[private] i've never fallen from quite this high; Aquaria

[Pteron]

finger trips across my cheek----------------
----------------kiss me until i can't speak

His blue ears are pinned into the tangle of his bicolored mane, but Pteron’s olive gaze darts a time or two into the woods nearby. He is searching for Aquaria, wondering why her quiet cove is being guarded by a tiger, and hoping that she will make haste in her return from wherever she’s gotten to. It is not that he is fearful of the tiger – he has faced more fearsome things – but he is reluctant to harm it. That becomes doubly true when the striped creature in front of him changes shape. Well, it changes a little. Just enough that he is sure that it is not really a tiger, just enough that he is doubly graceful he had played defense rather than going on the attack.

The tiger-horse doesn’t seem pleased by Pteron’s inquiry into Aquaria’s location, but that is not nearly as surprising as the suspicious question that follows it. His mother? Aquaria?

It’s at this very moment that the nereid herself emerges from the water. The striped boy must be Hal, Pteron decides when he ruefully accepts Aquaria’s reassurance that Pteron is not a threat. The boy still eyes him doubtfully, but some of the tension leaves his body and he returns his mother’s preening with a rumbling purr and a bump of his head against her shoulder. Halcyon sits down beside her in a remarkably unhorselike manner, but that is the least of Pteron’s concerns. The stallion is rather certain that Aquaria had not been pregnant when he had visited her a few months ago, and yet here is a foal calling her mother. He’d wondered before if the nereid laid eggs, and he supposes that is one explanation for the existence of a child.

Pteron feels a twist of possessiveness at the thought of some unknown shifter courting Aquaria, producing this odd blend of cat and horse. For more reasons than there are waves upon the beach Pteron should not be jealous, and yet the idea of Aquaria being close enough to another to allow him to sire a child is unquestionably bitter. Is he still here, Pteron wonders? He glances into the jungle, but the only scents here are Aquaria and Halcyon, which inexplicably pleases Pteron. “Hello Halcyon.”

The pale nereid apologizes for not visiting, and Pteron shakes it away with a smile. There have been longer pauses between their visits, and he is as much as fault as she.

“It’s probably best you haven’t,” he replies cryptically, a scowl passing briefly across his face. He does not delve deeper, not in front of the boy, and not when he has clearly intruded on their morning routine. “I would love to.” Pteron responds to the invitation. Halcyon, sitting contentedly beside his mother, hopes that the stranger does not eat too much of his food.

-- pteron --

@[Aquaria]