[LOG] Lay the Mask Down (Sylph x Fluke)

[anemosagkelos]

Unseeing eyes blinked slowly, scaled brows furrowing with a lack of understanding.  After a moment of consideration, she took a few careful steps closer to the buck.  "I am full of fear, dear Sylph.  Fear of being mislead, fear of losing more than my sight, fear of judgment.  But if I let fear rule me, I would lay in a gnarl of roots and wither away.  That does not sound like a good use of my time."

She lowered her head and tilted it to the side, letting her mane fall over her neck.  "And you're wrong.  I do want to keep you.  It is you who does not seem to want to be kept."  Fluke had no smile then, just a forward honesty, because that was who she was and what she dealt with.  "If I did not want your time, I'd have not made the suggestions I did.  But I will not corner you, I will not force my wishes upon you."  She'd already had that done.  The memory was enough to make her dappled back shiver.

"If I've heard you wrong, then...you need only say."  When the smile did form, it was delicate and a touch reserved.  "I cannot see you, Sylph, I can't read your body language.  I hear you, and that's all I have."  She could hear his lack of desire to be 'caught,' could hear his reservation that brought out her own, but unless he said what he meant to say, she could only follow the story he was telling.  Nothing more, nothing less.

[anemosagkelos]

The precipice it seemed did not end; instead it carried on as he once more found himself, metaphorically, poised to topple over a cliff. That old saying--"The truth will set you free!"--did not seem to hold a sip of water as he only found himself, again, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do. Truth had not realigned the world into one he knew how to navigate; honesty had only served to add a murk. And yet she was far too perceptive to bow to a lie.

"In my dreams, I am not a kimeti. Or a kin. I don't know what I am--air that exists in a body of sorts. I run and hide, pretend that I am no different than kin. And yet I know that if I am caught..." his breath halted, reemerged harsh and choked, "If I am caught, if my identity is found out, I shall cease to exist at all." He was not a hummingbird, that much he knew. What he was... Perhaps it was best he did not know.

He sighed, a heavy sound that revealed the burden these dreams were, "I don't want to be kept like a pet, a servant. It is, however, exhausting to always be on guard, to hide behind a mask of flirtation and magic. I want to be safe, prized and protected..." A sullen tint colored his voice. It might well be impossible. And it made him weep, tears that closed his throat and caused him to breathe in hoarse quickness. Ah-ah-heh repeated over and over as the mask cracked beyond repair.

[anemosagkelos]

he listened, ears upright and turned attentively to him, unseeing eyes remaining forward and unblinking.  "Air," she repeated, and careful, Fluke picked her way towards him again.  "You sound like a gale.  But to be afraid of being caught...while desiring to be adored and held as dear...how difficult.  How trying for you, sweet Sylph."  Her nose bumped his withers, and straightening herself a little, she traced up his neck to his jaw.

Once she was near him comfortably enough, she pressed along his wet fur, closing her sightless eyes and resting her cheek against him.  "I cannot protect you the way you deserve, but I can try, for the time you're with me.  And that time...I will prize.  I wont put you in a cage, I wont treat you as anything lesser, it is not in my way."  Her dainty nose lifted again, trying to find his face, to have some contact that could affirm from him what she was offering.

"Promise you wont treat me as a wilting flower, Sylph, and I promise to be yours as much as you can be mine."  For the day, for a cycle of the sun...until their paths would part.  Inevitably, the air would have somewhere to go that she could not follow, and she'd only be able to hold a memory.

[anemosagkelos]

There was a second where time seemed to freeze and then he breathed, the sound of her voice buoying him against the too late panic that he had trapped himself. Beneath his hooves, the world did not tilt or shake. Around them the distant swish of the stream, lilting birdsong, and a breeze. The sun, too, still shone just ahead and he felt some of the terror unclench, muscles relaxing as the doe made the move to touch him.

He turned towards her, a moth to a flame, his nose finding hers before sliding his wet cheek against her own dry one. This was a haven. She was a sanctuary, his sanctuary.

"You are no wilting flower," he began, a laugh hiccuping out of his mouth. "You have made the air bow to you. Fluke, you are gravity." He breathed, felt his being settle into the call of this all-seeing blind doe. "I shall protect you but never coddle you, Fluke, and while even the seasons change they always return." With that said, he calmly began to speak as he helped, not led, her towards the sunlight that would warm them both.

They were not forever, nor quite for now. Rather they were like spring; they would return and part as their lives lead them to and from one another. An air spirit and the gravity that called it home.