His eyes—yes, it's cliché, but it's true—are like twin pools of blood, dark and glistening with weathered ambition and desire. Nymeria doesn't need to look in his eyes to see his hunger; there's this way he holds himself, like a carapace against the soil and shit of the world, that conveys this sense of majesty her mother could never capture. Had she known her father, she might've said that it was Tyradon's spirit shining through, but she did not know, nor would she likely ever know. So instead she looked, and despite the remnants of disgust wedged in her heart and the uncertainty that had brewed in her breast, she admired him for putting on display the whole of his personality. She always hid, always smiled, always spoke with such careful calculation—but he never did. Sometimes she wished she had the courage to do that... but she didn't.

Then his muzzle is touching hers—and for the briefest of moments before they embrace in their own small way, she caught sight of the two narrow, parallel scars etched between his nostrils like writhing gray snakes. Fool, she thought with a pang of sadness, but without knowing if it was directed to herself or her brother. They had been young then, delicate and long-legged, still safe within their mother's embrace. That had ended too quickly.

He shakes his head, and she wants to pity him, but she can't rouse herself to care enough, to take back her pretty words. I'm sorry brother. It wasn't intentional—it just... just happened. She was a deceiver, a manipulator; and there was too much of a risk to let him think what he wanted about her, too much of a risk in letting the relationship between them ebb and flow on its own. They had drifted their own ways and the bridge between them had begun to rot, and she would not allow it, not today, not ever. As brother and sister they were bound, and she—she would come out on top, despite what she feared, despite what she felt to be true in her heart. "Don't be a dumbass Volterra," Nymeria says softly in repose, her voice dark red lips posed for a kiss and the flutter of her eyelashes nubile fingers awaiting a ring. She could elaborate here, embellish the truth, but instead she lets slide the topic, slipping into her next line of thought.

The tilt back of his ears, the flicker of uncertainty or anger, is an easy warning that she must be careful. Instead of allowing her expression to shift, her lips upturn joyously, teasingly, a jab at his ego. "And you should know I do not often speak openly." Come on Volterra. She half-heartedly hoped he would realize he was being deceived—but she didn't quite think so. In his eyes she had seen the truth: that he was well and truly entranced by the curl of her mane and the sway of her hips.

Was this only her brother, or was this all brothers?

Maybe her thoughts were unfounded.

Here she allows sadness to drift over her features, softening her mouth to a downward quirk and gentling her piercing gaze. "You never tell me you love me anymore," and it felt like she was treading on dangerous ground, felt like she was jumping blind. It was true, she thought; they never said anything that meant anything, not since they were children. It is also true we never see each other.

"I'm so tired of being alone."

There's a tear now, shining on her cheek, echoing the beautiful, chaste desire written all across her face. "Don't leave me again."