull. "Do those look like teeth made for seaweed, or grass for that matter? No. He is a predator, and he can't change that anymore that a shark or an orca can. And I would never ask him to." Her voice came out clipped and rigid. "Grow up, Pteron. Halcyon is a predator, but he knows not to cause unneeded suffering and not to take more than he needs. Maybe he could teach you a thing or two." The look she gave him was hard, her meaning clear. 

    Mouth tight, she strode over to the russet cub tucking into his meal, nuzzling his neck as she tried to ease the harsh emotion balling up in her chest. Hal was teaching her what love felt like. With a swell of sorrow, she was realizing that it was very different from what was between her and Pteron.

    - MY ONLY RIVAL IS WITHIN -


    @[Pteron]
    Reply
    #12
    finger trips across my cheek----------------
    ----------------kiss me until i can't speak

    “I wouldn’t want to watch a shark eat its breakfast either.” Pteron replies. “And you don’t know anything about my needs Aquaria,” the stallion growls under his breath, keeping both the sound and the emotion in it from Halcyon as best he can. It is a wasted effort. The tiger cub is far too engrossed in his meal to pay either of the adutls any mind. Mama doesn’t look frightened, and Halcyon knows that she can take care of herself. He hears her mention sharks and orcas, and wonders if perhaps she is telling the stranger how she is much more dangerous than any of them. He forgets this as he tears and swallows, lost in the salmon.

    Meanwhile, Pteron has stepped away from Aquaria... He does not settle for the little distance that she puts between them by striding toward her child, instead choosing to widen it further by walking forward himself. He stops only at the river’s edge, his hooves clicking on the stones. She wants to blame him for unnecessary suffering? For taking more than he needs? Pteron scoffs, and kicks a pebble with one front hoof. It flies a disappointingly short distance and lands in the shallow water with a soft plunk. Pteron stifles a snort, a rather impressive show of restraint for the emotions that course through him.

    He shouldn’t have come here.

    Pteron had known that the moment he’d landed, and yet he’d continued anyway. There was never chance that this trip to Ischia would end well, and that is because it will invariably end. He will either leave and bring dragonfire to the island when his wife finds him, or stay and be hunted down by dragonfire on the island when his wife discovers he is missing. Coming here had been a mistake, and Pteron can’t see any consequence that ends with less than flame and destruction. He’d been selfish, had wanted to forget reality for just a little while. Ischia has always let him do that; the tropical island and Aquaria have always melted his worries away.

    The glance over his shoulder, back at where Halcyon is worrying the silver tail (the only part of the fish he hasn’t consumed) and rolling around on the beach.

    There is no logic to the envy he feels, but such is the way of emotion. Jealously does not need logic to sprout, or to grow in the tobiano stallion at the thought of Halcyon’s father. Aquaria is his. As soon as Pteron recognizes the thought mentally pales. He sounds like Reia, he realizes, primal and animalistic. He’s better than that. He’s made a mistake in coming here, but that does not mean he should make it worse.

    He crosses the swath of riverbank between them, stepping carefully over the stones until he stands on the damp jungle soil once more.

    “I’m sorry,” he says, an apology in his somber tone of voice. “You’re right.”

    “You were right about everything,” Pteron adds, “from the very beginning. I shouldn’t have led you on. I’m sorry about everything.” He wants to reach out again, but knows better. He is weak, and one touch would not be enough. Pteron is so desperate to feel happiness (even temporary happiness) that he is already stretched to his limits. The emotion that he reproduces and reinforces in his own mind is held firmly, but he knows it will spill out if he loses even the slightest focus. “I’ll go, if you want me to.”

    -- pteron --



    @[Aquaria]
    Reply
    #13
    aquaria
    - THE TIDE IS HIGH, IT'S SINK OR SWIM -

    His anger sparked at the volatile emotion being stirred in her own breast. She felt a monsoon building in her head, every feeling withdrawing from her face, the tidal wave incoming. "You're right, I don't. It's not my job to keep tabs on your needs, Pteron. I'm not your wife." Her voice had grown steadily louder as the words flowed off her tongue, the final sentence a snapping of wind.

    She let him step away, needing the space as much as he did. To collect herself and try for some composure. The smell of fish and warm fur wafted against her, scents that had been so ingrained in her life the last few moons. Her child was fed, the only important factor to be considered, what Pteron thought of his diet was irrelevant. 

    Maybe it was grossly optimistic, but she took a mouthful of grass anyway. It wouldn't settle her stomach, as much as she wished it would. Stress eating. She was stress eating, and she was pretty sure it was Pteron's fault. A quiet snort reached her ears, and she answered it with one of her own. 

    He shouldn't have come here. 

    Not if he wasn't prepared to face what was waiting for him. Had he really expected her to put everything on hold for him? That she would be sealed away in time, ready to pick things up right where they had left off as soon as he arrived on her doorstep? That wasn't how it worked, and she felt a thorn of incredulity that he would think that way. It's heartbreaking, the way the simple beauty of their friendship had gotten so twisted around. 

    She hated Reia, a mare she'd never met. Because she was taking for granted the treasure she had in Pteron. And a miserable little piece of her hated Pteron, for loving her only when it was convenient for him. 

    She wasn't sure what would happen when she heard him cross back to her. Her crest fell flat against her neck in anticipation, head rising as the mouthful of grass was hastily swallowed. Her eyes widened in surprise when instead of more growling, an apology feel from the stallion's mouth. He was as taut as tangled seaweed, and she could see regret in his eyes. 

    There was a fragile moment after he spoke. It was the same apology he'd offered her months ago, when she had taken him beneath the sea. She wasn't certain he had meant it then, and even less sure he meant it now. He should go. He should. She almost said as much, but what came out was different. 

    "I don't want you to go." 

    A harsh breath rushed from her lips, an exhale that she hadn't realized she'd been holding back. "I don't want you to go, but I can't... I can't have you looking at me like I've betrayed you somehow. And you can't look at Hal like he's somehow involved." She had never once thought that she would be in the position of the "other woman", yet here they were. His wife might be violent, but he claimed her still. So she could only be his friend. Nothing more. If she told herself that often enough, it would be true.

    - MY ONLY RIVAL IS WITHIN -


    @[Pteron]
    Reply
    #14
    finger trips across my cheek----------------
    ----------------kiss me until i can't speak

    Pteron means each word of his apologies, but that does not change the constant struggle to keep those promises he makes. He’d vowed to be loyal to Reia, and he knows even being on this island is a violation of that trust. But he is happier here than he has ever been with his spouse, and surely that must mean something? Here he doesn’t have to constantly summon happiness to keep himself from falling into the darkness. Here there is brightness and sunshine and joy.

    His gaze flicks to Halcyon, now half-asleep in the warm sun.

    The boy was born the same spring as Adarra, and he’s clearly not reliant on his mother for food anymore. He’s seen his daughter grazing; she too is old enough to be independent. Independent enough that he wouldn’t need to worry about feeding her at least, Adarra is still far from an adult and certainly needs supervision.

    “I’m jealous,” he admits to her. “I know I don’t have any right to be, but that doesn’t change what I feel.” The thought of someone else touching Aquaria is less painful than the image of her accepting it. The corners of her amethyst eyes crinkle in his favorite way when she greets him after time away, and that she might look exactly that way at someone else causes a cold curl in his belly. The boy in Hyaline feels impossibly far away, and Pteron has closed away the half of his heart that has been cold since their meeting in Taiga. No amount of artificial happiness can lighten that weight, and so he chooses simply not to look at it. He is weak in so many ways.

    Once more he looks back at the boy, now belly-up and fast asleep. He is the very image of contentment, and Pteron cannot help but smile. Adarra would like Halcyon, he thinks to himself, the two seem rather alike. He can bring her here too, he knows. They could both come, leave Taiga and Reia behind and make a life here in this tropical paradise. It’s a fantasy, Pteron knows. So to the already impossible image he adds Aegean joining them.

    The speed with which the picture of Aegean playing in the bioluminescent waves with Aquaria changes to something sensual should have been a clue. Taiga’s trees don’t change with the seasons, and he’d left the woods on a day warm enough to be summer. It certainly doesn’t feel like Fall here in Ischia. Pteron shakes away the fantasy. There is no use dwelling on things that cannot be. The violence of that head shake bumps his muzzle briefly against Aquaria’s. He pulls away as quickly as if her skin were fire. But it was not. It had been cool and smooth, her aquatic scales reminiscent of the mother-of-pearl she’d shown him inside a shell beneath the sea. The memory of that entire encounter returns with a rush of heat, and Pteron attempts to take a step away.

    He fails, as he often does.

    “I’ve put you in danger by coming here,” Pteron reminds her. Perhaps that will make her step away, he thinks. Perhaps she’ll put the space between them that he is somehow unable to. “And I won’t ever do it again.”

    He means this just as much as he’d meant his vows to Reia, even if he does not let himself think of the comparison.

    “You deserve so much better than I can give you.” It is not the first time Pteron thought this, and this is not the first kiss he’s tentatively placed on the soft edge of her mouth. “Tell me to stop coming back, and I will.” Tell me to stop, he says, laying the decision squarely at her hooves. He has managed to elicit her temper once already; surely this will be enough for her to lash out and tell him that she hadn’t meant what she says, that she really does want him to leave.

    He tries to memorize the salt taste of her in case this is his last chance. Once more he fails to pull away, though he does fight away the urge to pull her closer. The shift from friends to something more had been as easy for Pteron as breathing. Aquaria is everything he has ever wanted in a companion and a lover. Pteron has closed away his love for Aegean, and in its absence there is room for something else. “Or tell me to stay,” he breathes against her pale cheek, “And I will do my best to deserve you.” His voice quivers, just for a moment, but he catches it and adds: “Even if it means defying a dragon.”

    -- pteron --



    @[Aquaria]
    Reply
    #15
    aquaria
    - THE TIDE IS HIGH, IT'S SINK OR SWIM -

    She could watch the thoughts pan across his face with startling ease. All the years they had known each other, and his expressions were nearly as familiar to her as her own. That there was something warm in his eyes when they rested on the tawny cub now sleeping off his meal surprised her though. Perhaps it was thoughts of his own child. Adarra, hadn't he named? 

    A twist of guilt clenched her gut. They had their own children now, and not by each other. When they had talked of love before, it had been an abstract thing to the seamare. Something intangible, that she had been so certain she would know as it touched her. Something she had perhaps unfairly tried to push on the stallion now taking in the scene. 

    Her mouth quirked wryly at his admission, the sentence doing little to mollify the ache that had been building in her chest since he had landed. "Don't tell me you've gotten so insecure that a baby can make you jealous." She tutted lightly, almost smiling. Then it faded again, replaced by a more serious look that softened only when she glanced back to Halcyon. He'd been dangling on the hook long enough. "Really, there's no point in envy, Pteron. He's mine because I found him; on the beach as a newborn. The best of the gifts the sea has given me." A smile did find her then, soft as spring rain. 

    Still, the envy that had colored his voice dogged at her. Had it not been for Hal, she very well may have taken on a new lover, and what then? What would be have to say if the child were not some founding, but the result of someone choosing her above all others. Would she miss the winged boy? Would the scent of him still draw at the most basic of her instincts, and make her weak at knees and heart? She may never know. It wasn't the world they were living in. 

    He's put her in danger. That itself should have been enough for her to cast him out. Who was to say that Hal was not also now in danger, that her entire home was not now at risk because of one stallion's inability to stay away. That should have been the first of her thoughts. Oh, but he is standing so near, and for all that she had been so busy with her impromptu motherhood, there was a piece of her that missed the touch of one who wanted nothing but to touch her. 

    She sighed at his kiss, the feathery light trace that had been her undoing before. Love had made a fool of her before, this would not be the first time. Against the voice that she knew deep down was sense, she pushed and yearned and gave way. "Stay," a whisper, a supplication. A line of concern creased her brow, then. Not all reason was lost, after all. "But only for a few days." The words pushed past her lips as though they'd been spoken by a stranger, someone with better control than the lovelorn mermaid. 

    The warmth of his skin, of his breath on hers, it faded as she stepped back. The space they both truly needed opened between them. "I will not be the reason a territory is left leaderless. Or a child fatherless. I will not carry that weight for you. Face your dragon, you'll all be happier if you do. But don't just pretend none of it exists." When had all their conversations become so difficult? Once they had been utterly carefree, two scraps of life set loose on the world. She missed those days dearly, and yet found that she would not return to them. Not now. 

    There was another piece that hung from her, the weight of which had colored every meeting since its awareness. The wine-dark eyed nereid searched his face, looking for some sign or signal that would lay truth bare. Something that would mean she didn't have ask after all. She wished that her gifts included a way to pluck the words from his mind unspoken. A silly wish, for a silly girl. She was not his first choice. Nor even his second, if he was married already. All that remained was the question. Why me? A hard swallow, but she kept the heady green of his eyes as long he would let her. Why not the one you love? Instead, she smiled wanly, and nodded back up the path. "Come on then. He'll nap a while. Let's talk of happier things." She was an excellent pretender. 

    - MY ONLY RIVAL IS WITHIN -


    @[Pteron]
    Reply
    #16
    finger trips across my cheek----------------
    ----------------kiss me until i can't speak

    A foundling, she says. The relief is as palpable as the jealously that he has no right to. The possessive streak that Pteron has so recently discovered hums contentedly at this announcement, this discovery that Aquaria had not chosen someone other than the dun stallion. But she is no more his than she is no one’s, and he finds that the earlier frustration has not been entirely diminished by the realization that Halcyon is an orphan she had found. There is no unknown contender for the nereid mare’s heart, no barrier between what they had once had except for the vow he has made to his wife.

    He follows her down the jungle path.

    They pass a stand of yellow hibiscus, and Pteron’s olive eyes flick to the pink center of the flowers, thinking that they are nearly the shade of Aquaria’s seastar. What if he did find someone else to lead Ischia? What if he brought Adarra here, and she and Halcyon become fast friends? Pteron is thinking of the fun the two children could have, but when his gaze meets Aquaria’s, the dun stallion’s train of thought shifts. A flicking blue ear confirms that the colt they’d left drowsing in the sun has not followed them. What if he had a reason to return to Ischia? A responsibility greater than a leading a territory?

    He’s painted himself a picture of life in paradise: eternal sunshine, their children content, his wife and worries left far behind and the start of a new life with Aquaria at its center. And she only wants a few days. Pteron suspects that the woman in front of him thinks his dragon less than formidable. Perhaps she has not met a dragon, he thinks. Maybe she does not understand that Pteron will have to ruin his wife’s wings to keep her from flying after him, will have to shatter her legs to keep her from pursuit. Perhaps she simply does not understand what he is offering.

    Another tactic then. He’s not sure what inspires him, but he is sure that the Aquaria walking along slightly ahead of him is somehow always more beautiful than he remembers her. The nereid steals his breath whenever he sees her, and this time is no exception. Somehow, his heart is pounding faster than their pace calls for, and he finds himself reaching out to where she ambles beside. He traces one sinuous line from the point of her hip to her neck, and the warmth of her skin travels through his and sets his veins alight. The feel of her pebbled scales against his mouth and cheek are familiar, and he suddenly remembers the feel of them beneath him.

    Is this some water-witch trick, he wonders; does she spin his desire as easily as she sculpts the waves?

    His long stride allowing him to overtake her and then turn his body to block her path with it. Face to face, Pteron meets her gaze, searching for something in them to match what he is feeling.

    “A few days” he parrots her words, his mouth so near her own that he can taste the sharp tang of the seawater dried along her lips with each word. There is nothing in the world but the two of them, Pteron thinks; nothing else that really matters. Pteron leans closer still, so that every word is a kiss. “You feel this too.” It’s not really a question, but only because he is sure she must. The way that she feels like the sunshine and snow and all his favorite things, the way each part of himself is somehow a magnet to every part of her?

    -- pteron --



    @[Aquaria]
    Reply
    #17
    aquaria
    - THE TIDE IS HIGH, IT'S SINK OR SWIM -

    It was the same game they had always played, since the very beginning. That when they were together, it was a distillation of forever. A whole lifetime of love and affection concentrated into the work of hours. She had come to expect nothing more of him. 

    The leaf-strewn path they followed was the same as the one they had come by, as familiar to her feet as the sands of her cove. She could have walked it blind if she'd needed to.  There was no need to focus on where she put her feet, and that left her mind free to wander to the greater picture of where they stood. 

    The heat of him, always so much warmer than her own body ran, kept her keenly aware of his presence at her side. In these captured hours, she got what she wanted. She could be selfish, and pretend that this was simply them, and there were no dragons or other lovers hanging just out of sight. When his lips ran their path along the length of her, as delicately as raindrops rolling off her scales, she could tremble at the feelings that stirred within. 

    He was not the only locking away pieces of himself to survive. The difference was, that it wasn't another lover she pushed away to the back of her mind. It was the concept of tomorrow. The thought that anything existed beyond the moment they were currently living in. She could sigh and lean into his touch because she knew better than to wish it would last forever. It had taken years, but finally, she had gotten wise enough to take what she was given and to ask for no more. 

    When his body broke away from their steady progress forward, and halted to corral her against him, she blinked in surprise. The warm push of his breath against her lips defined how very near each other they stood, how very much space he took up when he wanted to. He would go back. He always did. A slow nod of her gleaming head, eyes locked upon the deepest greens of his own as she did. 

    "Always," and it was true. She would always want him. The shining stallion who had so very easily taken her heart, added to the collection he kept to himself. She didn't know if he would ever give it back, or if she even wanted him to. Was it not worth it, these small shining moments they shared? They lingered in her mind long after he left, bright stars in the heavens of her mind. 

    He was the fleeting constant of her days, and she bowed the fin crested curve of her neck to rest her forehead on his shoulder. "I have and will always want you, Pteron. Maybe I am weak, but it's the truth." Her voice was a quiet song against the plain of his muscles, a quiet admission of things he already knew.

    - MY ONLY RIVAL IS WITHIN -

    @[Pteron]
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