somewhere between the sand and the stardust; Levi

[Rapture]

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Rapture

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somewhere between the sand and the stardust

He had pulled away, and she had let him go. In those last moments, something had changed in him. As though he had become someone entirely new. Or rather, someone old (someone foreign, the person he had been before her gentle touch had coaxed the softness from inside of him). His words had been a punch to her gut, and she had retreated, giving him the space he so clearly needed. She hadn’t even been able to meet his eyes as he had turned to leave. Instead she had left him with only a single word.

“Oh.”

It’s all she had been able to manage. All she had been able to muster as silent pain and uncertainty had suffused her features, invading that single syllable. She hadn’t meant to, but in the short time they had spent together, she had managed to convince herself there was more there than what there must have been. She had managed to convince herself that he cared for her as more than a mere acquaintance.

And so she turned and fled. He had made his invitation, and she had offered him only one last pained glance before she melted into the trees along the river’s edge. She had left without promises, left with only the quiet, unsettling ache in her chest.

But she couldn’t stay away.

She had meant to forget him, to forget their single encounter and pretend as though her life were perfectly normal and complete. But it wasn’t. And she couldn’t forget. So when winter comes around once more, she finds herself at the borders of Tephra. Her heart thrums a rapid beat inside her chest as she stares uncertainly across the damp, misty landscape filled with ever blooming, green vegetation. The heat caresses her skin, so different from the rest of Beqanna, rapidly cooling as fall deepens and fades, the chill of winter sinking its fingers into the land.

She hesitates there, uncertain of her path. She had made it to Tephra, but she is struck suddenly by doubt. Even if she could find him in the decidedly large kingdom, would he truly want her here? Would he be happy to see her after all this time? Perhaps he had forgotten about her by now. Perhaps that small moment by the river (a moment she could never forget) had meant nothing to him.

there is a pulse that echoes of you and I

@[Levi] So I figured I would just move this on over here and catch up on their timeline, lol

[Levi]

Levi had begun his day at midnight, with a shake of his thick neck and a piss, then proceeded to wander the border of his homeland like a ghost who can't find peace. A trail of wide hoof-prints stretches for miles on the beach at his back but his gaze faces steadily forward. Only occasionally does he glancing out over the wide expanse of water to his left. Absolutely nothing is going wrong in his life, Tephra is healthy and buzzing with activity, yet, there is a restlessness tumbling in his gut and a frown etched in lines on his brow.

Ahead he sees a figure, standing where the morning mist seems to be the thickets, and this figure is a particular shade of blue he has only seen once before. For the first time in hours, he halts. 

Had he missed her?
He had. He decided that months ago. Never had the mahogany stallion tried to forget her, quite the opposite, on several occasions he had entertained himself by playing out the different ways a reunion may go in his mind. But now that she is here, she is real, he doesn't think of the things he had imagined saying or doing. He simply watches her - fascinated. 

His surprise quickly gives way to curiosity with only a hint of suspicion as he looks her over from afar. Maybe she can see him, maybe those round eyes are casting about too anxiously to truly see much.  She has changed more than he has in the last... had it been a year? He is a man now, no longer the boy she had met by the river. His flame still burns hot and bright in the space below his ribs but now it burns steadily. His adolescence had been turbulent, his flame had flickered wildly, superheated and then dim, and his moods were at her mercy. The fire still burns, but it burns slower and more steadily now, fueling him when he allows it - but not consuming him. 

Finally, he moves through the early fog wondering if that vapor is natures creation or hers.  
"Rapture." His mismatched eyes glimmer with the intrigue he doesn't try to hide from her as he reaches out to touch her cheek. "I'm glad you decided to come." 

As his muzzle finds her warm skin he doesn't deny he wants her, at least not to himself - lies do not suit him. But he keeps that thought to himself, not allowing those feeling to spill into his rational mind just yet. 

Levi

so scream you, out from behind the bitter ache.