11-22-2020, 10:12 PM
give my all just to watch you fall
He confirms his absolute insanity when he admits to jumping in the roiling sea of his own accord. Titanya wants to pounce on him but loses her chance as he ducks his head beneath the waves another time. She thinks he is probably safer there under the violent water than here on the surface with her.
Instead of holding his head under when he comes up for air, the tigress simply follows his lead when he nods in the general direction of land. There is something like anger kicking around in her belly and the extent of it surprises even her. But wait, is that really anger fluttering away in her abdomen? Or is the motion of the ocean just making her nauseous in a way that it’s never done before? She settles on anger because she can’t make sense of it otherwise. Anger to her is like cool, dewy grass tickling her belly on a hot summer morning. Anger is the security of a shared secret that will not be spilled. Anger is comfortable, knowable; mysteries have no place in her head.
So in retaliation, she reaches out to bite his serpentine, trailing tail with a decent amount of force.
The grotto opens up along a quiet stretch of the beach. The tigers duck into the safety of the covered space. Here, they are protected from the worst of the trade-winds that whip the sand up like a rising curtain around their island. It is beautiful, this forgotten hollow carved by water and time that is seemingly lit from below. It is quieter here, too, almost too quiet. The constant drip-drip echoes around them and the din outside is a mere fraction of what it was before. She feels her anger evaporating in the calmer waters, but the unknowable mystery in her belly still remains.
“I was worried about you,” she admits, not knowing why she is doing so. Here, in this aquamarine sanctuary, the words seem to have a life of their own. But she was. And she is, all the time, she finds. She sinks the tip of one fang into the meaty part of his haunch and growls low in her throat. She remembers the time their playful romp had turned into something more, something new. She wonders if he will indulge her again here and now. She wonders if she will tell him about the mystery growing inside of her.
~ ~ ~
It is a sunny, hot spring day on Ischia with fair skies and a pissed off feline stalking the shores.
The mystery had been solved and her anger had only grown alongside the child within her. A part of her wanted to run, to leave Ischia and those she had come to know. It would mean raising the child or abandoning it with someone else. It would be a step backwards in her own growth, using her once-slippery feet to slide away from this place. But she remembered Hal – sweet Hal who had tolerated her when few else would. How could she break his trust?
Titanya stays even when the contractions begin and make her shudder and shake. She shifts, thinking the tiger will be able to handle this better (after all, it’s a different kind of violence). Then she walks the beach because her body tells her to keep moving. After a time, it doesn’t feel right to wear her shared skin. She rises as a horse with her black and white speckled belly stretched and taut.
“This is bullshit!” She screams out to the uncaring, ceaseless waves or the parrots startled from the trees as her knees tremble and buckle beneath her. As she watches the rainbow blur of feathers disappearing, she has a sharp stab of remorse in her gut for not following suit. Or maybe it’s just another contraction. Wow, this fucking sucks. Titanya sinks into the sand right in the middle of the beach.
It is there, with the water lapping at their feet, that the twins are born. First is a pale girl with hair touched by the influence of both Halcyon and their family’s angelic blood. The next is a darker boy speckled like her. He has his father’s sheen of blue sparkling under the tropical sun. Titanya can hardly see much else about them, because there is a wet sheen in her own eyes that she blinks furiously away. She thinks that this is what her mother must have felt, looking down at her and Terran curled together, this stabbing in her heart instead of her belly just after the birth. She knows she will gleefully separate the body from any heads who might look at either child the wrong way.
Instead of holding his head under when he comes up for air, the tigress simply follows his lead when he nods in the general direction of land. There is something like anger kicking around in her belly and the extent of it surprises even her. But wait, is that really anger fluttering away in her abdomen? Or is the motion of the ocean just making her nauseous in a way that it’s never done before? She settles on anger because she can’t make sense of it otherwise. Anger to her is like cool, dewy grass tickling her belly on a hot summer morning. Anger is the security of a shared secret that will not be spilled. Anger is comfortable, knowable; mysteries have no place in her head.
So in retaliation, she reaches out to bite his serpentine, trailing tail with a decent amount of force.
The grotto opens up along a quiet stretch of the beach. The tigers duck into the safety of the covered space. Here, they are protected from the worst of the trade-winds that whip the sand up like a rising curtain around their island. It is beautiful, this forgotten hollow carved by water and time that is seemingly lit from below. It is quieter here, too, almost too quiet. The constant drip-drip echoes around them and the din outside is a mere fraction of what it was before. She feels her anger evaporating in the calmer waters, but the unknowable mystery in her belly still remains.
“I was worried about you,” she admits, not knowing why she is doing so. Here, in this aquamarine sanctuary, the words seem to have a life of their own. But she was. And she is, all the time, she finds. She sinks the tip of one fang into the meaty part of his haunch and growls low in her throat. She remembers the time their playful romp had turned into something more, something new. She wonders if he will indulge her again here and now. She wonders if she will tell him about the mystery growing inside of her.
~ ~ ~
It is a sunny, hot spring day on Ischia with fair skies and a pissed off feline stalking the shores.
The mystery had been solved and her anger had only grown alongside the child within her. A part of her wanted to run, to leave Ischia and those she had come to know. It would mean raising the child or abandoning it with someone else. It would be a step backwards in her own growth, using her once-slippery feet to slide away from this place. But she remembered Hal – sweet Hal who had tolerated her when few else would. How could she break his trust?
Titanya stays even when the contractions begin and make her shudder and shake. She shifts, thinking the tiger will be able to handle this better (after all, it’s a different kind of violence). Then she walks the beach because her body tells her to keep moving. After a time, it doesn’t feel right to wear her shared skin. She rises as a horse with her black and white speckled belly stretched and taut.
“This is bullshit!” She screams out to the uncaring, ceaseless waves or the parrots startled from the trees as her knees tremble and buckle beneath her. As she watches the rainbow blur of feathers disappearing, she has a sharp stab of remorse in her gut for not following suit. Or maybe it’s just another contraction. Wow, this fucking sucks. Titanya sinks into the sand right in the middle of the beach.
It is there, with the water lapping at their feet, that the twins are born. First is a pale girl with hair touched by the influence of both Halcyon and their family’s angelic blood. The next is a darker boy speckled like her. He has his father’s sheen of blue sparkling under the tropical sun. Titanya can hardly see much else about them, because there is a wet sheen in her own eyes that she blinks furiously away. She thinks that this is what her mother must have felt, looking down at her and Terran curled together, this stabbing in her heart instead of her belly just after the birth. She knows she will gleefully separate the body from any heads who might look at either child the wrong way.
Titanya
@[Halcyon]