paint it black; any

[Lior]

I look inside myself

The dark creature finds himself in the meadow. There was a splendor of blooming wildflowers, framed by their pretty upturned faces. He is a dark shadow that chills their delicate petals. His features are blank and unaffected as gray mercury eyes float over the landscape without much interest. 

The soft birdsong draws him away from the hardness of his heart. Here he can clear the wicked rejection from his lungs. Here he can be realigned with the stars. Inky black scales of the dragon slowly melt back into his typical black hide,  mane sprouting from his crest and washing down the thickness of his neck. Tangled horsehair replaces the long scaling of his tail. Lior does not question his ability for Beqanna has given and taken from him before so why not now? Why not wake as a dark dragon in the damp blackness of a familiar cave? 

The tall male chooses to keep the pair of leathery dark wings at his spine, tucking them tightly against his skin. With a lifted skull, he scents the air, grasping for that of any known previously. There is some consultation in the lack of horses today but perhaps he wanted to find conversation amongst the tall green grass that grew with feverish rapidity.

What else did this day hold for him? 

And see my heart is black

[exist]

while collecting the stars, I connected the dots.
I don’t know who I am, but now I know who I’m not.

Morning finds her awake and restless, perched and leaning at the edge of the ocean in the same way a flower reaches for the sun. Her eyes are distant, clouded, half-hidden beneath the furrowing of a dark apricot brow. There are a thousand questions that rattle and clack like stones trapped in her chest – a thousand questions that chase sleep from her eyes and coax her out into the glow of copper and gold dawn.

Silently and without warning, she leaps into the ocean. But before the waves can reach up to grasp her, to pull her close and below with the bits of shell and tornados of sand that dance beneath the surface, she unfurls those wings to catch her. They are no longer the mousy copper and white feather of barn owl wings, smooth and soft when they widen to push the air beneath them – instead they are of dragon wings, strong and sleek and a shade of deep yellow like marigolds blossomed beneath the sun. Where bone splits the gold membrane and talons curl like steel teeth, the scales are as rubies, unforgiving and red.

In moments Tephra is gone and there is only the endlessness of the ocean, blue and black and bruised in its deepest parts. But it is not this solitude she is searching for and so she continues on, held high aloft by the billowing of such strange, unnerving wings. When the meadow comes into view, green and brown and white with the incoherency of colors melted haphazardly together, those wings brace and still, holding her until her feet are close enough to feel the sponginess of spring and damp earth beneath her.

She lands at a run, her head thrown back and wildness trapped in the pounding of her chest. For awhile, she is content to race, to feel the new warmth of spring against her face and the give of the ground beneath the pounding of feathered feet. But a flash of something dark and familiar out of the corner of her vision pulls her back, and she slows to make out the heavy shape of someone she had not seen since summertime.

“Lior!" She calls the moment his name takes shape on her tongue, a smile brightening the indigo of a delicate mouth. It takes only a few strides to close the distance between them, a few strides and she is at his side and running her nose along the seams of those enormous dragon wings. “These are new.” She says with a grin, coming back around to touch her nose once in greeting to the curve of that heavy black jaw. In the language of wings, her own lift and fall in their arrogant way, unfurling wickedly in the light of the sun pooling around them. “Are you any good with them yet?” There is a challenge in the gleaming of those pale green eyes that dance across his face, a wildness in the smile that plays with the corners of those indigo lips. “Show me.” Her wings unfurl to their fullest, red and gold and wild, and she is in the sky once more, looking back only once to make sure he was following.

Exist

[Lior]

I look inside myself

His name surprises him as though it were a secret or some incantation only uttered under a full moon. The single syllable is uttered from a familiar indigo mouth (though her voice has seemed to have deepened to a more womanly rasp). Lior does not have much to,e before the copper and blue youth is upon him. She is moving such to quick for him to avert her advances.

Her gentle caress is all over him. The touch against his scarred jaw causes him to suck his breath in a harsh inhale. Her lips press and trace the seams of his dark wings. Lior is not sure how to react so he simply does -nothing-. He is surprised, overwhelmed, and perhaps pleased to see a familiar face. "Exist." The low growl of his voice speaks her name as a small crawl of a smirk touches the edges of his lips. He murmurs her name, his own whiskered lips seek the gentle curve of her neck in his own tentative way of greeting.

Lobes catch the next words that are uttered from her tapered lips. Lior catches the hints of challenge, the way she seems to move with poise and fire that was not there before. The dark stallion's smirk stretches into a smile hen she asks if he was 'any good with them'. Lior had been winged amongst other things years ago when he was still under his father's control.

It only takes a moment longer before the male is above the ground. In another moment, he is close to Exist with an electrifying speed, the large wings moving with practiced ease. Silver pools find that of the fair Exist, the smile still upon his lips absentmindedly, as he matches her pace.How long had it been since he had felt the weightlessness of mind, body, and soul? A laugh conjures up from the depths of his belly before he pulls ahead of her with a curious look over his shoulder before climbing higher with the easy pull of his dark tattered wings. "Are you any good with those things?" The stallion calls to her, teasing playfully. It catches him off guard to be so light, so eager to fly with her but he does not deny the relief he feels to fly.

And see my heart is black