Each breath seems to wash over her face, the beat of his heart a mere moment away from her surely being able to hear it. He comes into her wings like a lover, like a missing piece. Pale feathers clasp around him, and she shivers against her will, caught in the flow of her emotions as they stand in the river together. They are shrouded in a veil of feathers, pinks and whites and golds. He is warm and enticing in her grip, and she can't help but shuffle a tiny bit closer, as if they could possibly crawl in one another's skin and never be alone again. Didn't they deserve that? Was the world too cruel to grant them their happiness, swift and baseless as it was? No. She won't allow that to happen. Her wings tighten subtly against his sides as if mimicking her decisive thoughts.

Some pinnacle is reached as he closes his eyes, and their foreheads meet, hornless, bare. Others may have hated them for what they lacked, but they would never be able to experience the deep connection their stances formed. Forehead to forehead, as close as two souls could get without crossing a line she knew was wavering between them. One she'd just as soon see dissolve and fade away like the ripples in the creek they stood in.

A soft, deep sound curls around her like smoke and whiskey, and just as intoxicating. Wordless, as things used to be, so long ago. When they were not even thought of, mere molecules to be created thousands of years later. She responds, a soft whicker of noise through her lips. For his desperation, she responds with softness, with encouragement. It's okay, she's saying. Let go. What she's urging him to let go of, she doesn't know. She can only sense that he is struggling, that there is a peak he has to reach for him to find solace.

Aloud, he seems to do just that.

Muriel likely would have been far more embarrassed by the notion if she had not met Argen. Instead, she merely bumped her forehead firmly against Gull's and smiled until she could feel light flowing into her pores. "I'm right here. You already have me." It is whispered for his ears, and she can't help the warm peacefulness that stirs in her belly. Her wings arch higher and she allows him to take from her. Everything. And this time, it doesn't feel so much like she's empty and shelled. No, this time, she feels whole. She feels healed.