dead air [salome]

[Lexx]

The dawn, when it broke, was watery and gray. Naiad still woke early, despite a lack of bright morning sunlight, and pushed her way out of the den Iiona had set aside for her use. Her healing leg twinged uncomfortably every now and again, but she put her weight on it regardless in order to limp out into the clearing. She took in a deep breath, hoping for the scent of the sea. Distantly, there was the faintest scent of brine, but Naiad was well within the tangled, jungle-like forestland of the island. In the gaps of the thick canopy of leaves and branches overhead, her pale eyes found the sky to be choked with thick, dark clouds that clearly promised rain to the islands. Naiad also knew, from watching the ocean on the other side of the channel, that the waters would likely look white-capped and feral, stirred to madness by the gusts of an oncoming storm. The idea of it made her heart race. She loved the ocean when it was still and clear, like it had been in the early hours when she’d swum to Sharktooth, but she also loved it when it was wild and alive, and she could feel its crashing rhythm in her pulse from where she stood at its edge. She glanced around—it was silent and still—and then limped along the well-traversed path toward the beach. She doubted Iiona would miss her, and the leader had asked her to spend her probationary month learning about the island and its culture, after all. Everything, she reasoned to herself, came back to the sea. As soon as the soil began to turn to sand beneath her paws, and as the scent of brine grew stronger in the air, Naiad could hear the ocean roaring. She hesitated in the shadow of the trees, exactly at the line where the forest relinquished its grip of the island to the beach, and watched the gray water as it pulled and seethed and crashed fiercely against the island. There was no calm pattern to its ebb and flow today—the waves seemed to break against each other as often as they broke against the shallows. She could not see the other side of Somerset from where she stood, for it had been swallowed by the dark sea and the dark clouds. The wind was ferocious here; it felt almost like a wall, pushing her back bodily from the water. Only a fool would go swimming today, she told herself, and then stepped out onto the beach anyway. Nothing had changed, and yet she knew her body was different—Chaos had made her better-adapted to the water than before. She almost seemed to glide over the sand, undeterred by the wind. Would it be just as violent beneath the water as it was above? Naiad wondered, with her white toes in the frigid surf. Perhaps it would be like stepping into a muffled, peaceful world, far below the howling winds and angry clouds. She took in a breath. Without having ever consciously decided to go swimming, she prepared herself to leap into the ocean. "speaking" table by lexx

Lirriel A BAD POST FOR YOU MY LOVE

[Lirriel]

[googlefont=Montserrat]

[attr="class","sin"]

[attr="class","sin2"]

[attr="class","sin3"]Beware, beware, be skeptical

[attr="class","sin4"]Of their smiles, their smiles of plated gold

[attr="class","sin5"]Before a storm strikes, there is often stillness. For those who live upon an island, this silence is as disturbing as the quiet that falls when a predator successfully kills its prey.

It was this strange absence of noise that awoke Salome.

As was his want, he kept away from the main bulk of the pack, but with Naiad’s entrance into it, he had attempted to stick closer, oftentimes choosing to bed down in particularly thick bushes, where he might be hidden from the view of his other packmates. He chose to hide because it was natural for him, but also because of Iiona’s words as he had left her side on that fateful day Naiad joined the pack.

Who was she to speak of riptides, when she brought a blooded warrior into their midst? But he could only imagine her response if he were to speak, silken and softly, of the nose sharks had for blood – and the Sharktooth Pack was bleeding, a thin wound that was beginning to split wider and wider.

He had first scented the blood with Iiona’s rise, and he had felt it splash across his face as her temper overcame her more rational mind, as the world turned upside down for one terrifying moment. He knew that he had pushed her too far then, but he also knew how easy it would be to work a fang into that injury, make it widen, make it fester. Make it bleed.

But there was Naiad, and there was Azain, and there was his job – and there was, most important of all, himself. But he did not fear the status of outcast as he once had. There was Naiad now, and if she could be so brave as to begin a new life, was so willing to scar herself to find a purpose that extended beyond her simple existence –

Well, he was willing to try and be something more than a coward.

So, when he became aware of Naiad, slipping away from the pack’s resting grounds as if led by an invisible phantom, he only narrowed his eyes. He traced her path, a ghost floating between his slumbering pack, until she was gone, spirited away in the direction of the ocean.

He rose almost immediately afterwards, only pausing to shake the leaves that clung to his coat, the scent of jungle soil lingering in his nose as he set off after her.

There was this sense of unease that he could not quite place as he silently tracked her through the jungle. He only became aware of it as he broke from the cover of trees, and his eyes spied the grey, grumbling storm clouds that were beginning to surround the island.

On their own, they would have meant only an oncoming storm. But the water drew his attention next, and his eyes hardened to jade, staring past the white form of Naiad toward the sea – it raged and toiled, tumbling upon itself and kicking up spray. Above, the shriek of gulls was conspicuously absent.

He did not dare yet think the word, though it sprung to his mind almost immediately, a willing fish between his jaws. The shaman had said nothing. The shaman would have said something.

There was no danger, he told himself.

Still, seeing Naiad so close to the water was enough to churn his paws, and he padded onto the sand.

“Naiad,” he called, and the wind snatched at his voice, threatening to tear it away and pull it up into the sky. Stubbornly, he continued, “What are you doing?”

He had to remind himself she was not an islander by birth – there was a chance she was only curious as to how the sea spat and raged. And yet, as he stared hard at her back, the unease in his belly expanded, greedily swallowing up his added worries: if she leapt into the sea, he had no guarantee his swimming abilities would be enough to pull them back to shore. It raged too vehemently, too fiercely – and that he doubted his own skills only further deepened his disquiet.

This was a day of wrongs, and the longer he stood facing the sea, the more wrong it became.

There is no danger, he told himself – and knew he did not believe it.

[attr="class","sin6"]

[attr="class","sinner"]Lexx	[attr="class","sinner"]stock by ria p.	719
that feel when i live in a hurricane-ridden place and still can't think of how best to describe that space before a storm hits lmao

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[Lexx]

In some dim part of her mind, she knew she was being foolish. Today, she would not find the ocean to be an easy swim, or a kind one. This certainly was not the time to test the power Chaos had nestled inside of her, for all of her newfound and unextraordinary magic could not win against the jaws of a storm-wild sea. She remembered Iiona’s golden eyes, flashing warily at Salome, as she warned him about riptides. Her toes curled into the sand and the wind slammed against her, pulling roughly at her white fur, as if to shove her back from the ocean’s waiting mouth. Still, she hesitated, craning her neck toward the foam-white water. Still, she imagined herself knifing through the waves, as swift and glittering as a fish, because some unnamed part of her had been made alight by Chaos’s touch, and she imagined she could not die so long as the goddess had an eye on her. She took a breath. “Naiad,” came a wind-muffled shout, at war with the roaring in her ears. Naiad startled at the sound of her name and turned. Salome was loping down the beach toward her, and in the darkness of the oncoming storm, he almost looked to be the same color as the sand—gray. Behind him, she could see how the wiry palm trees along the coast were being roughly tugged back and forth by the winds in the distance, in a way that seemed terribly ominous. Another gust buffeted her, and she finally stepped back from the sea’s edge. “What are you doing?” he asked as he drew closer. Naiad went to meet him, all wind-ruffled and salt-kissed, as white as a bone in the midst of the gray of the coming storm. “I,” she began, and realized that if she wanted to be heard by Salome, she was going to have to speak loud. Her mouth parted, but as she truly looked at Salome, she felt robbed of her voice. His expression did not tell her much—it wasn’t that he was expressionless, but rather that he seemed to always be carefully schooling his features into neutral calm. Today, however, there was something strange in his jade-green gaze. Naiad leaned closer, so close that her nose nearly touched his. It was probably shocking, to stare so brazenly into another wolf’s eyes. In their unspoken language, in the barest sense of the gesture, it was a direct challenge. Naiad, who was shy and incredibly nonconfrontational, would never have done something like this before meeting Chaos, even despite how she considered Salome her first true friend in the world. But now she leaned in close, and stared him down, and looked for the smallest fleck of his expression that was honest. In his eyes, she saw something akin to unease—although, she reminded herself, she had just shoved into his personal space without his blessing. She made herself step back, ignoring the part of her heart that cried out over how she felt safest near him. “Are you worried, Salome?” she asked him, as softly as she could with the wind tearing around them. Naiad gazed at him—sand-gold when he stood beneath the sun, brindled with black and russet, his throat as white as coral. Salome, she thought, was alive with the colors of his beautiful island, but today, the storm had washed him out. She was struck with the sudden, terrible urge to lie to him then, to reassure him that she hadn’t really been about to dive into the waves, but Salome was dear to her, so she told the truth. “I was going to swim,” she confessed to him, “but you caught me.” She looked back to the seething ocean. “I wanted to know what it would be like at the seafloor.” "speaking" table by lexx

Lirriel LMAO! i don't know how to describe it either, bc i did my best to stay inside as much as possible when typhoons hit this summer. i guess the pressure drops a bunch as the storm approaches...but can wolves feel that? can humans? i studied rocks in school, not weather, i'm a DUMBASS

[Lirriel]

[googlefont=Montserrat]

[attr="class","sin"]

[attr="class","sin2"]

[attr="class","sin3"]Beware, beware, be skeptical

[attr="class","sin4"]Of their smiles, their smiles of plated gold

[attr="class","sin5"]He stepped to her side quickly.

The wind tore and tugged at him, clawed hands that grabbed fistfuls of his fur, seeking to tear him apart. Some unknowable pressure had settled just beneath his skin, expanding outward as if desperate to escape into the open air. The brine he tasted upon his tongue, flung up by the callous waves, consisted of rotten things – wrong things.

It was all so wrong.

But Naiad was a blazing light, the white flag of safety and surrender, and he pressed toward her much as he might seek the surface when diving beneath the waves.

But when she turned to face him, Salome felt himself sucked back under.

He almost thought it a dream – but he had not dreamed since he was a yearling, when the pack had caught his fantasies between their jaws and crushed them to shards of silver. And, he knew, if this had been a true dream, he would not feel so attached to this reality. He could have shattered it – instead, it threatened to cut him.

If his eyes did not waver, it was only because he was too taken aback to truly formulate a thought. They were seaglass, reflecting the ghostly creature that was away then close. Naiad moved in a stutter-like fashion, and Salome realized, in some long-forgotten corner of his mind, that it was not she that was far and then near – rather, it was the way he perceived her. His brain, in some attempt to protect itself, processed the world around him in snapshots. He was not able to perceive her movement, only the start and end of her journey.

He breathed out a sigh, willing himself to remember – and the world resumed. Once more he heard the scream of the waves, the groan of the trees. He saw the ghost that stood before him, and though his ears tipped backwards, he did not allow them to flatten.

He would not be a coward.

But he knew something of gods. He had been granted a boon by Chaos, though he had never truly sighted her. And he knew in this moment that Naiad was beyond herself, beyond him, beyond this island.

Had she sunk to seafoam at his touch, had she unraveled and spun away in the dancing winds – had anything happened, he would not have questioned its occurrence, only its meaning.

But she was Naiad. And he could not so easily forget that dawning day, when she had been heartrendingly mortal. She had bled his heart, had spoken his dreams, had returned to him a piece so long forgotten he no longer knew where to place it.

When she moved away, he breathed.

His green eyes remembered something of themselves, and the gaze he offered her was soft and questioning, a tentative tether stretched out. Take it, he wanted to tell her. Remember.

“I am worried,” he said, but again the gale conspired against him, throwing his words into the sea.

And perhaps his heart lightened, the smallest burden shed, to hear her explanation. She was not so far gone he could not catch her, not so far away he could not run to her. He looked with her, examined the rolling grey waves.

He smiled, a small, sad tilt of his lips. “I cannot stop you,” he said and trusted the wind to carry his words to her ears. If it was so desperate to have her, surely it would approve of what he said. This willing release. “But I think if you went, you would not come back.”

He could not fight the ocean; he was aware of how powerless he was. Some of his anxiety dissipated with the knowledge, and the heaviness beneath his skin lessened. He could not stop her, no, but perhaps he could remind her of what this island was, of the sacrifice she had made to reach its shores.

[attr="class","sin6"]

[attr="class","sinner"]Lexx	[attr="class","sinner"]stock by ria p.	651
okay this went in a different direction, thanks for making me a liar sal

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[Lexx]

The unease in his eyes stuttered, sharpened, flattened into something like sadness. The howling wind and crashing sea faded, and with it went the throbbing sound of Naiad’s heart in her ears. She breathed in, and she breathed out. She was balanced on the edge. She was looking for the kind, genuine Salome she’d met on the beach, the Salome that the late summer sunlight loved. She knew that sometimes, his heart felt something that his face would not show around other wolves, and she longed to be the exception. For a heartbeat longer, he was hidden from her, and then his ears flicked back, and his expression was not only readable but tangible, and she nearly gasped. For a shimmering moment, Naiad wondered if she had seen too much, for she realized now she had been wrong. Salome had not looked worried. Instead, she thought, he had looked afraid. She was afraid, too, of what he had seen in the storm, and in the ocean, and in her, poised a breath away from its surface. And then his mouth moved. The storm resumed around her, and she pressed her ears forward to try and catch his words before they could be ripped away by the winds. I am worried, he said; or, at least, she thought he said. She wanted to move forward in order to hear him clearly, but she hesitated, for it suddenly felt as though there was a line between their paws, drawn in the sand, and she did not dare cross it again. His eyes were gentle. Even in the overcast world around them, they were so, so green. “I cannot stop you,” he said. Naiad’s breath fluttered in her throat. She could hardly hear him over the storm’s screaming; she put every ounce of her concentration into understanding him. “But I think if you went, you would not come back.” Her mouth fell open instantly, in order to tell him she would come back. How could she ever leave? But then she let herself look back into his soft, kind eyes. She let herself look for the truth in them that she’d wanted to see so badly, and understanding kindled in her. She was wild right now, as wild as the sea, and Salome could see it in her. She was tumultuous and vast and ancient, and her blood was saltwater and muddied red-gold, and all of the things that she was and would become were crammed into one tiny, fragile, mortal body. She could dive into the ocean, and exist in it as easily as a sea creature could, and she could stay there forever, because it was where half of her body yearned to be. What would it be like, to explore the powers Chaos had promised her? Would she truly swim away from everything she’d thought she wanted so badly? But no matter what the ocean-pulse part of her body wanted, the other, mortal half of her body yearned to be here. She wanted a home. She wanted Sharktooth, from its shimmering coasts to its thick, humid jungles. She wanted to serve Iiona. She wanted Salome. Right now, more than she wanted Undine, more than she wanted Chaos, she wanted Salome. She let out a shaking breath and fixed her silvery eyes on him again. She kept her body turned slightly away from the ocean. “Be careful of riptides,” she said, softly, tiredly, not meaning for Salome to hear. Was she the riptide, then, that would tear Salome out to sea? What horrible thing had Iiona seen in her? Was it the same as what Salome had only just discovered inside her on the beach? Naiad knew that she could do two things. She could tell Salome that she was fine, thank you very much, and then test out her Chaos-given magic anyway. She would either come back to Sharktooth happily, or she would find a new home on the seabed. Or she could come away from the spitting, white-capped ocean, and all of its clawing reefs and hidden currents, and choose safety, which is exactly what she would have done had she not met a small, silver goddess in the guise of a fox days earlier. She stepped forward again, almost stumbling from the strength of the gale that pushed against her. Her head was hung low, as if in shame, and her ears were flat against her skull. The fever of hissing seafoam and tumbling waves inside of her had faded; she saw now that this storm was stronger than anything she could safely weather in the ocean, even with the ability to hold her breath and shelter below the waves. “No,” she told him, “you can stop me, because this is where I belong,” and then she pressed her head to his chest. "speaking" table by lexx

Lirriel NAIAD'S APOLOGY FOR BEING A SNAKE EARLIER

[Lirriel]

[googlefont=Montserrat]

[attr="class","sin"]

[attr="class","sin2"]

[attr="class","sin3"]Beware, beware, be skeptical

[attr="class","sin4"]Of their smiles, their smiles of plated gold

[attr="class","sin5"]She did not enter the sea.

Instead, she wavered, the two full moons that had once been her eyes fully focused on Salome. He did not stagger from their force, though it was a close thing. In this moment she was a creature from legend, some great, glittering sea serpent – and he almost wanted to laugh at himself, for daring to cast himself in the role of some tempting snake; he was a garter snake, against this ancient leviathan.

But he refused to back down. He knew, hidden somewhere behind that old, storm-crazed gaze, was the meek creature who had ridden into his life upon the dawn’s dancing waves. He was still frightened, yes, but he knew something of the beast he now faced – and that was that it was Naiad, a part of her that was as powerful as the ocean.

But hadn’t he already proven he had a proficiency for seeking out those who were not meant for him? And he thought – he resolved he would stand by this rampaging sea contained in a weak, insignificant wolf’s body.

Naiad breathed, and it was as if she expelled some of the seawater from her lungs. She looked at him with normal, beautiful eyes and uttered something of riptides. In the screaming winds, it was only the singular word he picked up on, but it was enough for his teeth to set, his eyes to blaze – because if a primordial god like the sea could not chase him away, what was an alpha’s words?

An alpha, he reminded himself, who had looked into Naiad’s eyes and seen the forthcoming squall. The loudest voices in his head instantly reacted – who was she to decry their very lifeblood? Who was she, when her current infatuation had a void where once an eye had been. When he stank of blood and kept counsel only with Iiona?

Who was she to try and counsel Salome, when she had been the one counseled against him from their earliest days.

What bitterness had begun to crawl up his body, digging beneath his skin like insistent, stinging thorns – instantly shrank back, disappearing into the shadows that ran thin and sickly beneath the overcast sky. They were chased away as Naiad stepped closer, bringing with her a shimmering presence that always hung over her – it was something godly, Salome could now recognize, something calming, something moon-filled.

In truth, she was almost chased by the gale, lashing out against a child that was now so easily turning her back on its proffered gifts. And for who? For what? A wretch like Salome, who would never hold god’s blood, who would never wield powers that cowered others – whose very presence within his pack was tainted with a potent, green toxin, the sharp slant of his eyes enough to drive others away on principle alone?

If deities watched over the two in this instant before the full force of the hurricane bore down on Sharktooth Island, they must have laughed, to see these two bumbling fools, struggling to connect when they were so far apart.

Salome felt himself stiffen at Naiad’s touch, mounting panic fighting with the warmth that flooded through him, alighting him from within, chasing away the grey shadows that had clung to him like cobwebs. He was not one for touch – could not remember the last time he had been touched so fully. It had been one of his parents, when he was younger, of that he was sure. But it must have been only a moment, a gentle press of comfort for a child who was already forced to shoulder his parents’ sins. This was – infinity, endless.

She was so warm.

She was so warm, and he stood there, unsure of what to say, knowing whatever words he could speak would never be enough to describe his feelings – because he had only ever learned how to cut and tear and nick; had never learned what it meant to express gratitude or joy or any number of other indescribable emotions.

He settled for silence, instead carefully, clumsily – as if he was a young wolf, unburdened but for the fear of acting improperly – fitting his neck over the curve of hers, pressing his face into the wing of one shoulder.

The wispy strands of fur that waved there pressed into the velvet of his face, and he said softly, voice thick, threatening to overflow, “Then let me do more than stop you. Let me take you away from this place.”

He was still too new to this, still too uncertain of how best to process this, to speak beyond that. He could only hope this startling intimacy they partook in would spill out all the heart words he could not yet say.

[attr="class","sin6"]

[attr="class","sinner"]Lexx	[attr="class","sinner"]stock by ria p.	793
ok one day they won't have a thread where this ends up happening lmao

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[Lexx]

She bumped against him, and felt the way he immediately stiffened, as if bracing himself against her touch. She knew, the second they were skin-to-skin, separated only by fur soaked by seaspray and the slight drizzle that had begun around them, that she had truly overstepped that invisible line, drawn in the sand. For a moment, she was afraid he would step back. She knew that if he did, she would let him go, regardless of how she wanted to plead with him, Don’t, don’t, let me stay here, let me borrow this comfort. Naiad needed to touch him right now, because it grounded her to the sand, the earth, the jungle she had slept in. It returned her to herself, to stand so close that she could feel his heat, and hear his heart. Salome stayed where he was. Naiad could have cried from the gratitude she felt toward him, to merely stand there and accept that this was the thing she needed. When another moment passed, and he remained still, Naiad made herself breathe, slow and deep, and ignored the crashing ocean in favor of his muffled heartbeat. It was a little frantic, and a bit hard to hear, but she didn’t require it to be a steady, loud sound. It simply meant that he was alive, and that he could bleed, just like her. Naiad was not anything more than what he was, because in the end, she had a heart, too, and it was slamming against her ribs. She had never lived with a pack; she had never known other wolves. It was doubtless that Naiad needed to learn respect for the personal space of her new packmates; she told herself she would apologize to Salome later for completely disregarding what boundaries he might have. Throughout her childhood, however, she had always sought excuses to touch her mother, who was so beautiful and ethereal that she looked like she could dissolve into one of the moonbeams pouring through the dark branches at night. Naiad had always been afraid of the day Illyra would vanish, because somehow, even when she had been very young, she had known it was inevitable. Touch was the easiest way to be reassured that she was still there, and that things had not yet changed. Touch, now, was the easiest way to reassure herself that Salome was not disillusioned with the strange creature she had turned out to be. Slowly, he shifted, and then she felt his head settle over her neck, and then press against her fur. Oh, she thought. Oh. Naiad had needed to touch him in order to ground herself; but she had not, for a single moment, considered being touched in return. Her breath stuttered in her throat as she held it, suddenly afraid to move. She did not want to disrupt this very rare, very wonderful thing, because she had never been held before, and was afraid of how suddenly, how intensely, how desperately she craved it. So this is what it’s like, she told herself, trying not to shake. This is what it’s like, to be alive, and to be comforted, and to feel reassured that you won’t be left behind. Her ears were burning with shame to think she had been balanced on the precipice of following in her mother’s footsteps and vanishing, because, like Illyra, her head had been too full of gods to think of the mortals she’d leave behind. “Then let me do more than stop you,” he murmured into her fur, and she could have trembled from how gentle his voice was. It was like she was some fragile, feral animal, while Salome was a creature of reason. He was wary, she thought, but he still wanted to understand, to help. “Let me take you away from this place.” She nodded against his chest. “This storm,” she said, struck by quiet, awful certainty, “is too strong. It’s a monster, Salome.” It was too large, and growing ever-fiercer the longer they stood upon the beach; the air was churning with some strange energy that she could barely sense, and yet could not possibly begin to place. She gently, gently disentangled herself from him, despite the way her heart cried out about wanting to stay close. The ocean could not touch her now; its call fell on deaf ears. Her mind was full of him alone. “Please,” she told him. She felt steadier than ever; she was ready to leave. “Let’s leave the sea behind.” "speaking" table by lexx

Lirriel IT'S SO LATE AND...SO CHEESY... LOL

[Lirriel]

[googlefont=Montserrat]

[attr="class","sin"]

[attr="class","sin2"]

[attr="class","sin3"]Beware, beware, be skeptical

[attr="class","sin4"]Of their smiles, their smiles of plated gold

[attr="class","sin5"]Had the storm swept upon him in that moment, he would not have noticed.

It was Naiad and him, entangled in a quiet embrace. From their joining sprang an entire universe, and he submerged himself within it. This new world ran blue-silver, the milky white of an endlessly shining moon bathing the black waters beneath it, edging the slowly rolling waves a hoarfrost shade.

Within this world, it was only the two of them – and even as he thought of their darkened meetings, he longed to shift the scene: and the idyllic image dissolved, displaced by a yellow sun that warmed blue-green tides, an island shore with sand the cream of a pup’s belly fur, bordered by trees that were as sharp and vibrant as his own eyes.

And he thought, he wished, that he might introduce Naiad to this place – this warm, sun-lit paradise, where shadows provided relief from the heat and not hiding spots where he might skulk and slink. Where there were no whispers and there were no gods – and there were no storms, bearing down upon them.

There was – silence.

His touch drove the breath from her, and he held his own in turn; she had not turned away his touches before, had gladly met him with an honest that was heart-breaking after years of suspicion. And her acceptance had been a double-edged sword, because it had cut him and now cut her in return: she had ushered in this quiet trust, this soft belief that she might appreciate a return of his affection.

He held her as gently, as kindly, as he might hold his young self – here was the affection he had never received, here was the caring kindness that expected nothing in return, only offered itself up. It was the brush of a butterfly’s wing, the gentle caress of a frolicking breeze, the hushed sigh of the sun’s breath – it was natural and unexpectant, and it offered everything while wanting nothing.

Some quiet part of him whispered that he could think of something, could want for something, but he cast the thought away almost immediately; what it spoke was not something so easily gained, nor was it something a wretch such as himself could ever expect.

This was enough, he told himself, and a thorn embedded itself within his chest.

Her movement drew him back into the reality they were faced with. He was unwilling, but he turned his eyes seaward once more, even as her voice thrummed against his throat.

Yes, he thought, it was a monster. A monster that had threatened to swallow her, had offered a path that was tempting in its destruction – and he knew something of her windswept fancies, for all that he had turned his back on such ideas long ago.

But her blood had responded, in a way his never had, and he dropped his chin to meet her gaze forwardly as their bodies separated at last. Torn from her warmth, he shivered momentarily.

What are you, Naiad? Who were your parents, that you are mortal one moment and moonbeams next?

He did not voice his questions, only peering into her softly-glowing eyes for a heartbeat.

“Yes,” he said softly, and there was an undercurrent of awe, fascination, fear, that flavored his voice almost bitter. “We must warn the pack.”

And he turned to lead her then, the skin of Salome sloughing off, the lead fisher emerging with eyes flashing acidic green in the gloom of the day. Because he could not be Salome right now, for all that he wished to further safeguard Naiad, for all that he wished to continue standing at her side; his responsibilities would not allow that, and the mask slid onto his face with a comforting familiarity.

[attr="class","sin6"]

[attr="class","sinner"]Lexx	[attr="class","sinner"]stock by ria p.	627
end thread? lol

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