Memory had brought him back. Ancient, dusty, they settled in his mind like burrowing rats. Sparsely recalled, forever locked away in the furthest box from his consciousness. A time when innocence had prevailed, when desires had been flippantly indulged and hearts were untempered and untested. A different day, a different time, before he had been frozen by hardship. Glittering skin and easy smiles, freely given touches and flirtatious comments whispered into avidly tuned ears. Phaedra. What little left remaining of his heart ached at her memory. He had managed to forget her for so long, burying her memory in the sea and letting it wash away all marks of his presence on the shore of his recollections. His daughters, forgotten. Everything buried underneath a layer of protective glass, only to be dragged back up like a boggart from the swamps at times such as this. He stared out, cold and distant, across the sparkling waters of the sea. Mercury eyes beat the image into submission, so familiar, sparking emotions he'd thought long killed by his own hooves. To feel again...

"It's too fucking hot." He scowled, hiding the sudden resurgence of dizzying emotion with disgust and anger. Crimson hooves lashed out at the sand, kicking it up in a cloud of cream particles. He hated these memories, these feelings, these mirages that appeared before his eyes like horrors haunting him. Sea foam eyes and a beautiful smile, a promise of loyalty his fallen angel had never desired to swear to another. He could have had her, could have ended her trysts, kept in a glass display for him alone. But he had feared for her, for her safety, as two lives grew from within her that he had put there. Two lives he had never been a part of. He had failed his angel in every way he possibly could have. Had further failed her by letting the blackness swallow up his memories, his emotions. Tolio had thought forgetting her was better.

He should have known she would always have a cavern where she stayed in his body. Constant. Unavoidable.

"What now, Phaedra? Is this the end? Come now, my little fallen angel. Why don't we revisit some memories?" He called into empty air, feeling far older and more weary than ever before.

He never should have returned. Ignorance was bliss after all.

@[Phaedra]

Wingbeats.

Deja vu consumed him. Sugared words and naive promises, the brightness of his own soul glaringly obvious in even his own memories. For long moments he prayed, though he was no religious man, that his ears had deceived him. Was it irony that drew them together one more time? Or some sick desire on the part of the Fates? For it was no trick of his mind or mistaken rustling of leaves that had teased and whispered into his aurals. Mercury eyes turned, slow and predatory, sliding over the waves and the pale sands that were devoured beneath them. Turned skyward. Like a falling star or castaway angel she was as bright and eye-catching as she had always been. Phaedra. A mere name to any other mortal, and yet to him so much more. His kryptonite, his crutch, his curse. She was both the knife six inches deep in the flesh of his back and the winged savior that pulled him from the depths of hell he so often called home.

Like an arrow she dives down, an osprey that skims the water, but she is far more magnificent than such a simple unimpressive bird. She does not have to spray the water about in liquid diamonds to attract his attention to her; she has always had it. Freely given, no returns, no desire to ever have it placed upon another. Maybe in past times she had been called captivating. Did they know how truthful such a statement was? They were the lucky ones, for he had been captivated in an entirely wholesome way, and he was chained to her forever. As they stood staring at one another, weathered and aged from their counterparts who had stood in their same positions seasons ago, he did not need to see her beauty to be reminded of why he loved her. Unlike those she ensnared and beguiled into her web of beauty with devastating lies that tasted of sugar, he had fallen in love not with the crystal creature she puppeteered, but the fearsome spy he had worked so hard to know.

A smirk teased pale lips, the two concealing that which connected them, their emotions, in favor of the same old game they'd always concocted. But he was no longer the innocent babe that had so cheerily replied to such words in the past. "Only with a beautiful dame at my side," he smoothly replied. He had grown wise to her words, had learned from them, and while she had metamorphosed into an enchantress he had taken a page from her book and embodied her. Perhaps he was no prince charming, far too bloody for such a pure title, but he was the devil's son with a seductive gaze and lips that whispered delicious sin into unsuspecting ears. They were far too evenly matched these days.

Like a predator he advances upon her, circling her slowly, feasting on the supple flesh beneath his gaze. Oh, she had changed, of that he was aware. No longer pristine, despite the magic that lured others into such thoughts. Tolio knew her body in every way one could know another, and noted each change that would seem invisible to any other. His own was scarred and hardened, but still as bloody and intense against the pale sands as it had always been. Coiling around he faces her once more, but his smirk has dissipated, gazing upon her with a fierce intensity. Words do not come to his tongue. What is he intended to say?

But she has always been his weakness.

Silver eyes soften and something like weariness hardens the chiseled lines of his face. "You're as brilliant as I remember. Though I'm sure you've had no lack of compliments." He had always been accepting of her ways, even if he may have desired a monogamous relationship he would have never demanded she change for him. But perhaps there is a tinge of jealousy, if she remembers him as he does her, one that only she could hope to detect these days. And maybe if she listens hard enough, she can hear the apology.

@[Phaedra]