Buried Treasure (Pash'nar)

[Sariana]

Delighted with the feel of his hand tangled in her locks, the young traveler closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose, her own hands curling into the warmth of his tanned skin and dark hair. Vaguely aware of the tickle of well-worn fingers under her thigh, Sariana felt the shift beneath her, clinging to him momentarily as the godling stood. But as soon as she was up, she was down again, almost thrown carelessly across the mattress.

Landing with an unexpected squawk on the bed, thick black hair strewn across her face and the linen, Sariana reached up to push it away as the ethaefal closed the distance between them. Staring up at him with bright blue eyes, the drykas smiled as he teased her lips with his own, brushing against his mouth in return with breathy chuckles. Briefly, her hands moved to brush the pinkish scars against his thigh, curious as to what ordeal he had encountered to create the wound. It was a bad one, a close one...and for a moment the brunette wondered if it was a daytime or nighttime injury.

"Maybe it starts with allowing yourself to let go of that past, without forgetting it or loosing what makes you...you." Murmuring against his lips, Sariana brushed her nose against his, smiling softly.

"And looking at what's in front of you instead..." Raising her eyebrow, the warrior stroked her fingertips against tattooed flesh, fighting to keep her head in the seriousness of the conversation. And failing.

Damn him.

Tilting her head slightly, the sapphire eyed woman pressed a kiss to the slight swelling on his lip where the navigator had fallen to the deck above. She felt for him, even if it was confusing and hurtful and strange and terrifying. Even if what she felt and he felt were strange and separate things. Even if he had a past that compared to nothing she had experienced, and if the gods were kind would ever experience. There were paths she needed to take and places she needed to go, but without a doubt, the drykas knew she didn't want to go there alone anymore.

Somewhere, that familiar feeling that had chased her all the way from Endrykas rose from the depths of her subconscious and tingled from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.

"Just let yourself go." Sariana whispered, meeting his tide-pool gaze again.

[Pash'nar]

At her words, a rumble of objection was barely contained in Pash'nar's chest, and he fought to simply let it fade into a sigh. He held her gaze for a long while without being able to articulate a response, breathing broken by the distracting closeness he'd intentionally wrapped himself in. The dark-haired navigator blinked finally, looking away, eyes fluttering closed briefly as her hands wandered over his inked flesh and over the fading reminder of his wound. Let go? And be whom? He had no past, no self-definition, save the decades behind him. If he let go of his hurts and mistakes, who would he be instead? He hadn't been born, not really, not in this skin for only Leth knew how long. Whoever he'd been last time in this body, he only saw in dreams and caught sight of in unexpected moments. Whoever he was now was surely different from the man who's skin he'd worn for over a century in the daylight, let alone most likely different from the shard of moonlight he pretended to be under the stars. He didn't know if he was truly capable of letting go. It was easier to look backward when forward could feel so dauntingly infinite, unless his ageless life was one day taken by force or claimed by accident. Backward had beginnings and endings, backward had joys and pains. He didn't know who he could possibly be, though he was sure, even with the mistakes he'd shared so openly, he could be better somehow. But, would it ever be worthwhile? He felt so useless. Unnecessary flotsam. Clinging to his hurts may have made his confusion worse, but he knew no other recourse. Slowly, he dragged his cerulean gaze back to the Drykas face, framed as it was by the inky expanse of her hair. She was young, and he envied that. It excited him as much as it incensed him. He never felt as though he knew youth, trapped in a body already roughened by the sea, creased by the sun, and scarred by a life he didn't recall ever living. He had no concept of what his age could have been, wavy black hair highlighted by salt and sun, streaked with a smattering of gray. He could guess, but it wasn't like it mattered. He'd always felt so petching old. "Let go?" Pash'nar finally echoed, more an exhale than a voice. He searched her face for a deeper explanation, lingering on flushed cheeks and parted lips so close to his own, "D'you think I should jus' start over, really?" This question burned inside him, but their proximity continued to arouse a less conversational heat between them. It was difficult to discern which he'd rather focus on more. Damn her. With a groan, the tattooed sailor slid to one side, collapsing with languid defeat next to Sariana, stretching beside her in the earliest rays of sun that filtered through his cabin windows. He wasn't sure what kind of answers he wanted, having been lost at sea for so long. It was easier to want what was next to him than to want to fix anything broken inside. So much easier. "Who would I be—" Hands calloused long before he used them wandered over bare, tanned flesh with a firm sense of purpose. He held her sapphire eyes with his own, keeping their faces close as he traveled, not necessarily changing the subject so much as including different levels of communication. Already finding it difficult to form the words to best express the depths of just how unanchored, how listless, how much like driftwood his whole life had seemed to be, it felt necessary to include more of his body with his words. Slowly seeking the more sensitive places on the map of her skin, teasing over now-familiar lines and curves, he continued to whisper, "—who would I be without rememberin' all that? Can things be jus' as diff'rent if'n I don't let go? Can I ever be diff'rent?" Ageless insecurities clung to the darkness of his heart, of his thoughts. He felt helpless to bring light to those depths again. He didn't wait for an answer—though he wanted one, from her, from Leth, from anyone—kissing her before she could say a word, his passions fueled so much more deeply by the tempest of his own loss of self. "'M afraid'f who I could be." Pash'nar added in heated, vulnerable honesty, teeth at her lips. He had nothing else to hide. He could share the other decades as they unfolded after the events he'd admitted to, but, really, they were just more of the same.

[Sariana]

He was looking at her, studying her face and her features, searching for something. Answers, explanations...things she couldn't give. There was a pause, a hesitation that had the raven haired swords-woman drawing her brow together as she tried to concentrate on his words. The ethaefal was warm across her body, his tanned skin mingled with her own. The seriousness of his questions were starting to become hard to answer, thought process distracted by much less serious matters. There was a groan, as the torn man slumped down beside her, leaving the young woman feeling cold and exposed. She twisted to lay on her side, facing the navigator.

Turning her head to face him as the hurting sailor stretched out beside her, Sariana allowed herself to drown in his tide-pool gaze, unwilling and unable to look away from the depths she found there. Pash'nar was a puzzle box, appearing simple enough on the outside but once you began to work at it, there were more and more intricate twists and turns - so much so that by the time you were half way through figuring it out you realized you were back at the beginning. The young woman wished there were some magic word that she could use to solve his puzzle, to make him complete. There was such complexity and years of pain in his eyes, the drykas couldn't find herself able to give him any answers.

As the fallen svefra held her gaze, his hand wandered to places that tingled under his touch. Try as she might, Sariana couldn't ignore the soft tickle of long worked fingers, finding the more sensitive spots that it seemed only the damned ethaefal seemed to be able to locate. A heated sigh escaped the brunette warrior as she attempted to frame a response to his question, only to be silenced by the sudden capture of his lips on her own. His kiss was that of passion and hunger, for comfort and for answers. Of those she only had one of. As he pulled away, teeth tugging and nipping at her full lips, the brunette warrior kept his gaze with her sapphire eyes and breathed heavily. His words hung between them.

"'M afraid'f who I could be."

"I'm not." Sariana said in a distracted whisper, before she kissed him back, her own nimble fingers finding their way across scarred and tattooed skin. Her hands grazed over hard muscles and ageless skin, whilst her mouth welcomed the godlings hardly contained passion. Twisting one long tanned leg between his own to tangle them together, the young warrior moved her lips across Pash' mouth and down his jaw and throat. Reaching the skin of his tattooed chest, Sariana nipped the celestial creature with white teeth, before slipping her hand to the back of his head and pulling herself to his mouth for another lascivious embrace.

[Pash'nar]

"Tsk, 'course you're not … 'At's petchin' easy for you't say from 'ere, eh?" Teased the tattooed sailor in a ragged exhale, closing his eyes at the brush of her teeth against his inked skin. It would be easy to pretend that somehow she knew something he did not, some secret about himself that promised change. She didn't, obviously. No one did. He knew that any real change in the course of his life would not be from some prayed-for breeze over the Suvan while he found himself stuck in decades of useless doldroms; no, he'd avoided the truth for so long it was so easy to continue to overlook it. The choices had always been his to make. His alone … and he'd always refused them. Pash welcomed the swordswoman's kiss, curling their entwined bodies sideways and closer still. His heart pounded distractedly in his chest, ship-worn fingers restlessly traveling over tanned skin. It was easier to say nothing. He already felt like he'd said too much. It had been at least a handful of decades since he’d really allowed himself to be so open, and part of the excitement that rang with his pulse in his ears was fear—fear of trusting so much of himself to someone who may never be capable of completely understanding his ageless perspective. Still, Sariana seemed as though she'd understood enough. And she didn't despise him for it. Yet. Quite the opposite, really, though that in itself left him confused. That kind of gift was both terrifying and enticing. Did she know it? Worry that mortality would simply make this kind of trust a moot point gnawed at the back of his mind, and the dark-haired navigator struggled for a brief, imperceptible moment with his decisions. He was used to being wrong, and as she lifted her face back to his with a deeper, more urgent sort of kiss, he allowed himself to disappear into the moment instead of linger on all the burdens of history. He broke away from her soft, warm mouth with reluctance, nibbling his way down her neck, inhaling the scent of salt and the sea that clung to the inky darkness of her hair. He sighed, willing to resign himself to this wordless distraction, to surrender to a more physical form of expressing his feelings, his fears. With a shift of his hips, Pash’nar slid his knee tucked between them upwards, parting the well-muscled legs of the Drykas to allow one questing hand to continue its lazy journey downwards, over the curve of her hip to seek a more hidden warmth. His touch was gentle, taunting, hardly in a hurry to lead her anywhere so much as to enjoy what he had in his bed, to see how long she'd put up with him toying with her. It wasn’t like he was in a hurry. There was no rush to chase Syna's light across the horizon, no sense of urgency for anything more than physical comfort and distraction from the anchor he'd made of his past. Following down her collar bone with his lips, the ageless sailor teased toward the soft isles of her breasts, well aware of the racing of her own heartbeat from underneath the path of his tongue and teeth. He glanced up coyly to watch Sariana's face, confident enough that she was hardly concerned about his changing the subject entirely.

[Sariana]

Sariana shivered at the touch of the godlings lips on tender flesh, goosebumps raising on her tanned skin and lower lip drawn between her teeth. Groaning softly, the young drykas lay back and allowed herself to close her sapphire eyes and relish in the sensations of his teasing, toying movements. It was a slow torturous experience that had started when she jumped on the vessel to give the damned creature a violent piece of her mind, and somehow here she was naked in his bed and once again mercy to his skilled hands. How she had even lost her clothing was somewhat hazy in the brunettes mind, and altogether less important than the present situation.

Sensing the pause in his actions, Sariana opened her eyes again and caught the ethaefal's gaze. Her lip slipped from her teeth as the young warrior traced the outline of the ray across his shoulder blades with feather-soft finger tips. Drawing her hand over his shoulder to rest on his chest, the drykas followed the line of Pash'nar's arm to place her hand over his own where the apex of his actions had settled. Placing a firm pressure on the well worn fingers under her own and with a small shift of her hips, Sariana invited the navigator to the deeper undertow of her passion. With a sharp intake of air followed by a long drawn sound of approval, the raven haired drykas kept her eyes trained on his, marveling at the play of light against the daytime hue of his skin and the way it caught the glass trinkets that adorned his dark hair.

"You are...distracting. Do you know that?" She said with a small gasp as she moved her hips against him, her free hand curling gently in the folds of his bed linens. Their conversation had been deep, meaningful and full of pain and heartache that the ageless man had to bear for longer than any person should. Yet all the while, he had also been electrifyingly close and all hands. Never underestimating the seriousness of their conversation, Sariana felt the pent up tension between them so dense you could almost slice it with a knife. As they looked at each other, the swords woman felt as though time was slowing down. She wanted the man, so much so it ached. He didn't want her to, told her not to...and yet it only seemed to serve to make the wanting worse.

Gods why did he have to be so infuriatingly intriguing?

[Pash'nar]

"Me? I'm distractin'?" Growled the dark-haired navigator into the Drykas' ear after he slowly dragged his way back upwards to her face, having blazed a heated trail over the tanned skin of her neck. He eagerly accepted her wordless invitation, no longer just taunting her with his touch. Following the insistent guiding of her hand on his own, he began to give into the more sensual undertones that he'd held back for the difficult, weighty length of his confessional sort of conversation. "Oh, aye, I s'pose," Pash breathed huskily with an uninhibited smile, brushing her lips with his own as he spoke, fingers seeking to lead her into deeper waters of enjoyment instead of hover in the sandy shallows, "but, y'ain't farin' much better when't comes to such things—" Not that he wanted to think straight anymore after dredging up so many memories and stirring up so much hidden guilt. While he'd been running from the weight of it all for so many decades, he found that this time, this moment, was no longer simply about escape. So many of his purposeful distractions, especially of the physical nature, had always been less about indulging his heart and more about assuaging his hurts. Not that things had never been otherwise, but he'd spent way too long keeping his secrets and rubbing salt in his own wounds on purpose. He'd wasted so much time—time he struggled to see as precious or important when it seemed so useless— convinced he deserved it and yet living as though he didn't. He'd taken what he wanted, what he felt he needed, so often before. The piracy attributed to the race he wore under Syna's glare was often less about monetary plunder for the false Svefra, and much more about burying everything he no longer felt worthy of feeling or being. However, with obvious caution, the tattooed sailor allowed this moment to be different, to be something else. Something less about himself, almost in spite of all he'd just said out loud. While he was still afraid seek out feelings of any particular depth in his own chest, he wanted the swordswoman to understand that he'd shared more than just words, more than just secrets, in the quiet of the dawn. Yes, there were things he could admit to not wanting—again? for now? for how long?—but he was unsure of where he was capable of drawing that line anymore. "—makin' it petchin' hard to think straight, y'are, woman." Pash'nar all but groaned above his own heartbeat, comfortable with the current lack of definition, so unused to being confined by anyone but himself. Instead, he was content to chart Sariana's course in the wake of his own building excitement, playing along with the movements of her hips, holding her sapphire eyes for a moment with his own before returning his lips to hers with a more passionate kind of urgency. He knew her destination, guiding her there with a suddenly more firm, purposeful touch, but he could care less just how long it took to get there.

[Sariana]

The warmth of his breath tickled her ear, sending goosebumps down her arms and a shiver down her spine. Every touch of his lips on the tender skin of her throat felt like shocks of electricity that burst to the very core of her being, and the husky growl of the fallen godlings voice only served to fuel an already building storm within. As his lips brushed her own, the young Drykas found her response to his words caught in her throat, managing only at first a stuttering breathless sound as Pash'nar navigated her towards a more purposeful direction.

"I recall you were the one that put us in this situation." She said finally in a near whisper, looking up into his tide-pool gaze as Pash hovered over her for a moment. Her mind was drawn away from his intoxicating touch both by the curious words that fell from too-perfect lips and the look in his eyes. The pause was only minuscule, but Sariana felt like it lasted forever. Her brow creased slightly as she stared up at the ethaefal, hands sliding up to rest on inked biceps as she searched his face with a fluttering heartbeat, then with a sudden urgency the sailors mouth was on hers. Closing her eyes, Sariana responded in kind. The warrior cried out softly as the ageless creature shifted his languid caresses to a more purposeful rhythm, her voice muffled by his lips. Surrendering herself to the surging current that was sweeping through her, Sariana groaned in Pavi between urgent kisses, her fingers biting into tattooed skin as the pressure continued to build. There was something different about the navigator, something that stirred a small glimmer of hope in the young brunette.

Then all deep subconscious thoughts flittered away as the Drykas lost herself in the sensation churning and writhing within. Her eyes had closed tightly, breaking away from the passionate press of his mouth, head tilting as her body arched into the ethaefals skilled navigation. The young traveler wasn't used to the softer, tender side of a mans attentions. Her encounters were always meaningless and more often than not brutish. An easy distraction from the self-imposed loneliness she had inflicted on herself, and perhaps partially an attempt to hide emotions with physical pain. Pash'nar's purposefully selfless and slow actions brought Sariana hurtling towards a release that was more then just physical.

"Pash...Pash'nar..." The young brunette drew his name out in a pleading groan, her brow furrowed as every fibre of her being focused on the storm now threatening to wash over her. Heart pounding in her chest violently, Sariana cried out as the sensations crested and broke, leaving her helpless in their wake.