[private] take a look in the mirror

[Tarian]

Does he tell her about how many times (and ways) that he has dreamed about her?

Tarian, lately, has dreamed of many things. He had wondered what it would have been like if he had allowed himself to settle down. What it might have been like to have a family and devote himself to someone as his father had been devoted to his mother. What it might have been like to spend his nights with something other than his thoughts and the cool Loessian breeze. It's another life, though, that he imagines and the path that Tarian took never lead him that way.

It had always been about duty and honoring his commitments. It has always been about living for the next fight and then thinking about the next one when he survived the last one.

But with Altissima, Tarian dreams of something else entirely. (His mind wanders of how their bodies might twist and tangle, of how they might fit together when she has always perfectly matched him in everything else.) His mouth finds her again, moving away from her cheek and back to her neck and his wing curls subconciously, pulling her as close as he can. Even with barely any room to breathe between them, it is still too far. And perhaps some part of him is afraid that she will pull away now, that after they have come so close that she will find some way to draw away from him again. To leave him as she had abruptly that night in Loess, the first night that he realized that with Wildling, he would always want more.

He has had injuries before; there are scars all over his body that stand as a testament to this.

And yet, the way that Altissima hesitates feels like the most brutal thing that he has ever endured.

The silver pegasus almost expects it. He even starts to mentally prepare himself for the way that she would mention just tonight again and put the barrier back between them. His breath hitches and yet when she speaks, Altissima gives him the answer that he wasn't prepared for at all. The logical part of his mind is long gone; the part that had always schooled him to caution when it came to his heart. How does he serve Loess so completely and faithfully when Altissima could ask something of him and Tarian would do whatever she requested? And if the Artic clan comes, what then?

What does he do when they could use her against him? Claim that it was her life or his (and he knows in this instant that he would lay down his gladly, that he would give it without thought, that for her, anything) and then murder them both anyways? "Every night," he whispers in her ear darkly instead, "all night." Tarian says with an easy laugh, something that is so hard for him to find with anybody else.

"You're the only rule I've ever wanted to break, Wildling." Tarian finally confesses and kisses her again, giving way to any of the caution that might have remained. That Tarian, who has always lived in a world made and confined of rules, would shatter them all for her.

@Altissima