01-09-2020, 08:31 PM
----------------kiss me until i can't speak
He might have borne a child for a particular starry-eyed stallion, but the idea of carrying Reia’s child makes him blanche. Pteron hopes that she misses it. He coughs, attempting to cover the reaction, and looks over to meet his wife’s cold stare.
There was truth to his comparison of her to a lizard, Pteron thinks. That hard stare is decidedly reptilian.
Somethings sparks there when she looks down at Adarra. Pteron doubts it is love, for he doubts the cremello mare can feel that emotion at all. But it isn’t dislike, and that he is sure of. There could be better emotions, Pteron knows, but this is not the worst for their daughter to grow up with. He nearly begins to relax, and Reia chooses this moment to change the topic to one of the very worst he can imagine.
Perhaps next season I can give you a son, she says, but there is no doubt what she means. She will not let anyone else give him a son, Reia means. Pteron has no trouble imagining her enforcing that, and he doesn’t make any attempt to hide the shudder. “I’ve kept my promise.” He tells her, knowing even as he says it that going on the defensive over this topic is unlikely to end well. “I’ve ended anything that threatened our marriage.”
He’s tried to, anyway. He’s done his part, at least, warning Aegean away from the woods and keeping far from the Ischian shores. It’s working so far, he thinks; he’s keeping them safe.
Reia leans against him, the smooth slide of her scales a familiar sensation along his piebald side. Familiar but uncomfortable, and Pteron remains still only out of force of habit. He’s fairly certain that she won’t hurt him in front of their child, but as Adarra becomes absorbed in her nursing he realizes that shield has slipped away.
The “Hmm,” that the dun stallion gives in reply to her statement is non-committal, neither encouraging her delusion not threatening the assessment. “If we wait till Adarra is a little older, I think she’d enjoy a younger sibling more. And she’d be able to help you out with babysitting too, so you’ll have more free time.” He swallows the tightness in his throat. That had been a close call, the nerves nearly rattled his voice. Grateful she cannot see his traitorous face with the way she’s tucked into his neck, Pteron reaches over to run his blue lips down the line of her opposite shoulder. There is a hiss of blue flame against the hair and skin of his neck, a sizzle and smell of cooked flesh to accompany the kiss before he pulls away.
The sharp pain that dives beneath his burnt skin is a preventative measure. Reia almost always softens when Pteron shows her affection without being forced to it, and she is even more likely to relent when he has to suffer the flames of her mane to do so. That all the affection Pteron shows Reaia is forced is a truth that he knows his wife must never learn. If she were ever to suspect that the blue pegasus’ heart still lies elsewhere (even if his body does not) Pteron is certain that she would not stop until she’d burnt him out of existence, to a pile of ashes that not even magic could regenerate. Worse, she’d do the same to those he means to keep safe.
-- pteron --
@[Reia]