when i was marked for suffering,
Love forswore all knowledge of my doom;’I hope you don’t look too closely, there’s trouble staring us down.” Neerja growls at last, golden eyes flicking to where leaves hiss.

He is chocolate among green, a shadow within a shadow, and yet her blood sings. Is it the island or the man that pulls phoenix eyes from bestial body, looking away from the cosmos and away from the earth to find a galaxy she’s missed and loathed and loved and cried for. Brows arch, grin widens, and Moira seems a cat who’s caught a mouse. For all the wiles of this new world, none could ever compare to the way he takes her breath away.

It rushes then, soft and sweet and quickly, out into a small puff of air that has the tiger rolling her eyes and stepping forward. Alarm flashes low and hard for a moment, fear for what her beloved would do to the King, her King, if allowed too close. "Play nice,” the woman croons, teeth tugging a lashing tail back. Neerja roars, ears flat, and swipes at her pegasus halfheartedly.

Imminent iceberg avoided, sparkling, laughing eyes full of amusement meet those chocolate baths and dive in without hesitation. "Have you seen a ghost?” She asks. Mouth quirks near the edge, lips waver with suppressed laughter, and the Regent dips her head in greeting. "I did not wish to bother you before crossing the bridge,” and it is a simple dismissal as to why she had not approached him, why this encounter now is such a seeming shock. Ice water on his spine, frozen, stuck, Asterion is still as he has so rarely been near her before.

"This is Neerja.” At the mention of her name, the tigress stalks forward once more with heavy lids and slow movements. Head tips to the side, nothing like the innocent gesture of her winged cub, no. Purely predatory and threatening, bared fangs are her only greeting. "I think she likes you,” Moira says with another nip toward her companion. "Are you a man on a mission, or a King here to save the world?”

or else at ease
Love grows a cruel tyrant, hard to please;"Mm,” she hums, looking away as he speaks of distractions. There is a bitterness in her eyes, a jealousy in the frowning of red lips that has Neerja pressing against Moira once more and throwing furtive glances towards the man. Having decided he simply isn’t worth her time (not yet), she ignores him and tends to her cub.

Orange and black and white tuck tight against the phoenix, seek entrance into her mind until their consciousness is one. Thoughts flow between them, before them, and neither phoenix nor tiger might know from whom they originate. All that is there is the union, the one-ness. Anger and jealousy and a sullenness vying for dominance, demanding she act (they act) on impulse and instinct. Could the jungle cat have her way, the king would be minced meat, a thing of the past for Moira to no longer shed water over, to moon over, to become jealous and possessive. The cat does not enjoy having to share the attention of her companion, her soul-bonded.

He is something she dislikes even more than the unicorn who is not kin but more to the girl on fire.

Only when Moira’s brow touches striped brow does the tiger turn once more, facing the stallion with a challenge. He approaches and she counters with her own forward steps. At last breath touches breath, but it is discontent in eyes of ice, even as she relays his words faithfully. ’I think he cares for you.’ I think he was distracted more, she retaliates, letting jealousy get the better and a small huff force its way past tightly pressed lips. The tiger withdraws from the man, whiskers twitch but teeth hidden. 

How Moira morphs so quickly from pleasure to pain! Muscles tighten and pull inward, wings tremble as she remembers the silver man.

The first to meet her these strange lands, Raum had been an intrigue even then. Back when she was younger, greener, ready to take on the world and carve out a home for herself and her beloved cousin… Ghost or not, crow or not, he’d never hurt her. Oh, he’d hurt her unicorn, he’d stolen her Queen, he’d slain a member of her home… But she is no killer. A keeper and tormentor, a thing that sings sweet songs of death to men who turn her out on her own when only anger and joy flood her system simultaneously… And yet she could never act on those words.

"Would he be brought to justice, would you remember a girl with flowers in her hair who asked that they only be something you liked so long ago? If we were to find him, Neerja and I, and deliver him unto you and Isra and Eik for all you have suffered, would you ever think of me again?” And it is an intimate whisper, reflecting his own hushed tones with an inflection of their own. Gold in black upon black peer out from beneath lashes, turn bright eyes pensive and dark as she remembers what it is to be forgotten… Or worse: to never seem to have existed at all.

"We’ve different goals, it seems, but I am glad to see you here no matter the circumstance.” Warmth returns again to husky voice that hums and soothes and smiles, for no matter her fury or jealousy, she could not stay angry long when having been apart for longer. "I’ve never seen a jungle like this - not that I’ve seen many. Neerja remembers her home and the leaves and the pool and the humidity. I think she’s fond of being back in something akin to where she’d been born. Perhaps someday she and I will find our own little paradise…” A place where they could hide away, where war and tyrants and death would not penetrate… A utopia for two, a senseless, hollow dream without the faces she’s come to love so dearly.

'My strange, winged cub, I could destroy all your problems with ease.'

You know you never would.

Love is a god!
 All things he knows and seesWords rise like flames upon her skin, lashing and licking and teasing and devouring all at once until she is burning and angry and turning her cheek away from him. How could he say that when he neglects her so? Publicly refuses her? Is so unwilling to think of her and how she must feel?

Fury is a sour taste on her tongue, a rumbling volcano in her eyes. It simmers there, bubbling and churning, pulling tight everything she holds dear (pulling him closer even as she wishes she could push him away for but a moment.) And she is determined to stay strong, to let his body come so close and feel the heat radiating from her pores; does it burn him as it does her? Can he see the way he affects her even now?

Neerja lets him press in close, feeling the need and pain simultaneously and wishing she could take it all away. Unhappily she stalks into the brush, off to patrol and scare away any others who come close and intrude on these quiet moments, these tender times. Even the cat knows when a heart needs to heal and needs to feel. So she disappears with the whisper of the wind that winds between them at last.

"You think I could forget what he has done, Asterion?” And his name is a curse upon her tongue, head tilts high as she looks down her skinny nose to him. Eyes narrow and she steps close, presses near, lays her skin against his skin, sibilating unto him as he whispered softly just to her. "I, too, know my responsibility. You were not there when Isra was taken! My people looked to me as yours look to you, he was of my court. I’ve seen monsters, do not think me a girl to shy away, do not think  you can cage me in a castle to keep safe.”

Ears flatten as she withdraws, feeling the jungle breeze and humidity mix until it dances over crimson skin, over sunset sides. Wings are spread, arching toward canopies, letting feathers catch air and a shiver pass down her spine. How hard she’s worked to overcome this fear she holds of herself, of a part that is so profound a part of her that it defines who the phoenix is and why she is and just how she is.

"I will do what needs doing,” she closes with, unable to meet his eyes for the second time since they’ve spoken. And she is closed off to Neerja, letting emotions come to a rolling boil, feeling them tossed in a summer squall from side to side.

He looks for lost eyes, near-crying eyes, and finds only a mass of hair blocking the view. Moira is a statue melting when he tells her how little faith he has in her skills of survival, a glacier being built drop by drop of water freezing. "I’ll have to find a tree full of syrup then,” she pouts. This pushes sulking gaze towards quiet trees of green and blue. Purple leaves could kiss them, but they are too far away. Would they taste like candy if she pressed her lips into their folds? Would they melt like butter under her tongue? "My blood sang, I could do naught but reply.” So she turns to him, she smiles, but it is distant and quiet as never before. "There is something in the air that’s electric and it calls me forth. And there are people I love about the trees that I could not abandon. When Denocte needs answers, I find them.” The challenge is in her voice, daring him to tell her what she should and should not do. Breakable and soft and pliant, these are illusions of a soft thing, a quiet thing, too long pressing down and suffocating the phoenix.

She is a flame. She is mortal and she is wild. She is ruler of her own wishes.

And Fate saw fit to tie her galactic heart and shrink it, condensed into a sun, a moon, a shooting star that orbits a man made of water, of sea-dust. Perhaps she is a comet streaking through his life, perhaps she will crash and burn. But he is not one to tell her where she can and cannot go, what she should and should not do. "I am mortal, but there are things I must do for those I love, too, my King.” At last her eyes beg him to understand, imploring and pleading, pliant and soft so that he might see his own reflection, his own self how she sees him, and her words are a midnight cry, spiraling smoke drifting into a moonless night. 

 He is birdsong and he is beautiful. Elusive. Ephemeral. Eternally scarred across her heart. Searing eyes seek to breech her own depthless gaze, her own flaming amber that devours everything in its path. If he could read her, he would see the portraits did not end that day he refused her, that day she vowed to love him enough for both of them until he saw the newborn bird in the midst of ashes and flame and ruination. Oh! Were he only omniscient then Asterion could read into the clandestine heart of the red crowned woman, the many twisting turns and paths and harrows she fought to come this far.

But hers is not a tragedy she will admit to.

So the phoenix lets her wings flare out, lets her gaze burn as it turns upon her king once more, lets his agreement stoke the fires for a moment longer. She is a blaze that burns and dances only for his eyes, only for his taking, only for his pleasure and agreeableness. “I do much for my people, and it is my job to help protect them and learn of the world. I am their bridge to unity with all but our docks and seas and I could not be so selfish as to hurt them. You need not worry about any midnight hunt with the moon and wind’s kiss as my only companions.” And she settles, flames cooling, embers winking up at him, trailing phantom hands of smoke and stories down turpentine spine of chocolate and silk. As her skin cools and wings fall, as her temper settles and jealousy - a cruel and terrible mistress - settles into a half-lidded slumber once more, Moira Tonnerre looks to the Crown of Dusk for comfort, for answers, for that soothing balm only his presence seems to provide.

 “I know so little and so much of you, Asterion. You are as depthless as the ocean we met beside, and I fear that I will never reach the bottom without drowning first. But I would drown for you,” it is almost like a secret, like a plea, and like a prayer as it falls from black and red lips. People so often confuse her, and this man, this creature, this pure, wonderful being is the most perplexing of them all. He says yes and then says no, he gives her whiplash with just one look. He is almost everything she wants, so deeply, so badly, that it hurts when she closes her eyes.

And Moira always goes back to those brown eyes. They ground her, they draw her forward once she is confined in herself again, once she is in control.

Words of command, a request she not call him what he is, they lash out at her, they beg her, they fall like bricks upon her spine! How cruel, how cold, for him to turn her away again and again. But she is stubborn. She will not give up. The tilting of her head sends bangs falling softly to the side, ears tilting forward and she shakes her nose ‘no’. “I will not lie and call you something you are not. Isra is my Queen, my kin, she bears my heart within her own. But you, Asterion, are my King. Court borders mean little in the face of this feeling, and although you might deny it in yourself, you cannot deny me the right to what I feel. Such a will you have over me, too! I would give almost anything to see you happy, to see you smile. The frown upon your brow is a dagger to my heart, I can hardly breathe when I know I am the root of so much of your unease and unhappiness. Tell me what it is you want of me or tell me to leave you - like the old oak stands tall against buffeting winds that seek to unroot it, I will not fall until I know the war is lost.” Why, she wonders with a breaking voice, does it always seem to come to this when they are together lately? How simple it had been before!

Brushing shoulders and coy glances were enough.

Soft words and dancing was enough.

Now they meet with trepidation and caution, they meet with something that burns and is denied time and time again. She comes seeking a meal and goes home hungrier than before. The Tonnerre girl is starving for his affections, wilting day by day, brooding day by day, becoming something wild and tortured day by day.

Can’t he see what he does to her every time he walks away? Like the wolf that is left to howl their sorrow to the moon, she, too, stands alone in a world passing her by. Waiting - forever the phoenix is left waiting and wanting.