12-16-2022, 11:34 PM
She half shook her head, lips parted for an answer, but it was too large a burden to encapsulate in a bridge of words. There was a sharp and surprising sting in realising the depth of that chasm; for Tristan did remember, and she did not know what he made of it, or of her. Patricus had been disappointed in whatever he saw. He had not said so, but she had felt it in the way he tried to coax from depths something she had barely been able to understand at the time. The first thing she’d done was run from him. Afterwards he’d insisted she must accept that they were one and the same, but it was he who could not reconcile the ways in which she both was and wasn’t the girl he found in his dream. The delicately fractured veins of Thalia’s soul were not like the others he claimed to guard. She was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with it. With her.
She felt like running again. Every new step of this wayward journey revealed her to be a ghost in her own life; nothing but a shadow cast from a figure she could not see. Everyone came because of Nimeda, and none stayed for the pale reflection of whatever they perceived to find in her stead. Even the creature tried to drown her when she reached out only for kinship. Around her the room blurred a little, running through her like a cooling current, and its whispers did not help. (It was easy to leave you.)
But Tristan’s hand snaked behind her head, soft as a shoreline anchor, and it tugged her back into her body. Stars swam her vision, but maybe it was just the gold of his eyes; for a moment she just couldn’t tell. Her touch skirted her own fragile temple along the tender edges of the blossoming bruise. It did not make her wince, but she felt it throb the echo of her thrumming heart. Thalia. My name is Thalia. “I don’t. Not up here,” she told him. He already knew but she spoke it like a secret, perhaps because in the moment she felt diminished by the confession.The hand she used for drawing threaded through the other of his, hers fine-boned and delicately small by comparison. Yet blood rimmed her nails where the swim had not washed it away, and there were cracks where the dreams ripped free when ink ran dry. The wound on her palm still ached. She did not bring focus to the small injuries though, just the fingers which spilled the mysteries controlling so much of her life. “Only here.”
After a breath, she squeezed and lifted Tristan’s hand closer; kissing the blunt tips of his fingers, then pressing them lightly to her chest. “And sometimes here.”
She knew the name only because he’d spoken it back at the cabin. When she’d said it before he’d looked at her strangely, and she’d presumed he simply didn’t appreciate the humour of his being so completely dripping wet at the time. Why she used it now she could not say, beyond that it spread feeling through her like soft ripples and she did not know the cause. Instinct ruled all the currents of her life since she left Moscow, both to joyous ends and terrible ones. Some things beat in her with an alarming ferocity, or a yearning that stirred the soul. She felt it when she looked out over the lake for the first time in person. She felt it when she beheld her sketch of what the creature protected. She felt it too when she watched the sprout of green from a cracked wall in Estonia.
Such feelings frequently doused her like sudden rain, with no thoughts or memories to anchor or explain them. Sharing that part of herself felt more vulnerable than the blanket she slipped bare from her shoulders, and she did not know if he would even understand, or if she wanted him to. Vanagandyr felt like an intimacy; one she was not sure she had a right to use. She hadn't even realised she had used it, until he said. But Tristan did not set her gently aside like she had made a mistake, as he had not when he first relaxed beneath her weight. Sweet and slow affections stripped her instead to damp skin. Thalia was flushed by desire, and unabashed by her nakedness. Her hair sat wild about her shoulders and down her back, shivering trails of lakewater down the curves revealed. She knew she was not beautiful, but whatever Tristan beheld her to be in that gaze, it set flames dancing in her blood. For a moment she was held still by it, utterly enchanted.
When he actually answered her though, her lips fluttered in sudden and honest amusement – for it was so endearingly artless a seduction. Fortunately, Thalia was not made for solemnity. Her hair coiled into ribbons against his chest when she leaned closer, pooling a collection of droplets into the thickets of hair there before each slipped a shuddering path down the wide valley of his ribs. Her own touch trailed warmer, charting a landscape she had only ever seen mapped on paper. She cupped his cheek.
“Alright,” she echoed. Her laugh was a pleasant hum, and she brushed her nose affectionately against his. By now she was very aware of his willing response beneath her, yet the heat from his palms was still almost careful in its capture. Tristan seemed far too old for what suddenly seemed very much like simple inexperience. The consideration dawned upon Thalia slowly, and a new thought occurred then; that maybe he’d not meant to question her ignorance of the dreaming so much as he offered up evidence of his own. Whatever kind of painted warrior he appeared to be in her sketches, Tristan was no more that man here than she was a girl she could not even remember being. The revelation was enough to pause her eyes upon his own, like she needed to see him anew.
Had he only been wondering what it meant?
"Because you were soaked through and dripping," she offered, expecting some flare of recognition. If it was his name in the dream he must know why it had amused her enough to point out – she had presumed as much this whole time. “Monster of the River. That’s what it means,” she added softly. As an explanation it meant little to her. She didn’t know why it shivered her through with feeling or made her heart beat so fiercely in her chest to share it. Maybe it would mean little to him too, but she didn’t choose to pause long enough to read his response.
This time the slow coax of her kiss fell into a current that beckoned deeper. It was an invitation and a need all at once, because if she couldn’t explain the swell of passions he provoked, she had no inclination to deny them when they swept over her. Thalia was not hesitant to guide them both. She shared with him the paths and trails of her body; showed him where to touch to quicken the thread of her pulse or pull unbidden sounds from her lips. In her own affectionate explorations she urged him for the same directions, seeking the connection of intimacy, and not just an exchanging of blind pleasure. It was a gentle intoxication, but she was left both breathless and enamoured by it.
A soft gasp left her when she finally steered herself on top. She discovered an intense and hypnotic kind of power, and one that mesmerised her for a time before she urged him closer instead, desiring the intimate enclosure of his arms and the heated rush of his lips. Her touch had been pressed unshyly between them, but she guided him there and let her hands find other distractions at the curve of his neck. Release when it came overspilled in shivering tides, buffeting her closer like waves reaching shore. She was breathing hard. Her teeth grazed his lower lip once the shuddering subsided into sensitivity, and if he minded she only offered the curve of a smile. When she kissed him next, it was in yield.
She felt like running again. Every new step of this wayward journey revealed her to be a ghost in her own life; nothing but a shadow cast from a figure she could not see. Everyone came because of Nimeda, and none stayed for the pale reflection of whatever they perceived to find in her stead. Even the creature tried to drown her when she reached out only for kinship. Around her the room blurred a little, running through her like a cooling current, and its whispers did not help. (It was easy to leave you.)
But Tristan’s hand snaked behind her head, soft as a shoreline anchor, and it tugged her back into her body. Stars swam her vision, but maybe it was just the gold of his eyes; for a moment she just couldn’t tell. Her touch skirted her own fragile temple along the tender edges of the blossoming bruise. It did not make her wince, but she felt it throb the echo of her thrumming heart. Thalia. My name is Thalia. “I don’t. Not up here,” she told him. He already knew but she spoke it like a secret, perhaps because in the moment she felt diminished by the confession.The hand she used for drawing threaded through the other of his, hers fine-boned and delicately small by comparison. Yet blood rimmed her nails where the swim had not washed it away, and there were cracks where the dreams ripped free when ink ran dry. The wound on her palm still ached. She did not bring focus to the small injuries though, just the fingers which spilled the mysteries controlling so much of her life. “Only here.”
After a breath, she squeezed and lifted Tristan’s hand closer; kissing the blunt tips of his fingers, then pressing them lightly to her chest. “And sometimes here.”
She knew the name only because he’d spoken it back at the cabin. When she’d said it before he’d looked at her strangely, and she’d presumed he simply didn’t appreciate the humour of his being so completely dripping wet at the time. Why she used it now she could not say, beyond that it spread feeling through her like soft ripples and she did not know the cause. Instinct ruled all the currents of her life since she left Moscow, both to joyous ends and terrible ones. Some things beat in her with an alarming ferocity, or a yearning that stirred the soul. She felt it when she looked out over the lake for the first time in person. She felt it when she beheld her sketch of what the creature protected. She felt it too when she watched the sprout of green from a cracked wall in Estonia.
Such feelings frequently doused her like sudden rain, with no thoughts or memories to anchor or explain them. Sharing that part of herself felt more vulnerable than the blanket she slipped bare from her shoulders, and she did not know if he would even understand, or if she wanted him to. Vanagandyr felt like an intimacy; one she was not sure she had a right to use. She hadn't even realised she had used it, until he said. But Tristan did not set her gently aside like she had made a mistake, as he had not when he first relaxed beneath her weight. Sweet and slow affections stripped her instead to damp skin. Thalia was flushed by desire, and unabashed by her nakedness. Her hair sat wild about her shoulders and down her back, shivering trails of lakewater down the curves revealed. She knew she was not beautiful, but whatever Tristan beheld her to be in that gaze, it set flames dancing in her blood. For a moment she was held still by it, utterly enchanted.
When he actually answered her though, her lips fluttered in sudden and honest amusement – for it was so endearingly artless a seduction. Fortunately, Thalia was not made for solemnity. Her hair coiled into ribbons against his chest when she leaned closer, pooling a collection of droplets into the thickets of hair there before each slipped a shuddering path down the wide valley of his ribs. Her own touch trailed warmer, charting a landscape she had only ever seen mapped on paper. She cupped his cheek.
“Alright,” she echoed. Her laugh was a pleasant hum, and she brushed her nose affectionately against his. By now she was very aware of his willing response beneath her, yet the heat from his palms was still almost careful in its capture. Tristan seemed far too old for what suddenly seemed very much like simple inexperience. The consideration dawned upon Thalia slowly, and a new thought occurred then; that maybe he’d not meant to question her ignorance of the dreaming so much as he offered up evidence of his own. Whatever kind of painted warrior he appeared to be in her sketches, Tristan was no more that man here than she was a girl she could not even remember being. The revelation was enough to pause her eyes upon his own, like she needed to see him anew.
Had he only been wondering what it meant?
"Because you were soaked through and dripping," she offered, expecting some flare of recognition. If it was his name in the dream he must know why it had amused her enough to point out – she had presumed as much this whole time. “Monster of the River. That’s what it means,” she added softly. As an explanation it meant little to her. She didn’t know why it shivered her through with feeling or made her heart beat so fiercely in her chest to share it. Maybe it would mean little to him too, but she didn’t choose to pause long enough to read his response.
This time the slow coax of her kiss fell into a current that beckoned deeper. It was an invitation and a need all at once, because if she couldn’t explain the swell of passions he provoked, she had no inclination to deny them when they swept over her. Thalia was not hesitant to guide them both. She shared with him the paths and trails of her body; showed him where to touch to quicken the thread of her pulse or pull unbidden sounds from her lips. In her own affectionate explorations she urged him for the same directions, seeking the connection of intimacy, and not just an exchanging of blind pleasure. It was a gentle intoxication, but she was left both breathless and enamoured by it.
A soft gasp left her when she finally steered herself on top. She discovered an intense and hypnotic kind of power, and one that mesmerised her for a time before she urged him closer instead, desiring the intimate enclosure of his arms and the heated rush of his lips. Her touch had been pressed unshyly between them, but she guided him there and let her hands find other distractions at the curve of his neck. Release when it came overspilled in shivering tides, buffeting her closer like waves reaching shore. She was breathing hard. Her teeth grazed his lower lip once the shuddering subsided into sensitivity, and if he minded she only offered the curve of a smile. When she kissed him next, it was in yield.
![[Image: thal-banner-scaled.jpg]](http://thefirstage.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/thal-banner-scaled.jpg)