With what proof?

@Solpallur

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Travel had led her further from the warm reaches of the forests, rivers, up to the much more windy and fruitless place of the Mountains. It had cost her fatigue, time, and slowed her pursuit of all things, momentarily. She merely traveled. It was almost peaceful how the loneliness cuddled her so dearly, promising her the hard work would all be for naught, how her efforts to attain family were pointless. That she was a mere grain of sand among many grains in a plane such as this. Yet where were they, now?

Her mind had gone adrift as the cold had settled into her, slipping slick claws into the undertows of her fur. At Least they had numbed her a bit inside, cooling the heavy plea from her loins only just enough for her to mindlessly walk the cold place. Grass had shivered into thinning tendrils as dawn came, replacing soil and dirt with even more cold, hard, and careless stone underneath. Zafina felt the mountains had always been much more fitting for her family, but they chose to live away from such a regal spot. The higher, the better, and the Goddess kept moving towards the tall peak who rested beyond.

Cold winds scored the swathes of pelt, flourishing her like a phantom in this unforgiving scene. A place where she felt...

at home.
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The constellations wheeled above him and he could not rend his gaze from them. It was too clear of a night and the vantage point he had secured for himself too priceless to forsake. He could have begun the venture back towards Hrafnsvaktin but something had kept him there. A sign, perhaps, something in that faint sliver of a moon in the sky above as it intersected and crossed between he and whatever astral realm existed above.

Sprawled out against the cool stone of an overhang, he reveled in solitude.

Not even sleep could take him if he tried; he thought it interesting that in being plucked from one realm and released into another that even the sky would be the same. So perhaps the realms were not so different, and perhaps he should have taken note of it sooner. It was the sort of thing he thought to share with his brother at some point in private, where they could better discuss their course of action.

He sensed change in the stars, in the waxing crescent moon.

The preparations were great, the challenges ahead many.

Endless—the uphill battle to establish.

Midsummer was waning by the minute, so said the breeze.
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Living rubies roved the heightening stone with some lusted familiarity, some desire to scale it and draw her up close to the novae above pulling her limber limbs into a life almost of their own. They dragged the tired girl over rocks, past the fallen boulders and craigs that had once been pieces of the giant they caved from. Almost as though she had lived this exact mountain before, she absently knew where the best grappling spots were for claws made too sharp from too soft of sorry dirt. Clicking right into place, she heaved herself up and forward, cutting down the measure as she climbed. The higher she went, the exhilaration brought some innocent level of vivacity into her spirits, and it vibrantly shone in the garnets starkly struck on her face.

Yet, just as she had perceived herself to be alone, an overhanging paw, clearly lupine, shifted above a slab hanging precariously off in a jutt from the body of the granite stone beast of mountain. To see if they were truly awake under the blanket of night, she called out with her haunting wisp. "You must hear them, too."

She had dragged her crimson gaze from the inky black paw to the bottom of the overhang, wishing she could see who lay atop it. She herself stood motionless, the only piece of her moving the cloak of mahogany and timber brown stained shadow keeping her warm. Zafina waited, a stock still piece of poetry, for the soul before her to read.
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As the minutes passed, he became aware of the approach of another to his resting place. It was not a feat to set his gaze upon that of her smaller form as it climbed, and he did not sense an immediate threat to himself as she did so. Solpallur was confident in his abilities as a mountaineer of sorts, and the path he had taken to get to his perch was far different than the one that brought her to him.

It was a cold gaze despite his emerald eyes that greeted her; he did not quite understand enough of her language to know just what she meant. She could have been a spectre; the wind tousled her coat as it did his, though she was far more thin and wisp-like in comparison to the suneater. His nose worked the air about them, discerning what he could, and was met with muddied scents of the world beneath them… and something more.

The cloying scent was enough to move him.

Rising only to drop a level of the mountain's rocky ledges, he closed that distance with a heavy-handed grace that spared no silence as his feet hit the stonework. A low rumble left him; it was as much of a warning as it was a display of curiosity, and his gaze on her still would speak where words would or could not come. Was she the sort to strike at him, or was she driven by something more?

Did it matter?

Well, the former did matter. She looked like she could have been swept off the mountain by a hearty gust of wind and on an even playing field, she seemed even smaller than before. No, he didn't think she came with ill intent.
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A shadow had detached itself from the granite ledge which she had initially saw the paw move. The shadow grew, and grew, until she could no longer believe that it could grow any larger period initially, she had thought it'd be Slade who she had accidentally pulled from the depths from what he slumbered. No, it seemed as though she had pulled something possessed with spirits abroad, eyes of verde illumination staring down at her as though he had owned this entire mountain. Something powerful had bled from him, and she was clearly inraptured by the sight.

No words had come from the mass as it had pulled itself away from the stone. Instead, it looked down from heights, and then began to make its way towards her. His way towards her, she noted as her bloodied gaze traveled over that dark body. There was no such thing feminine about the catalyst that came her way. In essence, and everything that could have made her whole, screamed and begged and pleaded for whoever this was to be related to her family. Yet inwardly, there was nothing instinctually connective to him. There was no greeting of recognition, or even a murmur of Tsis as they came to be before her. As though he were nothing but a shade come to remind her of some ill Omen that she had committed in her past he remains silent besides the growl admitted to her. She had not moved, nor had she even bothered to breathe. Not for fear, but for allure. Something was captivating about this man, and for some reason a little voice in her head told her this was fine. For once, the Goddess of Paradox remained silent.

Zafina never considered other religions up to this point. She had never considered that there may be other gods and goddesses besides herself, besides her own spawn, besides her own family. She never once considered that the Celestials were not the only once within the stars that had bore things to walk the plane. No. Not until now. This tussled spirit before her was not of this place. Something remarkable emanated from the silence which could have been misunderstood on all behalf. Yet as she watched him, as he watched her, she could only drag herself further into the pit which was him. As though every shred of light which could even try to be was warped and torn into nothingness as he absorbed it, she had never seen such darkness. Not even Slade had been painted this dark. This man was in fact the void. Blindingly so.

Her heart beat to a song that she knew no words for. The bottom of her paw pads were no longer dryly chilled - they began to slick with sweat. She swallowed as his eyes roved over her while he decided whether she would lash out or let him in. The Mother of the Sahiras was bewitched, and couldn't even remotely recognize it. Yet she remained still, silent, and mindful of the black hole that could seemingly inhale her into nothing.
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She did not move, did not breathe a word more to him; he studied the look in her eye and could not decide if he liked what he saw behind that garnet gaze. She looked at him in the way one did with wonder at the night sky—the way he did at the advent of its wonders on display—and with some connection, he knew that the cloying, heady scent on the wind belong to none other than her. It wasn’t the first time he had sensed it, of course, and it almost tempted him to soften his features just enough to seem all that more appealing.

The suneater, however, was very much like his brother in regards to such matters. It was easy to partake, to celebrate, but all things in the world had their price. They had worked hard to be on the path that they were on, had heralded every sign good and bad and the world had seemingly rewarded them for it. But the path had been wrought with many hurdles they had overcame and would yet overcome—this thought lurked at the back of his mind like a nuisance.

So if she would not speak further, then he would use his own voice.

“Þú hleypur ekki frá mér, stjörnuskoðari, — You’re not running away from me, stargazer,” he rumbled. Though rough, at least his native tongue came out far easier than the common one. He chuckled to himself, rumbling along: “Ég býst ekki við að þú skiljir mig. — I do not expect you to understand me.”

And then, he stepped closer. Testing the waters.
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His lips had parted, and she had watched, heard, felt time slow. It was as though the world itself had held its breath as it too, listened for what he was about to say. Would it be Tsis? Was he a Sahira? She bated her own inhale, mentally allotting herself one prayer to the gods and goddesses above to let her have this one thing.

No. Unsurprisingly, she was not graced with her own language, and the method of existence resumed. However, though the language sounded partly familiar, she could only assume it was due to ancient dialect. It sounded rough, yet there was some old form of poetry in it that did not offend her in the slightest. Typically, it was rude to instigate a conversation without a common language, yet she cared not for formalities in this instance. She cared to hear him use more of it. She would play pretend, just to learn more of his ways.

As though she could understand every word he said, her replies were prompt, tones delving high and low as though should he have asked a question, she would state an answer to please. Just enough to worm root under his skin.

Dulcet tones danced for him, as she replied, "J'us buti varazine stai, kais ra nyâsh Nu zinot dtoga. — You are unique here, unlike many I've crossed." He had taken his step near her, and her body had primed taunt, a spring prepared to bounce one way to the next. Alas, even as her auds flayed back to back of each other, she remained. Her energy scaffolded high, her instinct from the lupine catalyst almost begging to entice the man for a romp before naughtier things happened. To see how far he was willing to take her play before it became sinful and nasty. "Buti j'us kaina nun finsezi nuo? — Are you worth me staying for?" she breathed out carefully from her newly tucked chin. Was he? Would he be the tether which finally held the wanderer in place? Zafina had no desires for a mate - yet she had said that when she had been in Slade's company. He had made her realize that even a Goddess deserved a God to bed her. Could there be even someone of higher tier than The Nightmare King? This revolved back to her former conclusion -

Perhaps there were gods and goddesses of other religions that she had not been made aware, brought back to this plane as she had.
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She spoke in tongues that were unlike his own, unlike the common tongue that he had not learned and had come to assume most spoke. Though he did not understand what she said, the tone he could—she appraised him, much in the same way he did. It was a mutual action that both almost mirrored in one another by unspoken languages; it was in their gaze, the subtle movements that drew them closer to one another.

Smoothly, he assessed her like he would someone wanting to follow them. He had drawn nearer than before, but not so close enough that he would find himself within grasping range of her teeth should she warn him off. The suneater let his gaze roam over every notch of her frame, every sweeping curve and over loose tufts in her summer coat; he circled her slowly, his intent in appraising her for a multitude of reasons evident with every breath.

“Ég heiti Solpallur, — My name is Solpallur,” he said, gesturing to himself. And then, as he gestured to her with piecemeal languages: “Hvað heita þeir á þig? — What are their names for you? Eh, how say, nafn? — name?” Archaic or not, he wondered if in the blend there would be something that she did understand, something in common beyond just an appreciation and lust behind those starlit rubies she had for eyes.
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Every single hair on her body tingled from the energy passed between the two lupines, and as he roamed her perimeter, she refused to let him out of her sight. As he had easily come to corner her peripherals, she was a blur of motion to spin and meet him. Nothing rude was in the swift motion. Instead, her forelimbs had only a slight degree of bow into them, haunches remaining as they had, with an edged high flag to keep still in arch. It was a friendly and spot-on asking for a game of play. More often than not, chase would be the first one up, as they learned of one another. Yet that was should he take the offer.

Her auds had caught his verbality, and with careful watch she witnessed his gestures, his slowed enunciation as he rose a limb to himself. Words clicked with the notion, and she caught on immediately. "Solpallur", she hummed, bringing life into the sounds he had offered to her, up-downing that words visual like a child trying to see if their first bumble of sounds had an effect on their parents.

Almost as suspected, he had jutted a deep abyssmal chin her was, saying slower connotations with a hint of raised pitch. A question. But she had already gotten used to hearing his dialect, something spoken so fluidly with much more passion than the common wolfspeak, that once he had used that common wolfspeak, she couldn't hide her recoil. It sounded hideous on him, IN him, coming FROM him, and she wanted no parts of it marring his delicious image in her mind. He was a God - above such a choppy and informal sect of sounds. Quick to illustrate her distaste for it, she pieced together the conversation of their own languages, translating from what he had given her across from what he had asked. 'Nafn' sounded like the commonspeak for 'name', and automatically she offered "Vadinti" just as it had left his own lips. However, his own language- did it have more than one word for 'name'? It was a puzzle, but hers did not. To connect the two languages however, and illustrate how swift she was to connect with his, she utilized it. "Nuyak vadinti buti Zafina. — My name is Zafina." She then repeated his own, her recollection of his enunciations playing out as she tried rolling them off of her own tongue. "Ég heiti Zafina." Again her garnets sought the nigh radiant emeralds to see his reaction. Personally, the Witch was rather pleased with herself.
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She was guarded. Good, he thought.

It was good that she still had a grasp of her senses enough to keep her wits about her, though if she hadn’t then he supposed he would have been satisfied either way. It was amusing, to watch her dance and recoil at his words, to even go as far as to try and attempt his own tongue.

Which admittedly, Solpallur had to concede that she did better than most. That may have made her a trickster, a wild woman of some unnamed weald for which she could run and dance and spin about and work her little ethereal ways. She could have been a little spitfire like Valmua, so conniving and confident in her ways—he felt more certain of that than he did for her to throw herself at him. He could see it in those lustrous rubies as she drew them to meet his emerald eyes once again.

The hard line of a grimace that drew up his expression smirked.

“Zafina,” he rumbled. Cumbersome, almost, the name was thick like honey from a hive on his tongue but warm. It sounded like a name borne from warmer climates. “Þú stóðst þig vel, — You did well,” he went on, praising her attempt to speak his language. His circling stopped, the space between them dwindled further. This time, he was close enough for teeth to catch him if she desired.

His dark lips pulled back, his voice low and grinding.

“Ég er að velta því fyrir mér hvort þú munt hlaupa. — I’m wondering if you’ll run.”

It was hard to say if there was malice behind his tone.
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Once his tracing had been completed, he neared her. Her name had passed through him, and drifted between them with the grace of a dropped stone on a calm sea top. It wasn't pretty in the slightest, yet his accent had made it that much better. The baritones had finished, and Zafina had felt the air click zippily with the energy between the two. Yet on her inhale, his musk was undeniable. While he might not have been bathing frequently, his scent alone was powerful, much more attractive than any of the other males she had come across during her heat. And the best part? No woman lay on his fur. This enticed her further, fueling her uncharacteristic urges to spur him into making some movement between the two of them. Slender limbs carried her off to the side and past him in a scoot of legs, only for her to dash in the opposite direction. A challenging wink of teeth supposedly told him she had relaxed enough around him to offer him a game of chase. Another fly past the ominous male, tossing a spin in underneath his chin, this time a distinct clip of toothy nip in the air his direction to encourage a reaction. To toy with him. To excite him.

"Kelias su nun! — Run with me!" she laughed haunting wind chimes his way, a break of coy angle winding her body into something inviting. And then, she had vanished, instead of scrabbling back across the plain tundra where she would have an insane break of speed to beat him, she chose the complete opposite. No, she began to scale the mountain he had bore himself to her from, ebony nails clamping well into place as she hurriedly found footholds. She lived for mountains, and prefered their lethal shelter over anything domestically inviting, like burrows or root dens.

After flinging herself up another ledge, ironically the one he had rested on, she peered about to see if he had taken her offer. With it being so dark tonight, she wasn't immediately picking up on his sight, especially with him being the darkest soul across, here. Her pants had made it hard to hear, and eagerly she looked about.
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He cracked a toothy smile—the faintest curl of his lip to show it—at her; she knew his game well, at least enough to know which things would rile him up. She may have been of the same ilk as he in some form or fashion, and he no more had the urge to snap back at her when she laughed some language into the wind and bolted away from him at once.

On her feet, enticed, she was as quick as lightning and he heard nothing more at first than the scrabbling of stones as she climbed away from him. But in low light he still sees the movement of shadows and after her he went, a snarl on his lips in joy. Yes, he thinks, run. Run away from him and off into the night along the ridges and stone pathways. Run as though life itself were on the line, like she were something to be conquered but not tamed.

He scales the stonework with the mastery of one who has lived long in the mountains to find her, this time on the ledge where he had come down from no more than few minutes ago. That toothy smile widened some, seeming nefarious but far from it despite the appearance. He enjoyed this game, another snarl peeling from his throat as it rumbled into a deep growl.

Run again, he suggested with it, his teeth clicking together.

He wanted her to run until she could no longer and for a night, claim her.

And what would be, would be.
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She had scanned the bottomways below, trying to see if anything had moved or if he was climbing the side way to get to her, him stark contrasting against the light granite of the moutainside's grey surely - but no. All seemed still, until not even the trickle of gravel shoved warned her something had tracked her down. HE had tracked her down, and his nigh soundless movements proved to her that she had been paying attention to the wrong things about him. There was much more to him than what met the eye, and she cursed her vast underestimation with a lick to her chops. Yet as he had drew himself largely against the fold of stone heights behind him, he did not pursue her. His growls had brought attention to her heart, a thrumming rush of heated blood fueling her adrenaline through ceaseless veins. His ears had not laid back as he crept closer, his clicking teeth another prompt to her as those growls worsened beautifully. She wondered briefly where her first nip would land before she slid herself down the side of his ledge, catching herself on another and dipping high enough from the fall's momentum to launch herself up another semi-vertically horizontal path away from him. Another chorus of laughing barks hit the stars playground as the Witch alotted herself another push of speed. The man was fast - and she could prove she was faster. Rocks beneath her grip warned her of possible faults she could have, but it only encouraged her to find a better one. To continue until he could clip her wings, tonight. His snarls had sounded behind her until the silence of his pursuit enveloped her, and almost panicking in gleeful anticipation, she sought a hiding spot to catch him off caught.

Milliseconds bled into entire seconds as she processed her surroundings before she chose a little nook to slither on the side of. Something that, should he be aptly dashing behind her, he might even sillily blur past. It was a cheeky move, but who knew how quick on his paws he'd be? Her plan might even be foiled, as she didn't feel as though she had enough height on their trail to have properly gotten a good hiding spot. But as the Goddess of Paradox, she had no reservations about either outcome. Her plans always ended up foiled somehow, and luck was ever rarely on her side, sometimes.

Regardless, she held her breath, tucked herself in, and waited those precious seconds to see if the shadowy God would float past her, or if his void would swallow her vision whole. The night seemed to hold it's own breath, the crickets and birds silencing to see the outcome of these two's tryst.
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Again she tore away from him—he snapped after her as she passed, though did not immediately pursue her. No, he would let her have this moment, this opportunity of having the upper hand as she scaled the stones once more to escape him. He would let her be nothing more than a passing shadow skittering along stone path and ledge in her efforts to elude him as part of their game; moments counted off in his head before he took to chasing her down once more, as though she were a hare leading him unintentionally back to a warren of kits and other prizes.

He trailed her as best he could, the game more than just a way of passing time. It was perfect to hone his skills; a warrior he may have been, but Solpallur possessed more than just brawn. He was far from just a seemingly dense creature with a one-track mind and his own efforts to suss her out were taken with careful proceedings. There were many little nooks and crannies along the way, which when it came to direction there were several she could have taken. Her scent wasn’t meant to linger in the air like carrion flesh either—already it had been whisked away by the wind, leaving him to rely on more than just his nose to guide him.

“You hide well, little rabbit,” he said into the darkness, peering into a crevice that she could not have possibly shimmied into. “Could it be that you too are a ghost? I think not,” he rumbled on in his native tongue, far from siren song. Yet he hoped it would clue him in to where she hid as the faintest touch of her lingered near. She had brushed against something, he suspected, and drew in her scent once more from a tuft of fur on an errant, alpine shrub long succumbed to the elements.

She was close, but not close enough.

He continued his searching, nose to the ground.

If he could not find her, then time itself would drive her mad.
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His voice had seemed far away, her hideaway not allowing her much noise allotment. She was well tucked into the slot, hoping neither her heart nor lungs would be so abrasive as to get her found out. But it had grown silent once more as the wind began to slowly whisper by. Tentatively, she moved, slowly slicking her face from behind the slab she had wedged herself in, where she had initially heard his voice echoed from, formerly. She was studying the shadows that lay beyond there so far out, she had pulled herself a bit out of her spot once she saw nothing. But that was only on one side of her-

The otherside, where her back was turned, held a sniffing Solpallur who was no more than a meter away. Feeling somewhat concerned he was still in the area, she slid herself back within the crevice, retucking her limbs back in, that awful feeling of someone watching you being thick enough to drown the world. She waited to see if he would double back so she would have a more precise idea on where he was. Yet she didn't want to move again, out of paranoia that he was in fact close by. She hadn't heard anything, but-
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It sounded far off but his senses knew better—the sound of paw pad against stone, perhaps the faintest of scrapings of a worn nail against the earth that could not be helped. A shuffling, nothing more than a murmur among all the other sounds one would naturally hear along those higher reaches. So easily whisked away by the wind; a departure so swift that he could have attributed it to a mouse.

His eyes traced over tons of stone long shifted and mostly settled by the annals of time; stones that are far older than he will ever be and yet have little to express their true age by. His gaze lingered over various cracks and crevices—some that may have housed creatures, others that seemed too improbable or out of reach—and finds himself forced to decide. Yet his gaze is drawn to the path that continued on, tempted to move along as though he’d be bested in spite of the fact that he did not feel that way.

If she did not want of him, then he would not encourage it.

Yet the hedonist in him ensnared him, rooting him to the spot to wait. To listen. With ears turning this way and that way, Solpallur only hoped he would eventually hear something—her giggling, perhaps—or spy a stone overturned where it should not have. With a tentative step forward, he listened, only to grumble to the night air when nary a sound reaches his ears but the wind as it picked up.

Nothing stirs yet again and Solpallur, believing that she had decided to elude him moves on. Only as he starts down the stone path does he realize that he had been drawn towards it instinctively—it is there he finds her, and an ugly grin spread across his features, all teeth and little else in the pitch darkness.

“Found you,” he intoned.
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Everything had seemed to go still. Even as she had wedged herself back into the nook she had discreeted herself in, she could feel within the very marrow of her essence that something had been displaced, and security was no longer assured. Considering she had marinated in this spot for a while, perhaps her energy had attracted him back, and made him somewhat-

A voice just above her had stopped her heart cold. She had held her breath in some foolish hope that maybe he had been misled, or even at another craig, but no... those ebony claws clinked above the roof of rock which hid her from the sky, hanging down as though the stone had grown some cursed teeth, her sitting in the maw of some wretched creature rather than a place of hidden solitude. No, he had in fact found her, and it was clear her little game was up.

Knowing her legs were crammed so tightly in there, there was no bolting out of the hole- she wouldn't be able to scrabble out of the way fast enough to evade those teeth. And from how he had spoken, it didn't sound as though he anticipated her running, anymore. He had had her, and now she had been caught.

She scooted herself from the crook, inch by inch, wordless as she went to address the winner. Her energy was to a degree, spent. She was thirsty now, a listless pant beginning as she heaved herself before the champion of this childish game. Without even a sliver of doubt in her mind, once free, she walked to him in those graceful sweep of legs, and curled her skull under the base of his jaw in a sideways greet. 'You have found me' her snout dipped up under the base of his ear, a series of nibbles cascading heatedly across the fleshy rind of the outside of his excellently observant auds. She continued, blending her body only briefly beneathe his own, his height making it remarkably easy to simply pass under his chin as she turned to study him with a purely loaded question in her ageless eyes -

'And what will you do about it?'
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As she emerged and their bodies blended together, he felt the returning rush of enticement come crawling back to him. All at once he was awash in that sickly sweet scent; it was strong enough now that not even the wind could steal it away from him and almost greedily, he wished for it not to. Like hunger gnawing as they twined in a brief little exchange, he let her greet him like they were old acquaintances, as though they were from the same home long and distant from the mountainous locale of the present.

From deep in his chest, he growled as she parted from him. The look in her eyes told him much and to say that he hadn’t every inclination to seize her then and there would have been a lie. There would always be that dichotomy, the urge to take and the urge to show respect, and there was naught he could do to change his own nature so quickly. There once had been a point in his life where he had been more ruled by his own urges, but Solpallur had learned restraint somewhere along the way.

Stjornauti had tempered him for the better.

Slowly, perhaps antagonizing in the way he knew best, he closed off that distance between them to rake his teeth against her lower spine. To return the favor of touch as he buried his nose in her coat to draw in the scents there—to discover what he could not from a cursory test of the air. The headiness of the barrens of beyond, of the untamed wilds he had yet to explore; of berries and wild rushes and waterways; least of all that ever present cloying scent to draw him in. His eyes had gone closed with the ministrations, leaving him vulnerable in the span of moments he could not count.

There was plenty he could do about it.

His gaze turned to her face, eyes open with questions unspoken.
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She had teased, yes, and he warned her from straying too far from him. Already he had defined a boundary for her to roam, and it was not very far from him. It was a clear press of desire, and she had decided to toy with him no longer.

Nothing more had been said between the pair as he had made his way forward, and she wondered if he too had a knot in his throat that forbade him from even speaking his native tongue, as she did. There wasn't much to say in words where physical contact held supreme. She had lived lives where she was worshipped, kept high as an ideal Priestess of many, a Goddess of others, and a being of untold expectancies - Yet here, today, she was a mortal woman who had been forsaken from even the simplist of contacts. Something that would encase her in the highest peak she could reach without any kind of climb. She had enjoyed herself with this man, and he had seemingly enjoyed himself with her as alas-

here, he stayed.

Yet would the Goddess be able to hold herself on such a standard when this man had proven he was something special? Something beyond the typical mortal man? Could she regard him as a God within her realm? Able to bless the holdings of delicate balance, and careene them into a legacy to last for eons on end? After all... every queen needed a king in her bed...

Yet was Solpallur wishing the same?

A tiny voice in her heart whispered the searing truth that Zafina had no ability to deny - 'Did it matter?' Why should she care whether he stayed for their legacy? Was he not just a four legged Sire? She edged closer to him, her movement sure, captivating as she sized up the man who had just told her to stay without a word. Her aura, energy, body radiated a persona much more grand than what this body would ever allow. As though she owned every star in this galaxy, and the next, and the next. Surely... the Goddess of Paradox decided after his teeth made work of her tingling spine-
He was.
Atleast for tonight.

---

The moments which had lasted had begat hours of decadence, a pleasured session after session she hadn't had in ages. The hours swam into the night, helixing the stars in a blur as she had finally been able to catch her breath. Out of energy, she lie there, twisted in a tangle of limbs with the man she had been tied to until blood cooled in this hazy crisp of rock and silence. She had faded in and out of wakefulness, body adjusting and recovering from the trials she had just been put through, and soon she would sleep under the novae, for once, at peace.
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He enjoyed the haze of contentedness. It was the place between wakefulness and dreams, that thin band of comfort that seemed to envelop him on rare occasion. Closeness was not a thing that he was particularly keen on, though moments like that were the exception; he found it hard to pull away from her, still drawn in by the sweetness of her. It was always intoxicating.

He drifted, eyes half-lidded as he looked skyward at the span of constellations he knew. Their names were lost to him, perhaps not even taught to him at all, but they were guiding lights against the blackness of the night sky. Drawn towards the expanse and clutters of the brightest band that cut across, he rested his chin on her head to survey them.

“Stargazer,” he rumbled, hazily.
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Thunder rolled so near her body she felt it. It had passed through her body like an alarm made real. She was dreaming of the same stars they slept under being her placemats. She had danced atop them, her own form a swatch of energy that was unknown to the millions who dwelled below her. She had regained her rule among the expanse, and the Divines ruled under her, once more. The Celestials had been put in their place, and she had won. Her peace had come. No longer did she have to live a life among the unworthy-

that thunder had pulled her from the stars, yanking her so fast from the fathomless overworld with such velocity she had thought she could feel herself hit the ground, again. She had startled, heart kickstarting into a slight panic. The sky had been shrouded in black as she had flung her garnets about, looking for her home. She felt tethered again- was she ...

That voice had pulled her from a dream. She hadn't succeeded. Not yet. Time. Patience.

She swallowed, a low roll of her tongue tipping her head up just a bit, to let him know she was now awake, if her startled jump hadn't signified it earlier. He had said something she hadn't recognized out of their slight conversation, but assumed it was something along the lines of 'that was nice', or something of that sort. She agreed, "Xas — Yes", coming from her sleepy lips beneath him.
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He heard her response, but he was drifting again by then. The foreign word, perhaps something of an affirmation, was quiet against the natural sounds around them. She sounded so distant to him despite their close proximity, but he could not get the clutching hand of sleep to relent and let his mind go. It did not matter how hard he fought it; his eyes began to slip closed again even as he surveyed the stars in a weary way.

Solpallur did not think of the vulnerability of the moment.

He murmured something more, nonsensical, against the warm crown of her head; he moved from it instinctively, tucking it against her shoulder instead. It would have been wiser to fight with more effort against the throes of rest, to gather himself and prepare a return to his founding homeland, but for tonight he desired to slumber beneath an open sky in a different place, comforted with the warming weight of a godly wraith.
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