Mount Apikuni i mean, when he made love to me, it was like he was fixing a carbouretter or sommink—

Vaguey on errything & forwarded to 6th Jan. @Bhediya o:

Bead curtains; whimsy waltz; Piaf, as always;
he tasted a bit like booze, a bit like an expensive cigar. That hint of stogie-smoke would always remain within of her. He tasted like a man, he felt like a man; calloused hands, drudgery-hewn arms. He held her like home; held her, petal-soft her, with her lips to taste the soap-scrubbed stubble. Was this what she cherished about him? This unabashed roughness that made her knees tremble with weakness and her hesitant heart pitter-patter?

This is true—
and it terrifies the girl that God had thrown every terrible, tattered amour her way. Funny, Him; whittling her down to inescapable despondency before getting her hopelessly, helplessly stuck on a guy like that. Stardust to brush shorn cheeks; she wants to go home; wants to return to his underworld and sculpt herself ivory back into the woad of him;
but she’s suddenly on a mountain; windtousled, wretched; woozy.

Heaven wouldn't help her, now.

the clarifying after-effect of the events the evening prior had since worn off. she'd been sentient long enough to hold an adult conversation with kukulkan, but the heat was difficult to ignore. to avoid a second run, she left him at the landing where they'd.. coupled to take a short trip down a nearby ridge.

there was a familiar scent on the wind, one that the elder flocked to. in the distance, she could see her companion's frame. andy! she called, beginning an uncoordinated trot forward. her tail was tucked tightly between her legs in an attempt to mask the strong scent of spring. 

He doesn’t have to bite her lips for her to invite him in and rediscover her. She tastes the wars on his tongue.  Andy,  his thundersoft timbre.  Andy mine—
‘Andy!’
—dark lashes still a bit filmy and herself, achey, quivery as the fairylight shivers awake. She’s still trembling, even when hesitant halfsights come to alight upon a creature that is dark and yet is not him. A curled creature, a tucked-tail creature; a creature from the gnarled ember’d woods of the Uaine and alldruid. Not her bewitcher, but instead—
“How do you fare this evening, Bhediya?”

Winged brows writ with some gentled, perhaps graceless concern for the gait of her inked well-wisher. Corners of ruined mouth quiver, try to skip into a smile;
but such a simple act could not have been more enervating. Nevermind — what ever was the sibyl doing so far from her faerie circles?

andraste turned, her sharp gaze befalling bhediya's quivering form. she hesitated, but ultimately decided to approach, her paws carrying her only some feet from her companion. i'm okay. and you? in truth, neither had any business being so far from home. it was a bad time for a pack to be without its leader, courtfall moreso than the emberwood.

i was coming to visit you, she continued, a smile writ on her maw, with a friend of mine, actually. if andraste could not read the circumstance, the magician would not offer them. instead, she would sit with her tail tucked and wait for her friend's response.

A docile shrug of shoulder; demure quirk of lips;
if the status of her own bearing seemed well enough  (okay, even)  then she would allow the halfling to decide and thus, Andraste remains quiet. Quiet at the enquiry; wordless and wondering at the mentions of visitation; and, eventually, speculation o’er the druid allusions of friend. For all that she stares, it is a lapse in the fée’s own recognition of the ... ekeing-out of ambrosial redolence; divinely, possessively feminine and belonging entire to this inkspilt soul of anxiety, echoing of abandon.

Mondmädchen’s ears tuck away; weighing anchor into thought.

None of her maidens had  (as far as she knows, of course)  not yet darkened the their chords with the fever of season. Amongst them all were males five:  Tundra was taken to the darkfeathered Aries; Aiolos, wound as saltcircle ‘bout the buxom Kalika. Seámus had since stuck as glue to his gentled sister’s side; Eros was betrothed to philosophies; wedded to his sciences. So, then ...

“I did swear that any druid would be harbored within my realm,”  breaths shivery, a bit weak; what with her(?) melitse on her mind,  “did I not?”  coaxed by stifling incense and a paltry indignation from last dawn. Churring to the creature parts of the impling; and yet there must be something more to all of this, to the telling, to Bhediya's request; that friend; their flight;
bleary eyes against maintained, desecrated features.

andraste spoke. bhediya listened, noticing the breaths which accented the silence. she remained frozen in place, her jaw tightening as she stared. the tone of voice, it couldn't have been caused by.. right? the scout untucked her tail, flagging it for only a moment to see if the scent would further her companion's fluster. 

in the meantime, she would continue with their conversation. bhediya took a few steps forward, settling closer to andy than before. you did, she replied, brow furrowed as she spoke. the smile on her maw seemed unfit for a tone such as that which she tried to put on. i assumed the offer still stood. what reason would she have had to turn them away?

"Of course I did,"  lurching, rising;
"Ze offer will stay to stand. I am Undómiel,"  some faltering faith within myriad-melancholy and hazy halfsights; answering to what attentions that had been bereaved of her. Foolish, starlit; chords straining in a manner that might surely convince to the point of intimidation of her own position within her Court. Perhaps, if she set the crescent of her jaw the way she's known the keepborn philosopher was wont to do  –  perhaps, if she furrows her brow and broods as the brown-eyed snowsylph's rook did  –  perhaps, if she put a smidgen of scrunch snarl into her snout, it would sway Bhediya into assumption that, indeed, she is Undómiel and that her word is not to be taken as—
"I mean it, you– you druid,"
pulling ruined lips back back back to brandish slim-scythe fangs to the smile that the inkstain so proferred  —  infuriating, because she knew, she knew that there was nothing she could do against it; there was nothing she could do with the flush beneath her own features. Shame, always shame, from that morn, and now:
her stupidity for having stept right into this untread snare.

another whip, this one with a wider reach. bhediya was still unsure, but as andraste spoke, she find herself more interested in finding out. did the scent tempt her? this self-professed undómiel, was she wavering as a man might? 

were the situation any different, she might not have thought much of it, instead opting to change the topic completely. but this was different; bhediya was in heat, her body longing for any affection she might receive. would it be wrong to request such a thing?

she would keep her desires to herself until prompted to do otherwise. do you mean this as an insult? she teased, her expression easing into something warmer, more impassioned. there was an uncomfortable air between them, one that the magician found herself reveling in.

my eyes r closed so idk this

Dismantled; tears fall as chin rises;
even as a little heiress, she had known the drapery of women upon women; had seen the slumbering, the coveting; the tender touches that, til then, had seemed only made for the way a man looks to his wife. And though her brother had delved into sexes both same and other, Andraste had not truly felt that ... womanly draw. Has not; and it is with something heavy-lashed regard of the halfling purring before her that the fée studies her with sculptor's eye;
pink nostrils flare wide, wondering; heady as it is, her scent is only a reminder of that which will reach for her in what-ever moon; claiming. Wearied, wilting away from Bhediya; sunken eyes, eliciting some phantom pall to have shawled itself silent round spire shoulders.

​Melkor.

It is his touch, his teeth, and his tongue that she needs; the lack of every-thing and all the compulsion that, for however few heartbeats of it, had galvanized her to posture before the sibyl the way she had. Girlish indignance, insecurities  —  does not know! but her tears gloss o'er halfsight enough to think that it is he who stands  (kneels?)  before her;
speechless, now; shivering, sniffling.

it wasn't the response that bhediya had been expecting. rather than furthering her excitement, andraste's response made her feel shame, guilt at what she'd attempted. the nymphette frowned, settling back into a seat with her tail tucked once more. 

i'm sorry, she chirped, eyes looking over her companion for any signs of readable emotion, i didn't mean to offend you. but she had! bhediya's sole intention had been to offend andraste and to ellicit a similar offense in return. she supposed that that's what kukulkan was for, not the company of her few friends. 

is something wrong? she asked, hoping andy would trust her enough to share.

Embittered balefire; the vainglorious warlord, all  (ardent)  admonishment and looking at her ragdoll, dreamridden self; the quiver of the prisongirl's thigh beneath the shoving rawboned hips, of a lustless, loveless insistence. Tonttu and Ananke and Undómiel; and Andy  —  it was Andy the ashamed that looked away from the emerald glimmer of the druid's scrying without hope of escape. Rubied crown wobbled;

“How – ?”  the fairylight frets, hushed, heart-broke, mending, mustering; brow wreathing with red scripture and hopeless unanswer.  “I have always given my heart. I have always chosen to choose love again, and again, and again, and yet  –  I have only ever given my soul to all. How? How am I to ... to let such an offering of love be mine? How do I hold it? How do I have faith in ze male who,”  hiccoughing a bit,  “who ... who wishes that I take his name. Be his – his ... his wife? How ... how am I to trust in this, one last time?”

Surreal, still; so domestic and base a wish;
she looks at Bhediya with gauzy eyes, fathomless, featherlight that such a thing has finally come to her and yet she is
petrified
because she does not know how to cradle the way Melkor listens to her. A thousand times has she proffered the words  you are in my blood  and  my love for you lies within each breath  and though it is true, and they are whole, she is —

bhediya was visibly confused. what was andy on about? what're you talking about? she asked, standing to take a step closer. her tail was tucked once more so that the scent would not interfere (too much) with their interaction. 

anyone who's been following bhe for a while knows that she doesn't have the best track record when it comes to men. that meant that she really wasn't the best person for this particular conversation, but andraste was her friend; dropping out wasn't an option.

if allowed, the magician would nose at her companion's shoulder to provide some comfort. calm down. explain so i can help, okay?

prays that this sounds Decent when i can actually read l8r

"I am in love, again,"
again and again and again; again mincing her words so that another might understand; it is a thing of strife, really to be so succinct something so ... infuriatingly unfathomable. Again; but now, but now there was no false pretense. No doubts, no disarming disquiet. There was only truths, and trust, and—  "I am ... I am promised to him. And I am petrified, Bhed–... Bhe. Pretrified, because it ... it is something that has come to me that I have long wished for. Should I not be joyous, then? Yet, in all that ... long-ness. I ... it is as a dream is. One that I no longer know how much good there is in ze holding of ir to my heart."

It had been the fears of then-hours past, come to rise within and claw through the sleep-sweated flank; come to whisper doubt where doubt had no reason nor rhyme to even be present. But she had risen all the sams, from the stonebed and the arms and that it was she who could place her lips to his brow, his scarification was ... Soughing sighs leave Andraste; sidling where she stood. Quieted, questing:

"How am I to have faith in us, when—?"
when her heart is a rickety too-trodden bridge, tethering her from all that she had known and left behind to all that remained obscured; timorous.

you're in love? bhediya crooned, that's wonderful news, andy. she took on a more congratulatory tone in voice and body, but began to shift as her companion continued to speak. it was a sentiment that she could relate to, this sense of inadequacy. looking from the outside in, seeing how worthy andraste was of a true love was easy, but she knew that it was different from the other point-of-view.

drawing in a deep breath, she allowed the silence a moment to brew. does he love you? she hummed, moving to preen the fur at her companion's cheek. telling someone that they were worthy of love.. how could it be done, so that the recipient would believe? it's okay to be afraid of love, but if you're sure about him, then why are you doubting yourself? he must know something to have picked a lover as special as you.

Does he? was a thought with knobby knees and trembling fingers clutching at skirts; love was a thing that she had come to dread before delight; her heart was honey, heathery, and everything that was Melkor burred 'round within like bees.

She cannot fathom how they managed to even bumble through this deep, starving season  —  but she has found that the appetites of the body are of no importance when weighed against the appetites of the soul. In the dark of this morn, she had spent a long time just looking down at his face in all its fierce beauty, lacing her ruined mouth from temple to chin, sketching her nose down the line of his throat and out along the broad wings of his collarbone. She'd lain against the strength of each crescenting bone, nipping at each filament of woad fur; had marveled at the tundrian-knit muscluature and the resting brawn in the graceful breadth of his shoulders. Adores this, she thinks, more than the dragging heaviness of him upon her or the hard wanting of him against her.

Her breath comes fluttery, again; everything wells up brimming to lashes and stains cheeks flushed beneath fur with captivation; the druid still consoles her with a touch, though, and it is for her sake that Andraste snuffles, turns to paw at her silly tears that have no reason to be shed. Whatever godgathering had crafted her had deigned to do so with the intention that she leave not a thing unloved.

It was infuriating, really.

She had been practically swooned against the oracle inkwell up until she started  —  still not having answered Bhediya. Lungs full and burning with the mem'ry of the air that melitse had breathed and how she hadn't delved into the sculpted planes of his ashlar spine and strife-heavy thighs. She wasn't altogether sure that she had heard the sorceress, what with the rhythm of the warlord's life in her head, but:

Words a bit more than weak:  “Ah, Bees. F-forgive me,”  struggling some to speak past the beat of Melkor's heart, the steady and slow drumming within her marrow a heavy blessing.  “We are, well – we are meant to have whelps this season,”  and shakily followed with (in case the druid was lost by her friend’s ardent agitation)  “together,”  clumsy and cottonpink beneath her fur,  “us, I-I mean. Him and I. You— you should meet him, when you visit? Ah–”

the invitation was welcomed with a fervent nod, a breathless, of course, i will. bhediya did consider andraste a friend, but their relationship was still primarily professional. they knew very little of one another's personal lives, save for short conversation here and there. this was an important step in solidifying their bond that she couldn't imagine turning down.

she wanted to talk about her own partner(s), but knew that this wasn't the time. it could wait — and it would wait — until andy was finished with her own crisis. i'm going to get my friend. we'll be there soon, after some rest. bhediya would sit for as long as her companion needed before walking back up to meet kukulkan.