♥️
Part of her expects a sharp rebuke from the towering stranger, or at the very least cold indifference. Instead, he lets out a rumbling chuckle and reassures her in a mild-mannered tone. Though maturity has deepened his voice, it’s not quite the booming bass of an ancient, wizened being - he sounds, if anything, almost young. Then he shifts, so the golden light of the setting sun hits his features at a slant, and Arkana sees that he is young - perhaps not much older than she is - and as handsome as anything she’s ever seen. Her head is spinning as they exchange breaths, Arkana offering her nose tentatively, her mismatched eyes unable to tear themselves from his face, from his eyes that glow like tiny suns in the inky black, star-studded sky of his pelt.
There is a pit in Arkana’s stomach, not dissimilar to what she had felt when she had first stepped into the ocean and felt nothing but weightlessness. It is fear and anticipation and pure adoration all twisted together and writhing like confused eels in her belly.
Then he speaks again, and the spell is broken. Arkana tears her eyes from his face, conscious of the fact she’d been staring, and suppresses a nervous smile. He has reminded her of the fact that she is on a strange island, in the middle of nowhere, with the day nearly done and no one to keep her company during the night. Heat rushing into her face, she chances another glance up at him just as he offers his name. Kaiju. This time when she feels the pull of a smile at her lips, she lets it grow.
“I’m Arkana,” she says. “I… I swam over from Luthien. It’s my first time out on my own. I didn’t mean to stay so long, but I was tired and I fell asleep and the next thing I knew the sun was almost down. Do you live around here, Kaiju? Do you know of some place I could get a drink?” Her ears prick hopefully.
love-child of evren & shamwari
yearling; mutt; bay tobiano; 15.3hh wfg |