"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
and since you’re the only one that matters,---------------- ----------------tell me: who do i run to?
“I hope this means that you’ll stop trying to avoid me,” Pteron says, smiling against the soft curve of Aquaria’s jaw for a moment before pulling back to meet her gaze. It has always been easiest for him to make light of troubling things, to avoid dwelling on dark thoughts and discontents. Yet each time he had tried – and failed – to catch her attention, the dun stallion had been thwarted.
Each time except this last.
It had felt almost like his visits of old, when he’d alight on beach just past sundown. Except this time, there had been no looming darkness in the back of his mind, no constant worry about the dragon that awaited his inevitable return. This time there had just been the fiery light of sunset and the splash of water just barely cooler than the air around them. Pteron is not sure which of them had made the first move. All he knows is that he’d meant to say something, but he hadn’t, and then his mouth had been far too busy with other things to bother with words and apologies and explanations.
Yet now, as the sun hangs halfway above the distant horizon and he meets her now shadowed purple-blue eyes, he remembers. They had avoided contact for so long, just to come together, like this? Pteron knows that he should ask why, but it is easier to bask in the afterglow. It’s easier to gently touch the starfish behind her cheek and breathe in the crisp smell of the ocean and familiar coral on her skin. There will be a time for the harder conversations, but it is unlikely for Pteron to ever be the one who brings them up.
08-22-2020, 11:13 PM (This post was last modified: 08-22-2020, 11:13 PM by Aquaria.)
aquaria
- THE TIDE IS HIGH, IT'S SINK OR SWIM -
She scoffed softly into the humid air. Even now, she was finding it a struggle to meet the stallion's eye. Instead she looked to the horizon, where dark water and darker sky met in an impossibly distant place. A place she knew from experience didn't really exist, except from afar.
"It's hard to avoid a man when he's invited himself onto your beach." She replied, tone distant. She could have run him out, of course. Thrown him to the sea like she had when Ivar had first tried to invade her home. This had been no stranger in her sanctuary, though. This had been Pteron. Sweet, affectionate, careless Pteron. She shrugged against him, still feeling the warmth of his touch on her skin.
Absently, she stretched across the sand. "Anyway-" and a tang of bitterness leaked into the words. "-you're not necessarily the one I've been avoiding." She let the words sit, wondering why she could never find it in herself to let things be. Not even for one night. That was the problem though, wasn't it. Even now, she found that she could not separate the scent of Pteron and the scent of Aegean. Her own sea water odour mingled now, but she knew that would fade soon after he left her.
It was like sleeping with a ghost in the house. Or worse still, being the ghost in her own home. Halcyon adored Pteron, and had taken to his mentorship with a dedication that she found astounding. Cormorant had gone on to the Icicle Isle with her blessing, to learn under the dragon lord, Leilan. Alongside his childhood friend, she knew he'd do well.
This left her with Marianas, a boy she loved but who would always have the shadow of his lost sister beside him. It was a burden he bore by being absent as much as possible, and she found she couldn't blame him. Not when this island was filled to the brim with memories of his earliest misadventure. Of her own failure to keep her children safe.
So when Pteron had come to her, she had let him in. Had accepted his touch and his sweetness because she'd begun to think that she'd lost any chance of knowing those things. Only now did she regret it, because she knew him. Knew it was not besides her that he would bed down besides for long.
and since you’re the only one that matters,---------------- ----------------tell me: who do i run to?
He cannot quite catch her gaze, but he does not stop trying. When Aquaria looks out over the ocean, Pteron traces with his eyes the bold lines of her proud face, and then with his lips the soft place where her neck meets her shoulder. Even without her nereid glamour, the stallion finds it hard to keep his eyes away from her. Aquaria has always been the loveliest mare Pteron has laid eyes on.
Motherhood and time have changed her from the bright-eyed girl he’d first met to this woman in her prime. Pteron finds them both equally alluring, and if she lets him will show her again how he has missed her, but if not continues to gently caress what of her he can reach. Her tone is as faraway as Tephran volcano, as though she still holds herself apart from him, and Pteron pauses the gentle circle he is drawing on her back to regard her more carefully.
She has been avoiding him, Aquaria admits. Or rather, had been avoiding Aegean.
Pteron had suspected as much after her rapid departure from their first meeting, but he had never been able to confirm. Since she has not kept her children from him, Pteron had known she was not angry with him, and had been content to let her come to him in her own time. Now that he is here, in Ischia, he no longer feels the rush of passing time. There is time for patience now, even against the edge of frustration.
“I think you would enjoy each other’s company.” Pteron replies. “I find it hard to believe that my two very best friends would not get along swimmingly.” Having amused himself with the pun, Pteron nudges gently at Aquaria’s finned mane. Aegean is well aware of Pteron’s relationship with the nereid and of the children they share. Children, Pteron thinks, because having seen Cormorant – even from a distance – there is no doubting that the boy is his. This reminds the dun pegasus of something that had troubled him, and he pulls away to better see Aquaria when he asks:
“Did you hide Cormorant from me when I visited the very last time?” He means the last visit before his absence, the last visit before he had faced his demons dragon, when Aquaria had given him the courage he had long lacked. It had been near the end of winter or early spring (the days blur together this long past), but he is sure the nereid had shown no signs of pregnancy and there’d been no newborn foal. But Cormorant was surely foaled that spring, and the mystery has long puzzled him. He wants her to deny his question of her, and even shakes his head as he says it, indicating his own disbelief. But what then, is the explanation?
09-08-2020, 09:24 PM (This post was last modified: 09-08-2020, 09:25 PM by Aquaria.)
aquaria
- THE TIDE IS HIGH, IT'S SINK OR SWIM -
Her skin trembled where he touched, as reactive as ever to the painted stallion's ministrations. He'd grown softer in the years that had passed. Lost the sharp edge that perhaps he'd needed when Taiga and all it's accompanying responsibility had held him. Now he seemed more at ease with the island pace. It was an odd contrast to the seamare and her newly found steely streak.
Loss had given her what comfort had taken from him, and she found the offset uncomfortable now that they lay beside one another again. A sharp "ha!" was her initial response to his suggestion. It faded as he moved on to harder questions. Truths that had been pushed aside because there had been no point dwelling on them.
Now though, she did turn to him. Held his searching eyes with the luminous violet of her own. Her face betrayed no guilt. Not when the years had long since erased such a feeling. "I did, yes." She admitted, waiting for the disappointment to chase his features. It was tempting to leave it at that. The bitter piece of her wanted him to feel a touch of the regret she'd felt in his abandonment.
Time enough had passed though, and her regret had scarred over. Seeing him again had rubbed the old wound, made it bleed again a bit. But it was not so deep now as it had been, and she found the words that she'd rehearsed to herself so many times back then.
"I didn't know there would be a baby, at first," she , mouth turned into a wry smile. "I don't have them like most mares, you see. I lay eggs like some sharks do. So when Cormorant came along, I didn't know what to make of it. But after a while I could see him grow, and it was impossible to doubt what had happened." She paused. This next part was the hard part. The one she didn't regret, but knew it had set her on the path she was now.
With a breath, she continued. "When you came that last time, I-" She looked away, then back to him. He had the right to know now what had hung between them so long. "I didn't want you to stay just because there was a baby. It would be like I'd trapped you, and I couldn't feel right about it. So I kept my mouth shut, and hoped you'd come back when things were done in Taiga." The fact that he hadn't didn't need to be said. They both knew he hadn't.
It took a moment longer before she could continue, voice thick with emotion that had been suppressed until now. "A few weeks after he was born. Hatched. Whichever. I'd promised a friend of mine that we'd go visit her in Loess, so we made our way there, Cormorant, Hal and me. We stopped in Taiga. You'd left by then. No one knew where. Just that you'd abdicated, and left. Then when we got back to Ischia. Well. Eva wanted me to take over, so I did. And I found I was to busy to go looking for a man who didn't seem to want me to find him."
Aquaria finished her monologue, legs and tail pulled in tight about herself as she waited for his judgment to fall. She felt sick to her stomach. This was what all her years of waiting and wondering had accumulated in. Four years was long enough for anyone to wait.
and since you’re the only one that matters,---------------- ----------------tell me: who do i run to?
She had hidden his child from him.
The soft shaking of his head stops immediately, and it rises so that he might more squarely meet Aquaria’s gaze more squarely. His olive eyes grow dark beneath his furrowing brow, but it is not with disappointment. Pteron is confused, and his inability to fathom the why of her decision is of far more concern than the decision itself. (There is no use in dwelling on the choices made in the long distant past, Pteron knows all too well.)
Despite having teased her in their youth about the egg-laying capabilities of nereids, Pteron had never considered the genuine possibility of such a feat. When Aquaria compares it to sharks as if Pteron has any idea what a shark egg is he does his very best to act as though it’s an understandable analogy. Their worlds are very different, and Pteron has always known this. Yet there is no time to ask more, not that he ever would. What he had been told of his firstborn’s arrival, combined with a brief inquiry about the origins of his young twins has resulted in Pteron vowing to himself to never again ask about where babies come from. It’s like magic, he’d decided; he’ll never really understand how it works.
He doesn’t understand how a great many things, but one skill he has mastered is listening. He is attentive as she speaks, the furrow of his earlier frown having faded away into careful neutrality.
After she speaks, he is quiet for a long while.
“I would have stayed.” He finally says to the waves and the thin line of light at the horizon that is the last of the daylight. “And I do wish you’d told me.” As soon as he says the words he regrets them, and he is silent for a moment as he waits to see what his slip of the tongue might have cost them. Nothing, it seems after a long pause; they’re safe.
“I didn’t think you wanted me to come back.” Pteron suspects now that he was very wrong in that assumption, but he wants to be sure that she knows his intentions. “And I thought you deserved better than me, even if you did want me to come back.”
He thought he’d been doing the right thing at the time. Or at least, the closest thing to right that he could manage. (He will live forever with the guilt of leaving Halcyon without explanation).
“You still do,” he adds, even as he reaches slowly toward her, just to gently brush her cheek. “But I would like to be friends again, at the very least. Just friends even, if that is what it takes to keep seeing you.” They had been just friends before, after all, even if it had been brief. He would like more than that, of course, but he has asked too much of Aquaria before. He is more careful now, more cautious than he had been in his youth. He had been reckless with a great many things, and not the least of them had been the feelings of the mare in front of him.
“I’ve missed you,” he tells her. “And I’m sorry. For everything.”
09-12-2020, 12:17 PM (This post was last modified: 09-12-2020, 12:17 PM by Aquaria.)
aquaria
- THE TIDE IS HIGH, IT'S SINK OR SWIM -
She met his gaze, and wished she could somehow transfer her reasoning to him without words. That she could simply give him the feelings she'd been holding onto for so long. It didn't work that way, though. There was nothing she could do but speak her piece, and hope for the best. Her mouth tightened a bit as she realized she didn't know what the best was anymore though.
Her ears tipped back and forth distressedly as he commented, and confirmed what she already knew. "You would have. And that's exactly why I didn't say anything. You would have stayed because you thought it would be the right thing to do. Not because you actually wanted to be with me."
If he had wanted to be with her, well. The story would have gone very differently, she thought.
He touched her, and she let him, but made no move to return the gesture. His words washed over her likewise, each one a stone in her heart. "Maybe I did deserve better. But it's you I wanted." The admission hurt, even now. Especially now. "Pteron, do you realize what a kick in the belly it was to see you waltz in here with a whole other family, years after I had given you up as dead? If you're happy, then I'll be happy for you. But please don't ask me to be friends with the one who gets to live the life I'd hoped for. Don't insult me so."
With sudden ferocity, the seamare rose to her feet. Several strides took her to the edge of the water where she stopped. It was tempting to escape into the waves again. To pretend that she wasn't living this life. This was her home though, and her family that was being effectedby choices she'd made before knowing better. It wouldn't go away, no matter how long she swam beneath the waves.
"If you want to stay here, to keep working with Hal and whoever else, I don't care. But for the time being I think it's best that we keep our relationship at a distance. I won't be a home wrecker." She turned back to him, expression brittle. "Aegean deserves better, at the very least. There's an islet to the north your family can occupy. Take on the title of Beachmaster, or don't." She shrugged, pawing at the sand aimlessly.
and since you’re the only one that matters,---------------- ----------------tell me: who do i run to?
“It would have been the right thing to do.” He repeats, emphasis on what he worries Aquaria thinks too inconsequential. Or at least less important than whatever it is she means by actually wanting to be with her. What is he now but with her? They’d certainly both been present in the moment previously, when he’d pressed kisses along the back of her neck. And now she will hardly look at him, and her words are spoken through tightly pressed lips.
Pteron sighs, because he is not sure what else to say that he has not already tried, and it is good that he does not. Aquaria has more to say, and it is confirmation of what he had begun to suspect after her sudden departure from their most recent encounter. Pteron had never been especially good at making his actions match his words; for though he has told Aquaria that his heart lies elsewhere, the child that grows within her is proof that his body does not.
When she pulls away, the pegasus does not follow. Instead, he watches as she stands, a pale figure against the dark sky, the surf dancing at her hooves. The expression that she wears is brittle, and the edges of it are as sharp as what she has to say. Curiously unscathed, Pteron frowns. “Aegean knows about you.” He tells her. “About us. He knows where I am.” Pteron’s affection for Aquaria has never been something he has hidden from anyone but Reia and his mother – the first for safety, the second for sanity. He is proud to refer to Cormorant as his son, and the same will be true of any child Aquaria might choose to have with him in the future – if she ever decides that distance is not what she wants.
“We will stay there,” he concedes after a long look at the horizon, where stars are starting to appear against the navy sky. “I would enjoy your company, if you choose to visit us there.” It’s a small olive branch, perhaps so fragile that she will ignore it entirely. But he has to try. “But if not, I will continue to do what I have promised Hal, and train him and any others who have an interest in learning to spar.”
09-25-2020, 06:44 PM (This post was last modified: 09-25-2020, 06:45 PM by Aquaria.)
aquaria
- THE TIDE IS HIGH, IT'S SINK OR SWIM -
They will not see eye to eye on this, she knows as he reiterates his stance. How long had duty bound him, how little she wanted to simply be another obligation. Her head shook in bewildered distress as he pressed his point.
He'd always been so good at creating the life he wanted for himself. Playing pretend when it suited him and luring the willing into his own version of reality until something better suited him. It was a fantasy, and she'd spent as much of her life inside it as out.
It was shock she felt though, when he spoke next. Shock and pain and confusion as she tried to process the implications of what he described. "How does he stand it?" She whispered at last, looking to the winged stallion as if she'd find some vital clue in his face. "Is he not enough to satisfy you, and he is sane knowing it? He has your heart and I'm just a convenient broodmare to raise your children? What is it, Pteron?"
Just like that, the scars she'd fostered on her heart ripped free, the bloody wound of abandonment and betrayal stinging out in the open again. She'd thought she'd grown, that she'd somehow gotten wiser. All it took was a charming smile and a sweet word and she was proven wrong. She was the same silly sea horse that had fallen head over tail for him years ago, and wanted nothing more than to be enough for him to love.
Fins laid down across her shoulders, she let herself move back into his gravity again. Kept her eyes on his own while she begged silently for strength.
"Tell me," she pleaded softly. "Tell me that after all of these years, that some part of your heart is mine. That you love me because I'm me, not just as the mother of your children." She winced at the thoughts reeling in her head, at the sheer weight of her heart in the moment. "I don't want to believe that you would risk your relationship with Aegean over someone you didn't love. And-" she looked away, dulled with the tidal emotions that had overtaken the hour.
"I don't want to believe that I was just a close enough resemblance to him that you felt you could practice on me before moving on to the real thing." It was a bitter admission, but it was the thought that had plagued her since meeting the white stallion.
- MY ONLY RIVAL IS WITHIN -
@[Pteron] okay well this is very dialog heavy, I'm sorry :/
and since you’re the only one that matters,---------------- ----------------tell me: who do i run to?
Pteron, who has always tried his best and most often failed spectacularly, watches as the shock of realization settles over Aquaria. The life – and love – he lives are clearly not what Aquaria had expected, but he hadn’t quite expected the pain that settles on her pale face. He says nothing. He doesn’t correct the assumption that he takes other lovers because Aegean is somehow deficient, or give the accusation that Aquaria is just a broodmare for his children even the slightest credence by acknowledging it.
Instead he is quiet, and still, and even when Aquaria inches closer he does not reach out for her.
He ignores the soft hum of happiness that most always fills his mind, forcing himself to dwell only in this moment, in these emotions. The nereid is closer now, and speaking of the risks he has taken. They are each separate things, and he cannot fathom how to word this so Aquaria might understand.
“You have always been more to me than the mother of my children,” he answers, his tone somber. He holds her gaze when he speaks. “You’re my longest friend, at times my only friend. You are the most beautiful mare I have ever met, and I clearly find you attractive. Of course I love you. But I do not love only you.”
“And that is the type of love you meant, isn’t it?” From somber to defeated, Pteron’s lips are bitten taut. He might bite hard enough to bleed if she’d not added a final bitter admission. It startles a genuine laugh out of him.
“You shouldn’t fault me for having a type,” he tells her. “If anything, you’re the one who set it.”
10-04-2020, 01:46 PM (This post was last modified: 10-04-2020, 01:50 PM by Aquaria.)
He was as always, an enigma. Free as a bird, tied down by nothing and no one. Except perhaps Aegean. Except perhaps, to a lesser extent, to her. An elastic kind of connection that stretched and twisted to its breaking point and back, over and over again. Once more they stood together, connected. She still melted to his touch, still sighed at his word. Could feel herself trying to forgive the absense that had lasted far longer than she'd ever thought he'd make her wait.
It was difficult to imagine going on as if nothing had changed in that time.
Her gaze rested unblinking on his face as he spoke what she knew he must believe to be truth. The turbulence of what he made her feel left her landsick, unsteady. Like she couldn't get her feet used to the solid shore again. Her head shook with the sensation, desperate to stay in control.
"You are an impossible stallion," she groused, ears flicking testily. "There is no 'of course' about it. None." Not when he had stated so clearly on one of their last days together that he didn't. Her mouth mirrored his, tight and flat. It only tightened further as he laughed.
With a shrug, she looked away, the defeat that had colored his tone now settling on her own. "You've always talked well. But you'll have to forgive me. I don't think words will be enough this time around." She wanted to believe him. Believe that she was more than a convenient lay. That he wouldn't disappear again without warning, and leave her high and dry. That he would care beyond the rising of the sun.
