Common

The pair of them traipsed through the gathering dark, both simmering in anger, and refusing to acknowledge one another through sharp, stolen glances and the flattening of contrasting ears. It was the younger, of the them, the stallion, youthful and still straddling the cusp of physical maturity that spoke first. “You don’t have to follow me, you know.”

The mare merely snorted her derision. “Who says I’m following you?” she growled, picking up her pace despite the protest of her muscles, as if to drive her point deep, as if by pulling ahead of him would prove him wrong. But her body is tired from having fought a lost battle against the ocean, and the land is unfamiliar, so it is not long before they are again ambling along shoulder to shoulder, though the both of them are very careful to keep a small and safe distance between them. The silence of the evening dragged on, until the mare can bear it no more. “It was you who followed me into the sea,” she nettled, her dark eyes slanting toward him, cunning and cold.

The mottled white male stopped suddenly, turned on her with a derisive snort. “I told you not to go into the water!” Atreides snapped back. “You never listen, do you?” And he’d intended to spit the words at her like poison, they turned to ash in his mouth, bitter-tasting, and they drifted far more softly across the stillness of dusk, heavy with the weight of their shared history, and what she had once done for him.

Truth was, she knew so little of the world, and its dangers, having grown up so sheltered by her father and brothers. She’d been so loved by them, until they cast her out.

“I supposed this makes us even now,” the ebony speckled mare ventured, and while her tone sounded sincere, the boy was wise to her wiles, and he’d known her long enough to learn that the tongue hidden behind her teeth was forked. Her lips twitched - in humour, in hubris, both at once - and she turned away, making an attempt to take the lead. Measured the seconds that passed, feeling that a count of five was more than generous, knowing what little she knew of the boy-king’s temperament.

One, two, thr–

Atreides rolled up beside her like a thunderstorm, dark, ominous and rumbling discontent. “We will never be even, Iphigenia!” She, at least, had a place and a people to return to, if she were to humble herself and beg for forgiveness. But he - he had nothing left, and no one. No one who’d remember him, save for the heartless minx who taunted him with her eyes even now.

With a huff, the stallion pulled away at a swift, passive-aggressive trot. Settled in the shelter of a rise, and dropped his head to graze idly, even though he wasn’t particularly hungry. The air here fairly reeked of strangers, and he was determined to enjoy these few moments of peace while he could. The heavens knew, they’d be short lived, especially with Iphigenia still hanging around, drifting nearer while pretending he didn’t exist to her. But he knew it was a ruse, and he knew she’d know he knew - it was the whole point, to get under his skin. How long would this go on, he wondered. They were outcasts, tied to one another. Survivors who’d struggled through the seas together, after being driven from a cliff to their deaths.

After everything that had transpired in their pasts, was it any wonder that they could think of nothing but ways to slowly destroy one another?

The stars had come out, but the clouds were fast rolling in. Atreides managed to steal a glimpse of them, twinkling overhead. How he wished he were still lingering at the sandy outskirts of the Hills, waiting for Azalaïs to join him, as she had a handful of times over the short period that her mother had permitted Atreides and Iphigenia to remain at the borders of her domain. Come morning, he decided, he’d leave, make his way back to the Hills. Let Iphigenia do whatever she wanted, tonight, Atreides didn’t care. He was tired, he was so tired.

But he didn’t dare close his eyes and sleep.

{{ Open for anything, & happy for these two to be claimed by different characters, it'll make for interesting development for me, getting a chance to post them individually <3 }}