10-25-2021, 07:27 PM
She lets him waver in the paradox of her words - are they friends, or strangers? - studying the way the golden hairs pale and want to grow, something longer, thicker, something less smooth than the glossy horsehide stretched across his shoulder, and she wonders what he is hiding from her. Can she coax it out all the way? She comes closer while he questions her playfully, so close that when her feathers ripple their tips brush against him lightly, so close she can feel the way he stiffens at her final question.
No, he says, the word tripping over his tongue like an injured thing, and Manny turns her head just enough to catch his gaze in her own. There's a storm there, there's a yearning behind his denial. Deftly, she extends her neck and nips as gently at him as she might her own skin while preening. That deadly point drags softly across his withers, pulling back with a mouthful of long, pale hair fighting to be free of his self-righteous gold.
"You need me because I am not afraid of this," the hairs fall from her beak, catching the breeze like snowflakes dancing in the air and she watches them drift away, speaking her words into the ever-deepening darkness, "whatever this is that you are trying so hard to smother."
Does he know he's going to lose his grip on it eventually? He must, and it will have nothing to do with her meddling magic when he does. The blood will out.
"It will be so much worse to lose yourself to the Beast when your children are nearby," she whispers, still watching the darkness with keen eyes, "When you have so little control."
An easy thing to imagine. She can smell the faint scent of foals clinging to his skin, a tender, milky scent that still follows him though he has wisely kept them tucked away in another land. Silence falls between them to make room for the awful thing she suggests, that he might be a danger to his own family, to his friends, if he does not let loose the restive predator roaring against the bars of his equine bones in the company of someone more... robust.
"Besides, not everyone has the luxury of surviving on grass alone." Perhaps hunting is not something he must do, but it is something that she cannot avoid. Nor would she - nor did she even when it was an option. But he doesn't need to know that; he need only know that his own abstinence will not save a life tonight. Her yellow eyes gleam bright with the moonlight filtering through the branches above as she turns back to snatch up his gaze again with eager, hungry, eyes.
"Let it out and come with me tonight, Paladin. You'll find it hard to hurt me, even if you decide you want to."
No, he says, the word tripping over his tongue like an injured thing, and Manny turns her head just enough to catch his gaze in her own. There's a storm there, there's a yearning behind his denial. Deftly, she extends her neck and nips as gently at him as she might her own skin while preening. That deadly point drags softly across his withers, pulling back with a mouthful of long, pale hair fighting to be free of his self-righteous gold.
"You need me because I am not afraid of this," the hairs fall from her beak, catching the breeze like snowflakes dancing in the air and she watches them drift away, speaking her words into the ever-deepening darkness, "whatever this is that you are trying so hard to smother."
Does he know he's going to lose his grip on it eventually? He must, and it will have nothing to do with her meddling magic when he does. The blood will out.
"It will be so much worse to lose yourself to the Beast when your children are nearby," she whispers, still watching the darkness with keen eyes, "When you have so little control."
An easy thing to imagine. She can smell the faint scent of foals clinging to his skin, a tender, milky scent that still follows him though he has wisely kept them tucked away in another land. Silence falls between them to make room for the awful thing she suggests, that he might be a danger to his own family, to his friends, if he does not let loose the restive predator roaring against the bars of his equine bones in the company of someone more... robust.
"Besides, not everyone has the luxury of surviving on grass alone." Perhaps hunting is not something he must do, but it is something that she cannot avoid. Nor would she - nor did she even when it was an option. But he doesn't need to know that; he need only know that his own abstinence will not save a life tonight. Her yellow eyes gleam bright with the moonlight filtering through the branches above as she turns back to snatch up his gaze again with eager, hungry, eyes.
"Let it out and come with me tonight, Paladin. You'll find it hard to hurt me, even if you decide you want to."
@Ledger