Open Turn Around [Razkar]

[Tinnok]

She was frozen as she listened, wet hands clasped tightly, watching the strange blue eyes. As he spoke memories flooded back, of them, or Aya, of everything that came in between. They had all suffered so much, and for no real cause, yet here he was a true warrior of Myri, nearly begging to be brought back into his jungle world. It made the outside world seem sad and lonely just as she had felt some nights up in the jungle canopy. Of course...with Caiyha's blessing she needn't feel lonely any more.

"I am needed. I... I can feel it. It pulls me in dreams and in every tiny reminder that I am the barbarian when I walk those lands."

Her arms wrapped tightly about him then in the hug she shouldn't have hesitated to give when he had left. It held all the warmth of the one that she and Aya shared, with a hint of desperation that hadn't hung between the two half breeds at their departure, yet it was the same reason why she hadn't extended her sign of affection, shame and a strange confusion about the Eagle and Wolf's relationship. "I am so sorry I did not do this before...but I'm a petching child when it comes to this stuff."

Her lips lay close to his ear when she spoke, muscled arms wound tight around the thin layer of damp cloth hanging off his body. "You are needed eagle. I miss you...and Aya so much."

She pulled away then, slowly, the echo of words unsaid hanging in the air. Strange that the liberating feeling that had been with her in the beginning had slowly begun to eek away. She wanted to be free of the water, and as she looked up into the rightful black eyes of the Eagle, she saw him freeze with shock. At the mention of her own eyes she touched her face, then slowly, ever so slowly, looked down toward the water.

The rippling waves seemed to still to form a mirror, and beneath it the visage that she had come to know as abominable to her people. But the trait that gave her away, those golden slitted orbs, they no longer hung within her face. Those things were gone, replaced by tawny eyes with big round pupils, flecked with their original golden hue...and crimson that matched her dress. She leaned forward to gaze long at her face, the face of someone she had always secretly wished to be, but simply wasn't, in a world that she wished to be real....but something told her it simply wasn't.

With a man who would always be just out reach...She had felt his vigor returning to him as he spoke, and now it was her turn.

"This time is different." She said curiously. "Usually we do not talk so much..." Slowly a sinking feeling would begin to harbor in the pit of the Eagle's stomach. "We are happy, and jump off of the cliff, and it is the same each time...I kiss you and you push me away, remind me of Aya, here...in this wonderful place..."

There was a deep sadness within her, eyes still strangely human when she met his dark gaze. "I miss Aya, Eagle, with all my heart, but she is not the one I think of when I wake, and just before I sleep, whose injuries I miss tending, even if it would mean my body was always broken, whose clever eyes I miss watching."

She should stop now, and the part of her with sense cried out for her to stop, for torment would only follow. She knew where this path led, and it led to anxious looks and awkwardness. It meant tearing apart everything she held dear in the span of a chime.

"I always envied for, for her beauty and allure, the charisma I could never hope to match, and her success with men brought on by her blood. No one would ever touch me like that..." her eyes closed. "But I could envy her any more than when I realized she was with you." She snarled, but before his eyes Razkar could see her pupil lengthen and become slits, and the coloring lighten.

"I miss Aya, Eagle, but I am in love with you."

Her own quiet, violent, aggressive, yet strangely gentle affections. Her lips curled. She had nothing left to say, nothing left to lay out before her. He had revealed his need to come home, and she had revealed why she both would treasure the coming and dread it in equal measure, but he had to know. Little did she know that she had told him in one of the safest places she could. She needed no denials, no explanation or diversion, and in fact, she dreaded their happening. Her body turned away from him, salty drops running down her cheeks that were not from the water below them, furious with herself.

[Razkar]

When she folded him in an embrace, he submitted to it in a way he didn't think he ever could in... that other world. Where Aya's had been gentle and constant, soothing him and whatever savagery bred in his breast, Wolf's arms were strength of the jungle and the Goddess-Queen herself. He breathed in deeply and lost himself in them, even as her words started to seep into his mind.

"I am so sorry I did not do this before...but I'm a petching child when it comes to this stuff."

Razkar chuckled and another wall was broken down: he turned and nuzzled her face. Felt her breath on his own. There was no... lust, in his movements, but he felt her body stiffen with surprise. So entranced was he in the peace of the moment, once again he did not notice.

Very soon, he would wish he did.

"You are needed eagle. I miss you...and Aya so much."

He smiled and opened his mouth to reply, but then her eyes changed. He watched in wonder as her face morphed and shifted. Surprise. Fear. The faintest trace of horror. And then, when she saw those eyes that would mark her as another one of Myri's Children and dog her steps no longer, a longing that could have brought tears to Razkar's eyes.

She wants so much to belong.

"This time is different. Usually we do not talk so much..."

That broke the spell. Suddenly, with her words being the catalyst, everything else in this strange, beautiful little world seemed to lose its texture. Even the water seemed more like watery paint than true liquid life. The cliffs were flat and even the sky seemed more like a ceiling than ever.

This time, he thought with a growing sense of dread and... oh, no... anger...

"We are happy, and jump off of the cliff, and it is the same each time...I kiss you and you push me away, remind me of Aya, here...in this wonderful place..."

Anger and confusion were replaced by a shock so strong that Razkar thought that now he might actually sink. His body was stiffened, his jaw slack, eyes wide, sure that this dream would vanish in a puff of smoke-

But is this your dream? Or hers? Are you but a figment or her mind... or is she the desires of yours?

The sea became choppy but there was a perfect, determined ring around the two floating Myrians. Razkar focused on her as best he could, repelled and saddened by the mounting despair in her voice. He didn't know what to do... and so he edged closer.

"What do you... this time? What does that..." He shook his head, trying to banish all thoughts but one. "Why... You said that you kiss me?"

"I miss Aya, Eagle, with all my heart, but she is not the one I think of when I wake, and just before I sleep, whose injuries I miss tending, even if it would mean my body was always broken, whose clever eyes I miss watching."

He shook his head as if some horror were unfolding before him. Probably because it was. Something unconscious and buried in him was suddenly given a laughing voice.

Oh, you never saw this coming, Raz? Really? Or did you just enjoy stringing her along, enjoying her denial?

"I..." He mumbled to the voice in his head that sounded as clear and loud to him in this strange realm as hers. "I would... I would never do that to her..."

"I always envied for, for her beauty and allure, the charisma I could never hope to match, and her success with men brought on by her blood. No one would ever touch me like that. But I could envy her any more than when I realized she was with you."

The sheer fury in her voice as it changed into a snarl was like a slap to his face. Goddess, he did not want to hear this. Neither of them should have to hear this. Too much pain, too much long-buried that should not see the day, dredged up without any warning, any chance to prepare. He drifted closer despite himself, jaw suddenly firm.

He had to stop this. Clouds besmirched the sky. Rocks tumbled from the cliffs. The waves went from choppy to raging, and only their perfect sphere was safe... and it was shrinking.

"Wolf, please-"

Her words poured on, hate so thick that he almost wept to hear it. Her eyes flashed and narrowed back into the hated slits of the Dhani, and Razkar let out a small groan of despair. For he knew what that meant in this place. Or he... felt it. Knowing in a place such as this was a relative term.

We are our feelings in this place. Now it is falling apart.

Work it out.

"I miss Aya, Eagle, but-"

Razkar shook his head desperately, hand flashing out to grab her shoulder. He knew what was coming, was desperate to stop it.

"Tinnok-"

"-I am in love with you."

Lightning flashed and thunder rolled and Razkar gritted his teeth as if struck. Some things were best left buried, he thought, then railed at himself. Was it her fault how she felt? Was it her fault that she wanted what she wanted? He closed his eyes and covered them with one hand, shaking his head and wanting nothing more than to wake up.

But the world, though raging, was not spent. And then...

Tears. Soft and falling, though he seemed to hear every one as they plopped noiselessly onto the waves. His head snapped up and his roiling doubts vanished. Well... not vanished, but... became distant. He saw lines of gleaming water on his friend's face, tears that she hated herself all over again for shedding, and he could not let that stand.

Razkar came forward even as she tried to bat him away. But he was always stronger, and swept her up in an embrace that tried to take all her pain away in one great sigh of movement.

It almost worked. The seas calmed as every wracking sob shook his arms. The clouds began to clear, defiant and pitch but unable to exist without the negativty to fuel them. Razkar... he felt it. That sadness. That despair. That hatred for the world, for her father, for her friend that had the one she wanted and the one she wanted for not seeing her as she wished.

And most of all, a monument to all the scathing, burning rage inside her... hate for herself. Razkar could barely stand to look at it, but he would.

Because he loved her, too. And it was still not enough.

"Wolf..." he whispered, lips so close they nearly touched her ear, voice strong but coaxing. His hand brushed her cheek and he broke the embrace, merely a foot from her face. "I... I will not push you away. I never..." He looked down. No. Now is not the place for lies. "... No... I did... feel... sometimes, that you felt this way. But you know where my heart belongs."

A fresh wave of sadness rose in her eyes and he cupped her cheeks again, desperation shining in his eyes almost like a madman's. He hadn't even considered how they were still floating, as his limbs hadn't moved in long chimes.

"No, Wolf... stay. Do not lose yourself as I did. This pain... you shall best it." His own eyes shone with tears for his friend. He did not want her to be in pain because of him, but he could not stop that. He stroked her cheek and tried his best to smile. "When-"

She said something, just as her face finally cracked and crumbled. The laws of this place truly were deranged, because while he could hear every drop of tears that hit the waves, he could not make out those two tiny words as she surged towards him.

But they sounded like forgive me.

[Tinnok]

She wondered then if there was a stronger entity in the world than the Eagle then as his arms wrapped protectively around her. The way he touched her, it was not like siblings...it was friendship, teetering on the edge of something that simply could never be, not in this life. Somewhere inside she knew she would wait. She was a solitary and isolated creature, a lone wolf separated from her people within both sides of her blood. She would be the fierce canine standing upon the raised hill, howling low and long at the moon, and he would be the eagle that soared above, forever out of reach.

But she would stop these infernal tears, for they would surely be the end of her. A hand fiercely wiped them away. She liked to think that where Aya had become this soft thing of beauty to him, she could always retain her identity as the cold warrior, even in he moments of warmth when she let the shield fall. This was simply pathetic and the hate radiated out of her anew, cliffs crumbling around her, dead birds falling into the water.

She glanced around at the mayhem, and a small smile spread across her face. Despite the bliss of earlier, the warmth and comfort she had felt before had not felt as visceral and real as this. This here was a moment of reality in the strange world constructed around them, the destruction of a purity she never truly had.

The abomination looked at her very right reflection in the rippling waves and smile lessened, but became more sincere as opposed to the wry bitter thing she sometimes carried. She felt the tendrils of a world apart from this one tugging upon her body. Somewhere tanned limbs stirred, urging wakefulness, and a pink tongue lapped against a dry face.

So she looked up at him then, the Eagle in his strange robes, with his open and caring eyes. Who held regret, sadness, and rejection all at once in that scarred and tattooed face. And so she said those words.

"Forgive me."

One last tear fell like a stone into the water from her face: the last one to be shed, and Tinnok blinked, smiled and moved the short distance between them. Her arms wrapped around his neck and soft lips covered in salt water and tears pressed against his, knowing he could not push her away before it would all be over.

And in that moment, though neither of them could see...her eyes returned to that very human tawny color, apart from the world she inhabited. The world disintegrated around them, falling into the sky blue sea, creatures dying and strangely colored rain falling from tumultuous skies, but Tinnok felt nothing except the warmth of his mouth upon hers, and once it was gone, well...so too was the dream.