Beside You in Time

[Aver Brand]

Oh, if she’d met this woman ten, fifteen years ago – her hands would move lower, and her teeth would break her lip. The temptation – and, in reflection, need – to assert herself over someone had been strong, then. So enamored with the exertion of power as she’d been, Vrag had even picked a man apart to see how he worked. Not out of malice.

Just because she could.

That manner of thirst had been quenched by years of bloodletting the Republic, strike after strike – death by a thousand cuts. Disappointed at the apex she did reach (and the one she never could), Vrag took her lessons and left her failures to rot on a world of stone.

(Re)formative years, then. Rebuilding herself, Nadir, a powerbase. Matsu’s return. A silver spiderweb of scars across her back – Raj would’ve seen it – sprawling Ternion across her arms – Raj would’ve seen that, too – and the three black lines of a bloodtrail across her heart.

Markings of the people who’d delved more than skin-deep. After so many decades of practice, Aver wore her human suit well. Still, all teeth and predator, she never inspired any particular humanity. A smile was rarely a smile, and more often merely a series of muscles pulled in precise order. The shifting inflection of her voice, a trained trait, enough to convey the illusion of emotion.

Cutting through that glacier took time and patience few were ever afforded. When people weren’t tools, they were obstacles; Aver, as Raj had presumed with warm murmur, excelled at destroying obstacles.

And yet this woman in her arms was neither. She was among those few purely by virtue of existing in the hearts and minds of her lovers before Aver ever laid eyes upon her. In that kiss, she would never know the ice, simply because she was already below it.

So her hands remained gentle, and her teeth merely a graze to thrill the heart. And everything she was, Raj was free to partake of – to wander the forest of memories as she pleased, dig her bare feet into the cool soil.

But even to her lovers, Ygdris made no promise of a safe return.

[member="Irajah Ven"]​

 

[Kuzo]

There was no part of that human façade that Irajah particular cared for. Carach, Matsu, Reverance- all were predators in their own fashion, hungry eyes and sharp teeth (though not like Aver's, no), and she found that she preferred the embrace of a predator to that of prey.

She did not dive in headlong, but eased through exploring hands and welcoming mouth to just beneath the surface. Focus on the hills and valleys that defined the edges of the body, yes, but also the rivers and cliffs that marked those she had allowed in deeper than mere flesh. Silver spider webs and dark waters. Finally seeing and tracing finger tips over the last of the three Ternions, as if she could read there a hundred embraces until the memories faded and swirled them all together in a haze of distant past.

A flicker of a smile and mouth joined hands in that exploration, walking lines of heat against skin cooled by a chilled dawn.

Her own ice and distance had melted, the last of it running rivulets in the face of that anger, the two canceling each other and allowing other things in. There were still things missing- one part of her soul she could literally never recover even if she wanted to- but in this moment with her, there was little about that that could matter. She was allowed in beneath Aver's, and Aver had helped to melt the last of hers.

The only thing between them now was tank top and leggings, and one of them would take care of that in short order.

[member="Aver Brand"]