Swiftcurrent Creek ανύψωση

foxfire, as ever, had traced out a path for rhaenyra to follow. the frost-streaked osprey led her princess to a bountiful creek, a shaded verdant place with an aura of safety. among the trees, she felt almost as if she stood within a stronghold. rhaenyra was not deceived, however. the trees blocked naught but the hope of seeing an approaching enemy. this was a vulnerable place.
rhaenyra had taken to teaching @Bartholomew a few words in the old tongue. she would rip up a clump of new grass or tap a tree with her paw and name them all, announce the words for the creatures she heard as they shrieked and trilled and shuffled all around them. she said little else; it would have been a waste of breath.
as they reached the creek, she turned to him. «ρυάκι,» she said, tilting her muzzle toward the creek. perhaps he would learn enough to hold a proper conversation by the time rhaegar found her.

why did he bother?

you will be put through hellfire, son.

it was better it happened now, rather than later, wasn't it?

ρυάκι, he echoed back. instinctively reaching for the creek himself. touching, creating the memory. once more he'd utter the word with some clarity. refined.

not as smooth as her, but the words were easier the longer he spoke them.

his eyes turned skyward through the canopy, wondering where her feathered companion planned to lead them next.

foxfire took shelter among the trees, perhaps sensing the approaching darkness. soon the sun would descend fully, and night would be on them. rhaenyra stepped toward her swarthy companion, remembering the thoughts she'd entertained when they first met. the distance between them dwindled until she lingered close, closer than any acquaintance would. the princess reached out, lips hovering near to his cheek as if to kiss him. hers was an intimate sort of tension, the looming threat of a lover; her nearness seemed to dare him to act. and act he would, she did not doubt. rhaenyra had never been refused by a man.

woops this got long

hellfire, hellfire, hellfire.

heaven on earth, swaddled in the silken sheets of her bed. he remembered the honey sweet woman near the coast, he remembered dove, he remembered —

she lingered with no more words for him and his heart thudded in his chest.

she threatened affection and his flesh felt tender, weakened. his spirit had never fully healed from that first fracture, had it? it had not had a chance to grow back stronger. instead it wilted beneath the pressure, threatened to shatter entirely with no way to reappead.

his golden eyes stayed fixed to the base of her ear, so near. tall and willing to hear sweet nothings. he had been a romantic. he had wooed dove into loving him, hadn't he? he had a dalliance with the dark mistress who he would never forget.

one a wife, one a stranger.

she was neither. still strange but not a stranger. still toying with the threads of his heart but not a wife.

so what would she become?

he did not know, but he certainly wanted to know. his nose gently brushed against the wisps at the base of her ear. she did not know this language, he remembered once more. she would not understand the words he might utter to her in false worship.

you are beautiful, he whispered softly, throat clenching with such boldness. it would have been easier to merely choke on it all and flee to the coast again.

she had not taught him words to say to her to provoke feeling — or if she had, he failed to remember them in these vital threatening moments.

why do you want me?

why him?

why always him?

perhaps women had always seen the truth of his spirit.

he indulged in silence, as any man with a vice clutched shamefully close. rhaenyra gathered him near to her breast, muzzle tucked among the wild dark curls of his coat to hide the smug gleam in her eyes. he spoke in worshipful whispers; she knew not what he said, but did it matter? the intent was clear. and when he whispered a question to her under the dusky evening light, rhaenyra wondered with a delighted shiver if he was giving voice to the tense shimmer of desire between them. her answer was wordless; a kiss, and with it an invitation. perhaps if she closed her eyes, she could pretend for a moment that rhaegar was with her.

can timeskip/fade and make any assumptions you'd like <3

it was touches now and he could hear it again.

was it his own voice? the voice of a past life? the voice a life lost?

hellfire, it simmered in his heart. his flesh was nothing but weakness, worn away by the wilds. all of his life he had built himself into an untouchable man of the flesh and spirit, only to lose it all so quickly in the wake of his missionary work.

they would each picture different faces for each other.

he would not reject her, too weak to.

he was gentle, acquiescent, and nothing like rhaegar. even the scent of him was wrong, earthen and unrefined as the wilds she'd found him in. almost unclean, somehow, but rhaenyra knew that was unfair. he is a man, she thought, and he smells like one.
rhaegar was more than a man; beyond comparison. this commoner, this bartholomew — oh, he would serve for now. rhaenyra was a seahawk, and a proud woman besides, but this was not the starlit shores. their laws no longer ruled her. and rhaegar... he had bedded many common women in his time, rhaenyra knew. for a bastard half-brother to the alpha pair, it was not so grievous an offense. he would not blink at her dalliance; he'd never cared for their family's double standards. so rhaenyra would have her pet, for now.
long after the heat of the encounter had dwindled to dull warmth and the sunlight had dwindled to a moody blue moonscape, rhaenyra removed herself for a quick bath in the creek's shallows. she cleansed the scent of him from her fur briskly, contemplating his strange face. he was almost handsome, it was true, but not quite. when she looked on him expecting beauty, she found herself repulsed by his drooping ears and common fur; when she expected revulsion, instead her heart warmed to see the sad yet amiable set of his mouth, the narrow taper of his slender muzzle. he was slim and gentle, yet he spoke with the voice of a barbarian. a contradiction given flesh; it was no wonder he'd caught the eye of a seahawk.
she returned to him still preening the last of the moisture from her gleaming silver-gold chest fur. foxfire called out from the trees above, a series of long mournful sounds that carried over the land. the bird called for the sea every night they were away. in her heart, rhaenyra echoed the call silently. perhaps one day, they would return.

she washed him away.

he wallowed her away.

he remembered the dark woman and how it had felt much the same. only he had departed once she had found slumber in the wake of things. the earth cradled him, so far from heaven. how quick he had relapsed, how quick he had fallen into a trap of sweet honey once more.

he wept while she was away, stifled by a pride that could not handle the mere thought of all of...this.

she soon enough returned, as delicately preened as he might expect from such a unique woman. the cry of her companion overhead. he felt it in his own heart even if the reasons were far different. how desperately he wish he better spoke her language.

as if it was any importance at all to tell her more, to tell him what he wished for. perhaps she might half-heartedly understand if he...attempted.

ρυάκι, he echoed to her from hours before. but...big. the sea. perhaps she would know that word, the sea like her own name.

an island.

he wished to cry in the furs of andrés, of dove, of abraham, of anyone who had ever seemed to slightly understand him.

if the man had withdrawn further after their dalliance, rhaenyra took no notice. it was only when he spoke again that she truly seemed to see him. of the words, she recognized two; one of them, in his own language. sea. how could he have known her thoughts? wariness sharpened her gaze slightly.
«θαλασσα,» she said softly, gazing up at the trees where foxfire resided. «sea.» frosted eyes found bartholomew again, a question in them this time. surely he knew these lands; could he take her to the sea?

it's been a bit, i'd be happy to wrap and get them something at the coast?

sea.

she understood and he finally felt something akin to relief.

i will show you, he told her, and if she had no more use for this place, he would become the shepherd once more. content to lead them in the direction he knew the coast to lay.