Lilómiel’s wings rustle and sigh, their hollow cadence an inutile complaint of his wearying temper. Her ears twist, flick, towards the sound, hardly audible and yet all too loud and out of place in the chill forest’s immortal silence; and her nostrils cusp, peaked ridges portraying vast disapproval. Why must he complain?  From deep within her temper rises, dark and foul, her ancestry’s  simultaneous gift and curse (determination and cruelty, all in one); and there in the dwelling of their minds, the overlap of him and her, she impresses upon him her weight, pinning him down, weighting each of his lithe limbs; and he fights, writhes, against her selfish constraints, snarling and snapping internally to no avail. Stop, he cries out—but she does no such thing, instead tightening her grip into a choke, and it is only moments ere Ophelia’s arrival that she softens her impassive control, lets loosen the tether between the two of them. 

The dragon makes no sound, nor movement, but he seethes, eyes glowing with vermilion violence and amber rage, each muscle locked in adamant obedience. While he does condone the hierarchy, and the order of things as were made in life, this, this raw need sowed in Nymeria (one which grows every day) has only ever chafed against his soul, has only ever acted as a noose would around his neck, one which threatens to, at any moment, pull tight. 

Together their eyes, quadruple, wrathful suns, are tugged towards the pale figure who appeared. It takes a second for Nymeria to place that pale figure, the marble shoulders and bloodied mane, the bicolored lenses; but only a second. Who wouldn’t know Ophelia, who had, at some point, become a legend, a figurehead?—the Forsaken, a distant story, an island unto herself. And her and Nymeria were related, if but only distantly; and a strange thought that made, the moment it crossed Nymeria’s head, because it reminded her that her bloodline was bred of heroes and gods and champions. That was always what Mother said, in her calloused inflections and acidic tones—that Volterra and her were meant to be legends, that they were born with blue blood running through their veins. Sometimes, it was just easy to forget that. 

Muninn, Nymeria’s aunt declares, and her silver dragon lets out a chirp, akin to those that Lil so often vocalizes. The daughter of the skull-faced and bone-painted (who was so different than all her ancestors and more akin to all of them at the same time) blinked, breathed, easing back a step as the Forsaken murmurs something indecipherable. Twisted up at the top of the tree Lilómiel watches, sharp-eyed and silent.

There is no sound as an owl, great and white, slips between the dark trees; and there is hardly a delay before said owl is right in front of Nymeria, golden-eyed and fierce. 

Nym’s breath seems to snag between her teeth, and she chokes on her own saliva. 

Sinews creak and groan as there is movement from those standing together. Betting on stillness over a swift escape, and hoping to go undiscovered in her utter immobility, Nymeria only breathes, heart thundering too loud in her ears. She isn’t certain how the denizens of this place treated children—but she did recognize that she had (to some degree, at least) breached thresholds of courtesy in what she had done. It doesn’t matter anyway. They wouldn’t find her (surely?); she had been so careful, so quiet. And, as it is written out, it mattered not what she hoped in face of what was, for blue eyes like chips of ice pinned on hers. Yet there is no word, and only repose; thenceforth Nymeria returned the favor in thick silence. 

Not for long.

How would you feel, if you were only a girl staring in the face of an old man with no words for you and judgemental eyes?
Victimized, perhaps?

Nymeria too. 
On his tree Lilómiel quivers in wrath and rage, burns and smoulders at the indignity, and flame licks up from his nostrils, plumes of smoke spiralling around his face.

There’s nothing she can think to say, so instead she asks the question bleating on repeat in her head: “How did you know I was here?"


Nymeria & Lilómiel

I'm a wanderess
I'm a one night stand
Don't belong to no city
Don't belong to no man