Every little thing seems so endless, stretched far and wide to the point where there will never be a stop. She searches for that one stop, the break between land and water, where the sky melds perfectly into a spread of blue. She’s ready to disappear, to fade into the arms of the sea and live a happy life without the constant barrage of socialization.
Maybe the sea would be the one to love her through all of her mistakes and flaws.
Thin water splashes with each step. When she grows tired enough, she’ll drag her gravestone hooves along the ground, drag them until her legs tell her they cannot take anymore. She will let herself crumble then. She’ll give up and think about her mistakes, quite possibly wither and die and let Hobgoblin live the autonomous lifestyle he wishes to cherish.
Even now, he is barely with her mentally.
His claws clutch to her champagne hide. They dig deep and guide small trails of blood out from the protective barriers of vessels and skin and out into the warm, starlit night. It’s so humid, even for a southern Tallsun. Had she grown so accustom to the dry, arid air of the desert island that she’d forgotten what humidity felt like? Lightning explodes across the sky along the horizon line. How far out was it? How long ago had it gone by, or how long would it be til it reached them?
The stars hanging over their heads feels as large and wide as the sea. Goblin spills a short chirp at the heavy cry of thunder when it rolls over their bodies. While he doesn’t mind the rain, the thunder, of all things to take down a self-proclaimed king, is enough to send him in hiding. Sort of childhood memory that didn’t go very well.
Claws that grip tighter are enough to bring out a sigh. It’s the first noise she’s made in a long time, silenced by grief and bitter, harsh agony. She drowns herself into their pools built of all the tears she’s shed.
“Thunder.”
A head turns to watch him chitter, opening leather wings wide and crouching upon a duo of scaled legs. His jaws appear to vibrate while she watches him with one eye. All of her movement stops in a single lurch that sends her brother up into the air.
The flurry of outcries that follow are enough to remind her that even though she’s seen Hobgoblin be a beast, monster of ice and depth many of times, there is still a weak and scared child living within him. Something that she’s influenced.
She wonders if she’s broken a piece of him with her sharp, blade-edged shards. Those broken pieces have increased in lethalness over the last few weeks. There’s even been a brutal chuckle split from the Rougarou and a smile sprinkled over Sikeax’s face when there was a suggestion that maybe Sikeax should learn to fight with her words and thoughts.
If they liked to change her so much, then why not let it be given back to them?
Or was it that she let herself change beneath their force, to shift blindly because she isn’t sure what makes her her just yet? She doesn’t care to think that there’s a ‘real’ Sikeax that’s meant to be her ‘real’ self out there, and if there is, she’s never taken the time to think about it’s existence. It’s only one of those things that the philosophers might have a better time thinking over.
Her eyes go to the mirror reflection painted over the thin layer of water, to herself and the image she’s let herself become. Dark scars scatter themselves around the base of her ears and along the topline of her neck. Slowly drying blood paints itself where his talons have dug into her once beautiful coat.
She actually is beautiful, with those baby blues, soft hearted and weak, selfless when she knows it’s best to be cold and cruel, just like the world wants her to be, overpowered by a heart that doesn’t even know how to poison the dying who might beg and prisoners who may need sedatives.
There is no sign of the baby she believes herself to carry. She demonizes the child when it doesn’t make her belly grow, when it doesn’t care to aid in hiding her ribs again.
“When do you think it’ll finally happen?”
Fear rumbles in like an annoying, distant noise who owns no off switch. Is it me?
Sudden bright lights force her to wince, crinkling the areas about her eyes and face into a mess of mountains and valleys while her eyes clamp shut. Hobgoblin screams about the aftercry of thunder.
“HURRY. STORM.”
Wings flap a lot harder than she’s used to hearing, screeches bellowing out endlessly when the storm could be miles and miles away, far from their reach, but she isn’t sure as of how to tell him it’s not an issue.
He never really seems to listen or care, pushing her along when his talons entangle themselves in her mane and drag her forth.


"talk"

Sikeax

She is not quiet anymore.
Where she walks, water ripples and shines, trembling in fear; where she stops, ribs rising and falling with every mammoth breath, she looks to be a fortress unto herself, so supremely confident that it is difficult to imagine her former youth as a trembling waif and ghost-eyed walker. It is not just her draft heritage that gives her such size—credit is due more so to the hardness in her red eyes, the callous quirk to her ears, and the sharp cut to her smile. Empress or consort she was not, but for all the air she carried herself with, she may as well have been.

And this was her domain.

Nymeria wanders in beholden silence, with only her reflection and Lilómiel for company, and her head full of empty thoughts. Reality seemed to fade away around here; the endless sky and sea, the warped horizon, it created a fantastical environment that was more conductive to idle daydreams than action. She couldn't help but love it—and even embrace it.

It was not a thing most warlords' daughters should do. And perhaps that's what bothered her so much.

Nymeria was sick of what she thought she should do. She was sick of feeling the weight on her shoulders of long-abandoned obligations. She lived as a shell of what she could be—a broken promise, a wasted dream. And if she were to just reach out—shake herself awake... but that felt to be far away, and she was too fucking lazy for that kind of effort.

There's a scream and a body and a tangle of claws. Nym's head jerks, pupils dilating—and stares, abject and almost awed; and yet mostly confused beyond belief.

 "What the fuck?"

Lilómiel screams back, ear-splitting and hair-raising, leaping upwards from his bonded's shoulders. Forward he drives, a fleeting shadow over the sea, his and his companion's thoughts intuitively linked—he thrusts his body towards the rougarou's, jaws dripping with flame, attempting to sear away the parasite from the hapless unicorn.

Naturally he's thinking something heroic.

I get high, and I love to get low

Fear beats down upon as an endless wave, crashing into the rising sea levels of her suffering. She is so selfish then that she forgets to tend to his needs, to comforts someone whom she’d agree to raise and love through the monster that he had become, and when his cries become so loud that she can no longer ignore them, she finally remembers that soon, no matter how much she prays against it, that she’ll be a mother.
It’ll be okay. I won’t let something happen to you.
He can’t seem to listen to her when the tugging on her mane intensifies. Strands must be breaking, hairs torn out of the roots only to get knotted up in his talons momentarily before they’re dropped to the ground and forgotten. Thunder rolls once more, but instead of having lightning announce it’s arrival, the lightning follows in pursuit.
For a second, she’s too dumbfounded to guess of what it might really be. It’s enough for him to abandon her mane and make an attempt at fleeing(and what a brave, prideful creature he had always made himself appear as), thrashing his silver body into the air as high as it could go. He doesn’t even think to warn Sikeax.
The flame hits them both, igniting brown locks before his very eyes as the tips of his leather wings sear, climbing backwards along the thin stretch of skin that made up the majority of his wings. Her hair is fast to succumb to the flame, and while he solves his scorching body by shifting and throwing himself into the water below them and thrashing through his screams, Sikeax is left to crumble to the earth like the Gods intended.
The burns hit the water with enough force to break out a sob, tears already streaming when Goblin’s suffering is exchanged within her own.

OOC: I'm so sorry that this is such a crappy post. I tried so hard to get this done and not end up dropping the thread because I couldn't figure out a way to reply to you.
I'll push out something so much better next post since I didn't exactly know what to go with here.

"talk"

Sikeax

Too late does Nymeria realize Lilómiel’s err; too late does she realize that the flame pouring out from between his teeth was not a delicate instrument of surgery but a crude hand smashing away at fragile bones in effort to resolve an X-Ray’s fracture. Whatever people liked to say, fire couldn’t be fought with fire. It would only ever result with cataclysmic burns and smouldering destruction.

Her mind was desolately empty as she watched the black charge, until it dawns upon her that the drake's war cry and his red, red flame is not a beacon of hope for the unicorn maid but instead a promise of pain. And she, as the only one capable of raising a hand, of halting the fall of the executioner’s sword upon an exposed neck, had done nothing to halt it but flutter her fingers in whimsy. It was her fault when red jaws bit down upon champagne skin and silver scales in equal measure; her fault when tendrils of mane go up in flame and legs crumple in agony. Nymeria cannot tell if it is the unicorn screaming or the wyvern—or if it matters.

The water sizzles and steams as the burning body hits it, sending up gauzy gray curtains between the grullo and the stranger. Her heart feels numb and tight in her chest, but to claim she feels badly for the destruction she’s caused would be a lie.

It reeks like burnt hair and ruined flesh, and she thinks, with a sense of detachment, that that is exquisite. No doubt she should feel guilty—that's what a good horse would feel—and yet she sins, and relishes the power that feels to be at her hands. If she wanted to, she could kill, slaughter, butcher this mare lying at her feet, make her weep and pray for mercy and beg for oblivion. Nobody would know; there would be no trace. Or she could say that the mare attacked her—brutalized her—and she fought back in self-defence. A couple of stab wounds... it wouldn't be difficult.

Except Nymeria did not want to play the villain. She would rather play the hero.

Fuck.

Nymeria reaches for her magic unconsciously, feeling for the small and ever-waiting nub that connects her to the sea. The water sizzling around Sikeax's body, heated by hot flesh, immediately begins to cool. With infinite tenderness, Nymeria brings up a sheet of cold water to curve around Sikeax’s body, continuously renewing the sheets until the heat emanating from the unicorn’s corpse has dissipated. Simultaneous to her magical care, the grullo comes closer until she is standing just above the champagne mare.

Nymeria lowers her massive head to nuzzle at the stranger’s cheek. There is only concern at her eyes, and inwardly she gloats.

“Are you okay?” She is careful to make no mention of her or Lilómiel’s part in the mare's injuries; she prays that the champagne did not see Lilómiel’s attack. If she had—well, that would require a different story. And if she hadn’t… perhaps she could spin this her way; perhaps she could become a hero. The skull-faced Illusor hadn't yet realized that the wyvern was, in fact, Sikeax's companion.

This is a rather marvellous idea, Nym thinks; you are incredible, Lilómiel. Thank you. How fervently grateful she is now for his recklessness, his audacity, his ignoble intentions; even she would not have had the courage to commit this disparaging act. To think she had once wanted to cut him out of her mind! They belonged together—they always had—they always would. He always supported her, pushed her, improved her... and he didn't question her ability, her gender, her parents.

How very lucky I am.