there's still fire in the darkness; aysel

[magnus]

I wanna give you wild love, the kind that never slows down
I wanna take you high up let our hearts be the only sound

There is a camaraderie here in this moment, two similar souls resting in the space between heartbeats and both reliving, in their own ways, the world of their youth—a world so changed for them both. She has memories of other worlds and Beqanna, both clamoring for space in her mind, but he only has Beqanna and the strange, twisted, dark ways in which his own life has been manipulated. Still, he finds himself endlessly fascinated by her stories, content to listen to the foreign lilt of her voice and the warm of being with another of the sisterhood, something familial and yet decidedly not in her companionship.

“It is not a bad idea,” he muses, gold-flecked eyes surveying the land around them, the bodies milling about. “But we may want to wait until the land is more populated than it is now. Otherwise, it will be just a competition between the two of us.” He winks at her, his lips curving into a handsome smile. “Not that I would mind that.” He didn’t think that she would mind either, and he certainly had no qualms about going up against an Amazonian to test his strength—goodness knows that he’s done just that before.

At her next line of questioning though, his face grows slightly more somber, more thoughtful, some of the initial playfulness bleeding from the lines of his features. “I know you can handle it,” his voice is a little quiet, the edges of it just a little rougher. “But I don’t like anyone to take it on.” He’s tried to never ask anyone else to take on his demons and regretted it when he did. “When you have as many scars as I do, you don’t have the finesse you need to keep from scarring others.” A frown. “I wish that I did.”

I wanna go where the lights burn low and you're only mine

[Aysel]

she's no saint but she'll take you to your knees
try her boy but she'll still do what she please

There is a wordless exchange in the moments they have stared at one another, a deeper pool of emotions created when they spoke… and Aysel feels the low heat on her skin of Tephra and it’s humid air. She rolls her shoulders back and relaxes, she eases herself in his presence and there is peace: peace and an appreciation she cannot express.

His skin is comfortable each time she touches it, and though she expresses an appeal in his scars… there just aren’t words for how deeply she truly finds herself drawn to them: and there in his shadow she recognizes a slow pulse and verve, a pull and inertia that brings them closer.

For Aysel she can only smile, tease and roll her eyes playfully- only flick an ear back before stretching her legs. Its the latter of his exchange she focuses on, the slow smile drawn across her lips and an almost depthless empathy in her eyes. “Magnus,” she states with a sort of calm and controlled purr- a tenderness that grows suddenly.

“You can’t bury everything, pushing it down and shoving it away only keeps it all compressed and waiting to pop. Patience can help; but no matter what, you will inevitably have to it out.” she swallows the lump in her throat, and sighs beneath a whisper. “But I understand what its like to hide things, to restrain the anger: to keep that part pushed down. So I know why we do it.”

For a moment she turns, steps just to the side and allowed the spattered red body to slide halfway into the foliage before turning and peering at him through the leaves and brush: through shadows of the canopy. “Come with me, lets take a walk- we can deal with what we’re hiding later: for now? Lets just take some time to ourselves.”

She gestures, Aysel’s tail swaying and and snapping as she motions towards the reaches of the forest. 

Aysel