[private] I could take the whole world with me

[Altissima]

Altissima’s eyes roll at Tarian’s banter but there’s a smile there too and she cannot think of something to retort back. That last cool remark has been warmed by the water, by the surprising pleasantness of this night.

What are they doing?

Her eyes drop to his when he replies to her thanks, but she wishes she had kept being a coward. She wishes she had kept looking away. Because when he looks at her the way he is now, Altissima wants to stay here. She wants the wild world she loves to consist of just this hot spring, just them - illuminated by his glow and her damn twinkling. She wants to jump off the cliff she’s standing at. She loves jumping off cliffs, it’s thrilling and the way her heart races now reminds her of that feeling. She could leap tonight and not worry about what will happen in the morning.

For a brief, shining moment this idea does not scare her and she takes a step closer, reaching out to him, feeling like she’s moving in slow motion as she does. “Tarian…” She’s never actually called him by his name before and there’s a question there, in the softness of how her voice forms those syllables, and when she hears it she freezes just before her muzzle can brush against his moonlit skin.

If it is a question, there is a chance of the answer being a no. She suddenly thinks that if she does this, if she gives into the feeling that is building inside of her, that’s it. It’s too big, too overwhelming, and it’ll consume her.

And she is not the only one that needs to jump off this particular cliff, it requires company. If he rejects her, she is painfully aware of how much that will hurt. If he makes a joke at her expense now, it’ll pierce right through her.

So she will not give him the chance.

Altissima recoils slowly, first her muzzle and then her body - stepping back out of the hot spring and feeling a chill that is not related to the air seep into her as she does.

Her eyes dart around, but keep returning back to him - they shine a pale blue with the sadness that’s creeping in. Words fumble out as she shakes her head, the warm water dripping off of her body. “I… I’m sorry. I need to...” But what excuse could she possibly give? He knows she has no home, no ties, nowhere to be except wherever she wants to be. And she won’t let herself be where she wants to be at this moment because it is too dangerous.

So she lets the end of that sentence fade away as she turns and unfurls her wings to leave.

altissima

@[Tarian]

[Tarian]

The moment between them suddenly shifts.

There is a stillness to it, an ethereal feeling that reminds Tarian of all the lovely dreams he's ever had and then woke unable to remember. He'd only ever been left with the sensation that it had been something wonderful, so achingly perfect that it could only exist in a reality that Tarian couldn't even recall. When Altissima says his name - something she has never done before - it makes him wonder about all those lost moments.

Could he have dreamed of her?

Her voice has gone so soft, Tarian almost thinks that he is dreaming now. His blue eyes regard her, watching as she takes a step closer to him and it feels like he is defying the very laws of gravity by not doing the same. Something in him wants to crash into her like the wild surf that they had left behind them, wants to pull her towards him like the moon turns the tides. It's a deeply stirring feeling for Tarian, who almost always has such tight control over his emotions. They are things that he can usually at the very least push away, if not outright dismiss, and yet here he is struggling not to look at @[Altissima] like she hasn't unraveled something essential and necessary in him; like she isn't blurring all those neat lines that Tarian has always drawn for himself.

When she moves away from him and out of the salt spring, the chill in the air is a brutal awakening. Altissima keeps going - even when the still-dreaming part of him thinks she might stop - and the cold continues to blow past him. Reminding Tarian that this was his existence. He was a warrior and his demise will come on the battlefield. He had pledged himself Loess and the gray stallion knows that those kinds of oaths are far easier to keep when there aren't other promises tangling loyalties.

The white pegasus lifts his head and tries not to look at the pale mare the way he had before.

"No," Tarian says quickly to Altissima as she unfurls her lovely wings. It comes out too urgent and so he tries again, firmer though his voice remains quiet. "No." The Loessian starts to move in the opposite direction from her, giving the privacy of having the entire spring to herself. "You won the wager," explains Tarian as he pauses for a moment to look at Altissima again. He was the one that imposed on her, after all. He had been the one that took her deeper within the Southern kingdom, that showed her his favorite beach and now one of these hidden springs.

What had he been doing?

"Enjoy Loess." One wide wing dips back towards the warmth of water (that was bound to be far more pleasant than the winter air surrounding them) and the shadowed spires that guarded the backdrop of the Loessian night sky behind them. It's an invitation to stay for as long as she likes (and should anybody trouble her about it, Tarian would gladly give them trouble in return) but he is gone moments later, launching himself into the air and leaving Wildling with her freedom.