Lake Rodney i will fly

for @Teya!
SETTING — dusk(ish); the dice gods say it's cloudy :(

at some point during kharybdis' travels, thick and oppressively grey clouds had begun to roll in, ruining the otherwise clear day that had presented itself; just as the furie had begun to look forward to what stories or fragments of fortune he might gleam from the stars. while he initially sought the high shelf set into the mountain range he followed ( cassiopeia's view ), he deviates after it grew abundantly clear to him that this heralding night was not one for stargazing.

a bit dejected, he makes his way to the sandy coves of the beach, toes squirming in the cool sand and head dipping to lap at the frigid and refreshing waters of the lake.

whilst wraen had wanted something unlike any leadership the girl had known, teya was always in want of a leader. the snow had come and sundance had gone. lips twitched in a tight line, for the silverwhite was never far from her mind. 
today there was a lull, but the air remained greatly frigid. teya's breath formed in tiny icicles upon her chin as she squinted against the odd contrast of darkened sky against white drifts. a dejected sigh, and then her ears flung forward. a figure, melding with the snow.
unthinking, the girl dashed after the illusion, chasing it until it glittered to transparency and she returned to herself. it was not sundance. it had been nothing but a trick of the dying light. too far behind her lay the fen, yet forward spread the hard edge of a half-frozen lake. she made her way toward it with slumped shoulders, though wariness trained her immediately upon a striking individual she had not expected to see.

lost to the festering disappointment of the dismal night, with no sugarspun moonbeams nor starlight to guide or entertain him kharybdis remains unaware. a poor habit for an ex-warchief. a poor habit that, in the lands where the spires reigned with ironteeth and uncompromising victory upon their neighbors for resources ever fostering enemies, it would've meant his death. or, less dramatically, a huge disadvantage. though he is far from the lands of his birth, he nevertheless fosters the same suspicion of strangers, made only more distinct by the fact that his 'fluency' in common was hardly fluent at all.

perhaps his older brothers had been hazing him with their teachings; stringing him along to think he knew it when he knew no different. for sure he knew some things but if the past few days were of any indication acclimating himself here would be a persistent challenge.

left to his woes and thoughts, he does not hear the approach of the snowbird as she flies towards him until she has come near and the crunch of snow underfoot is picked up by a swiveling ear. his head snaps in her direction, but he is placated immediately by her gender and the natural instinct to bristle his hackles is rapidly cooled and quelled.

his diverts his eyes from her almost immediately, though took quick note of the glacial color of her eyes and soft creams and striking blondes of her pelage. his ears flutter back against his skull, the itch to chuff out a greeting strong but bitten back by too many cuffs to his muzzle ( that bear a few faint teethmarked scars ) for speaking to women before being addressed.

the man, for he was a man, said nothing in regards to the look teya had given him. and in his silence she grew stronger. widewater eyes flickered with a more direct interest over the layered colors of his winterpelt, and the girl was quietly shocked by her own conclusion that he was beautiful.
not in the way sundance was, or had been — she drew in her breath and stepped back with a tight wince onto her new-healed ankle. there was a tracery of toothmarks around his muzzle; she wondered at them with a worried flick of her ears. 
and yet he had not spoken, the mirage in the snow, and so she did not, feeling strangely relieved to be bereft of speech's burden. her body relaxed into more inviting lines, and with a tentative wave of her plume, teya moved shyly to inspect the fine hairs of his ruff if he so chose to allow it.

she does not speak and thus, he does not speak. in a way, kharybdis finds this comfortable. he is aware that his common is poor and less than elegant; that he misses many small and oft important words when he tries to communicate. it would be easier, he's thought on numerous occasions, if he could just speak draconian but likely that might end up worse for him. he studies her covertly, keeping eyes lowered to show that he was submissive and passive.

she draws nearer and kharybdis allows her inspection; though he wouldn't have said no nor drew away regardless.

ope post 100 4 u

the stranger's fur carried many scents. the salt of the sea; the stone of mountains; the deep green of trees who weathered the snow.
a traveller, and she quite reduced to chasing shades around a short area. the girl drew back, though not completely; teya was still, wondering if he would seek out the messages wreathed into her own ruff.
when the greeting ended, the shybloom stepped back, waving her tail in a tentative gesture of friendship.

yay!!! congrats on 100!

kharybdis holds still; muscles taunt as she inspects the scents upon his coat. this is a familiar enough gesture. scents told much more than words ever could, after all. scents could not tell falsehoods. as a wanderer, the furie had no ties; nothing to run from and no one to avoid. there was something perhaps lonely about the realization that there was nothing to root him to this place ...just as there'd been nothing to root him to the spire, the bay, or the isle. flesh and blood in the latter three, but even those ties were only so strong and with their own packs to lead, skylla and lerna were kept busy.

kharybdis watches as she steps back and he notes the tentative wave of her tail; hesitating before deciding it's an invitation for him to return the greeting. still, unable to hide the physical hesitation, still not sure he wouldn't be physically reprimanded, he draws nearer to her and sniffs at her own scruff. upon it, he scents the flowerbloom perfume that is distinctly her's and mixed within it the scents of many others. none that he recognizes; that forces him to assume that she is a pack wolf ( he's not technically wrong ); and when he's finished he takes a step back to reestablish the comfortable space between them.

thank you! <3

teya felt a great timidity threaten her burgeoning sensation of playfulness. she clasped desperately for thoughts of fierce, sensual valmua, and straightened somewhat. though she experienced no inward glissade of confidence, perhaps outwardly her small body had settled into the curved lines she wished so much to emulate.
if for no other reason, then to know that she might.
teya looked toward the edge of the lake where he had been drinking, then skyward. clouds sat limpetlike on the underbelly of grey heavens; there would be nothing to find there. but here the falling snow melded with the fog rolled over the icy water. it was something curious, eldritch in a ghostly way, and she stepped into the drifted mists, motioning him to follow if he chose.

though she does not strike kharybdis as a woman who might reprimand him for being too bold, he does not take that assumption at full face value. the tension that had begun to build in his shoulders as he drew brazenly, despite it being at her invitation, nearer to her to draw in her scent and the mottled scents of those she had been around recently, has melted from his shoulders once comfort distance is given again. though the rigidness does not ever fully leave the set of his shoulders, nor his general bearing even when he is alone, he allows himself to relax a bit more in her presence than he has with any others before.

there was something about her that puts him at ease; not that he could place it even if he tried.

the furie watches as she pirouettes towards the mists and gives a small cant of his head at her motioned invitation. there is only a moments hesitation before he bids it away and follows after her; sure to keep a respectful distance between her and him all the same.

the man followed. teya, gripped by her own usual anxieties, felt a curious sensation of pleasure lifting through her at the fact that he had come so easily. they were swallowed by the fog drifting from the center of the freezewater lake, and a sudden crazed, impulsive thought came to teya.
the girl stopped in the path she had made in the snow, turning toward the stranger who had come along.
her coolwater stare traveled over his towering figure, but notably upon his face, where earth and charcoal framed the redbark knowingness of his gaze.
on a whim teya reached toward him with a low whine in the narrow recesses of her chest; why and for what she did not know, only that she tentatively sought the edge of his jawline with a wondering, tremulous, featherlight brush she hoped wildly the silent man would allow.

the mists pirouette around them, writhing; as if it was made from the magicks that painted the stars and the moon, though the air is chilled and damp. he follows; hesitating between that line of too close and too far ...though because he does not wish to lose her in the grey-white tulle of brume he errs for nearer. curiosity prickles along his spine, wondering where they were headed, where she was leading him only to step as her silhouette ahead of him stops.

kharybdis watches as she draws nearer; ears fluttering back against his skull as she draws nearer and nearer still. his heart hammers against its prison of flesh and bone; breath scarcely drawing between his lips as he watches her reach towards him with a slow whine — and then feels the featherlight brush of her tentative touch against the edge of his jawline.

his spine shivers with something else altogether; for the furie would always be what he was at his very core. a small noise of approval rumbles in his chest against his will. bewitched by the sirensong the ocean eyed stranger cast upon him. it is only years of spartan-esque drilling and teaching that kept him in frozen awe; awaiting her next move. how a tentative touch could both be sacrosanct and a sin, kharybdis will never know.

curious, teya thought as she sought to taste the corner of his lip; he had not pulled away, had moved toward encouragement. and so she stepped closer, for there was a difference here.
izumi had once created a sensation of awe and jealousy and want in teya. bridget poured honey over the sore places upon the surface of her heart, caused it to gallop here and there.
this was altogether a new feeling; something wary and holding the stonesmoke fragrance of a thousand mountains, something that spiked teya at her core with curiosity.
harsher. sharper.
a shy smile, a wave of her tail; the girl moved nearer still, reaching beyond his jaw to the roundness of his taller shoulder, against which she lay her small crown a single moment, reveling in the butterfly feeling, and how both he and bridget managed to engender the same tickling glissade in their different ways.

kharybdis' heart keeps an unsteady rhythm in his chest; straining and thrumming against its prison of bone and flesh. his breath stutters, catching within his throat as she draws nearer and nearer, exploring beyond his jaw to his shoulder to where he feels the rest of her crown against it. entranced, he thinks at how no one had touched him like that. how no one has inspired the race of his heart, the stutter of his breath before. in titan spires such interactions was limited to the season of conception ...and even then he'd always been too young to participate.

and too focused on his next conquest for the glory of the spire to care.

her own shoulder is within touching distance. a slight shift of his muzzle and his breath stirs the wispy hairs there. kharybdis wars with himself: between wanting to reach out that fragment of a distance and kiss her shoulder ...but knows that such an offense in titan spire would leave him punished. c-can i...? he breaks his silence, feeling a small thrill that he'd broken the first rule for males of the spire —

...but it occurs to him that he was not in the spire anymore and perhaps it was time for the furie to break the bonds of the spire and become the leviathan he was named for; the one that he can feel within stirring from it's long, forced slumber.

teya felt the tension between them, heartstring tight and billowing with their shared breath.
what it was she did not know nor care to name; she moved closer, offering herself for his own touch, charmed and assured by the tentative murmur in his throat. the voice to match the striation of stone and sand across his countenance.
no sense of danger clinging to his movement save for his size, for how easily the man could crush her if he so chose.
teya, burning brightly against his frame with curiosity and the first stirring of something deep in the wellspring of her stomach.

while the mysterious siren that has him woefully ensnared does not give verbal permission — with which kharybdis is fine with; his common is far from good and just speaking that little cut off question had been humiliating enough — but she does not shirk away, either. instead, she presses closer and it is all the invitation the furie needs.

his initial touch of his nose to her shoulder is tentative. unsure; of himself. of her. if any of this was real or if he was so starved for company that he conjured her from the dredges of his imagination. surely, he thinks, if that were the case she would not be so pretty ...nor so warm.

and so long as she does not shy away from him, kharybdis would reach for her again, to trace his lips across the supple curve of her shoulder; exploring and worshipping.

he answered her near prayerfully. teya watched, somehow suspended outside of herself; fire followed his lips and she answered with a slight parting of her own.
unaware that the response of her body was only an inkling of what was to come in the arriving weeks, the beginning of something she had not yet experienced — her breath washed over his seeking muzzle.
throat tightening; mouth run dry; she was unsure of what might happen next and yet fully malleable, for so long as he remained careful with his caress, she had no reason to run from it.

despite his skill of starmapping and telling the stories of the constellations and the gods as they dance upon the midnight canvas, kharybdis, himself, is not very imaginative. more of ...he is silver tongued; sharp and wicked and smooth; though not in common. his verbal eloquence seemed only to be rooted in draconian — at least for the moment. 

she does not shy away from his seeking; and though he knows she is real he cannot help but fear she will bolt from him like a startled deer the moment he makes the wrong touch.

perhaps because it is what he expects.

to him, this is sacrilege. forbidden. though, obviously, necessary for the creation of stronger women intimacy was a whole ritual, a systematic pairing. not something one did in the secreted shadows of the treeline ...and while some may not perhaps categorize the tentative kisses he peppers along the start of her ribcage as intimacy, to him, it was.

we could fade here if u wanted <3 would love to have a new one!

teya accepted all that he gaze; her eyelids shuddered to a close as he began to respond to her silent urging. she was not yet in any danger from fruition; but she did not know this. the start of the event upon the horizon had confused the girl, made her wary. but she steadied herself on the end of his breath, how it stirred along her sides.
the fog wreathed as sun and winter collided. it formed a haunting mirage over the water; they were both veiled and unveiled as seconds moved on, some atmospheric pressure that teya would not have the word to name; 
everything surrendered beneath the effect of the cold season and the heat waking softly beneath her skin.
teya pulled away and sought him with a bolder kiss; she stepped back into the mists that melded with cloud-cover; her eyes inviting him.
she would not be like those others he had known; teya wanted something else entirely: knowledge.
and pleasure.