Paradise Beach

His reactions are magical to her, the expressiveness of her brilliant king. She could not be happy in the Deserts any longer with the promise of his smiling eyes and a kind sun on her back. She could not endure another warm winter, fighting any physical touch because the heat of the world was so much stronger than the pull for company. She wanted snowy winter days curled into the embrace of someone to love her despite her distance from ever being great. She wanted what most human women saw as a small cabin with a lovely fireplace where she might sit on a couch under a knitted blanket, her head rested on the strong shoulder of her lover. That it is unlikely does not occur to her at first, and when it does she begins to open herself more in her gallop. Her reservations fracture as she realizes if she will never know the happiness of solid commitment and forever adoration, she might as well enjoy the little morsel fate had dropped at her starving muzzle.

She begins to lengthen stride and throw her face up to the sky, to seem to fly despite her wingless sides. If her wings were exposed and Kastiel had ever heard of her father once, all this anonymity would be gone. Her wings are enormous - like her father, able to entirely engulf her body when in use. No other in Beqanna had them or what they could do. That she could put them back into her sides so completely was another tell she would not be able to pretend to not notice. They arrive with the squishing berries announcing their location clearly enough. She sees him spook and stop motion abruptly, rising up on her hind legs she reaches out and offers him the berries they had sought in their gallop.

His joy is not lost on her as she falls to the earth again and speaks. Her humility comes from a family where women were valued, but sons were revered. Where she grew up knowing her brother would surpass her. They had been birthed out of the same womb, died on the same sands, woke up with the same magic… how could he be so far out of her reach now? She does not see how her value had dropped so low when the very same flesh was crowned king on another body. It is not the power, though. It is how she grew to be all but forgotten. Anell is the only thing holding her to those sands anymore. Her brother has found love in both the wrong and right places - with so many more promising futures than becoming misty memories.

She expresses herself to Kastiel as she has never done before. Once she had been a confident adolescent who would defy a queen in her own home and now she skulks about the shadows - so sure that she will fail her own heart that she caged it away and sought for more and more reasons she deserved to be forgotten. He openly compliments her, appealing to every little girls dream. Every little flicka dreams that a man will find them wonderful, find them beautiful and charming. He drags her into his fairytale mind with cooing words and there is a very logical side to her that warns her against believing him. He had a kingdom of potential lovers with far less baggage than she. He had a world of love offered in the bosom of mares of his own ilk and without any strong ties to another land, another world entirely separate to his own.

Why would he want her when he could have those like the ones she has watched approach him? Alona was beautiful, Malena was kind and quietly strong. Those were just a scant few out of the world of Beqanna he could have. Her logical side almost wins again - when she realizes that yes… in fact, her brother rose to greatness and why did she not deserve even a few moments of believing they were cut from the same cloth? That she was acceptable company to this kind king on his day playing hookie. That he had chosen to play hookie with her. Sadly not, Your Grace. she says. You cannot bless a liar. Her voice is sober as much as it is light. And I am that, Kastiel. I am a liar. She speaks as he compliments her and clings to a hope of her returned touch. You cannot bless a liar. She says again with enough tears in her voice that she needs no tears to fall from her eyes.

She speaks one way, as though he can expect rejection, but in that same second she falls into his touch. It is a beautiful thing, her shivering form finally growing weak for his affection, melting her body into his where they touch. You break my heart... She whispers, her lips pressed ever so gently against his throat where she can reach. With all the words a girl could only pray to hear in a voice so gentle. Suddenly she chokes, swallowing and shivering as she steps back, not stepping back out of distaste or rejection - of him anyway. I cannot survive your kindnesses.

She feels her sides ripple and she knows it has begun to look like water the way a motion glides beneath her flesh. It is like watching a great leviathan breach the surface waves of the sea, her wings spreading out without pain or horror. They unfurl like the wings of an angel. A small glow enters her eyes, close enough to her homeland for the magic to shine through. The great span of them is beautiful and makes her all the more glorious. Now she is not Lorey, but Allore, Princess and Duchess to the Deserts. She is a foreigner and all the further out of reach thanks to her birthrights upon her back and in her blood. She closes those brilliant gold, shining, eyes to hide from him. I am so sorry…. comes her whimper. It is all she can do to not flee by feather or foot.

Inspiration:
I’d Rather Be With You by Josh Radin
Gravity by Sarah Barailles
Fairytale/You Belong to Me by Ahmir