Gabrielle had made her way through the shoreline towards the tidepools to lay leisurely across the rocks and watch the spraying sea, the salty air did well to mask her scent, though Ecrosia did linger, that was mostly it. The pink lioness enjoyed the cold mist that sprayed her, much more than the cold snow that blanketed most of Amaryllis.

She wondered for a moment how it would feel to let the sea take her, never having to deal with hurt again, heartbreaks be gone, though her cubs would always keep her steady, like a rock or an anchor, she couldn't just leave them. The thought washed away with the tide, and soon she was thinking about something else entirely, day dreaming about anything, and everything.

code by anyu

The Butcher

Unholy water - Sanguine Addiction, those silver bullets a last blood benediction

How peculiar, to find her here of all places, by the whim of the ocean and the gales of the storm-breaking sea; the salt, the blood and the frame of the blackened shores. As if a ghost pulled from memory, dredged from the foam of the swell. He had needed to do a double-take, recalling earlier moments with an impish fondness. The night had been just as cold, just as damp, just as unforgiving.

Gauthier chose his steps carefully.

As if trailing the pass of grazing prey, he lowered himself across the dark sands, streamlined and heavy-padded, attempting the most silent steps achievable. He had seen her last through the mist of the hotsprings, decadent and beautiful as ever - and as ever, wanted to paint her red, r e d, dripping wet.

He had taken care not to disturb the igneous grounds she had draped herself across, sure not to topple pebble or shell, straining with his utmost patience not to reveal himself so soon.

And with the purr of exotic delight, the reaving resonant worship of wolfish hunger - he would ghost the cage of his teeth just over the swallow of her hips and the curve of her spine with a beguiling, low, "Esmer—"

But it is not her.

The scent he breathes of her is not one of a rose-bled altar of deep, feral forests, the cold of moon-blooming brumal flora. It is new flesh, warm and foreign, without the familiar softness. He straightened, stepping aside, not of shame but a summoned respect. "I am mistaken."

@Gabrielle

The spray of the ocean covered his scent and his steps, the lioness had been lulled into a half awake slumber, she barely made a sound or a move, save for her sides raising and lowering with her breaths. For a moment, she thinks it is Adeodatus, the accents, the voice both similar, her body reacts while being half asleep, a purr escaping her throat as she feels air lightly breathed over her hips that were already getting into a better position, tail moving to brush against him as it moved.

It was over the moment the husky voice went from above her hips to a few steps away and a more alarmed sounding voice explained They we're mistaken, Gabrielle sat up with a gasp, turning to face the stranger, her warm eyes meeting his, her cheeks flushed as she scrambled to apologize. Exactly what she was apologizing for was a mystery.

"Îmi pare foarte rău!" She mentally kicked herself for using Romanian, but as a habit it flowed off her tongue and through her lips, she used it to speak to her children to teach them Romani, and of course English, but Romanian would be there first language.

1.I am so sorry!
@Gauthier

code by anyu

The Butcher

Unholy water - Sanguine Addiction, those silver bullets a last blood benediction

Îmi pare foarte rău! He paused a moment, his eyes riling back over the belle with an inquisitive glare - the accent is odd but the language there, far out of commonplace for the region they held. A Devorre inflection, and yet... His head raised, the heave of his skull squared with the peaks of his shoulders, curious, suspect. Her stature and physique did not speak to that of any of the families who stead in the dark of the mountain shadow, not even of Deivalun.

Of all his cousins he could collect in mind, bloodied or birth-slick from the muck of the Groapa, he could not recall her. Perhaps she was one who lingered the outskirts, a side-wise clan, bold enough to speak the tongue of that shadow. Had their own clan not been withered like the frailty of an ancient skeleton, reduced to ash, dust? Would not their civilization be assimilated and ridiculed, a thing of a terror-mythology, a child's tale to usher cubs back into the safety of their den?

"Limba ta este îndrăzneț," even if it were in the form of apology, the curve of her lips had founded the particular accent, the acute dialect. "De unde ai luat-o?" The stark of his eyes burned into @Gabrielle's, void of softness and shame.

Romanian: Your tongue is bold, where did you get it? (meaning how does she know romanian/Devorre dialect.)

The lioness noted the suspicious body language and she accepted that, she decided to speak truthfully, atleast somewhat, "My friend, she speaks it from her homeland, and I've been learning it to better speak with her." She bowed her head, not wanting to anger the male who was already dawning more suspicion from her as if she were the one to wake him from his slumber with such a brave introduction.

She felt her face flush and she averted her eyes from the warmonger, nerves bustled unsteadily inside her stomach, how was she suppose to know this man was cousin to her husband, or brother to Astarte when they looked nothing alike.

@Gauthier

code by anyu

The Butcher

Unholy water - Sanguine Addiction, those silver bullets a last blood benediction

He eased for violence to share no cause with coincidence - she shrunk in the shadow of his mounting suspicion, and it was less becoming than outright gallancy. Were she a liar, she was still not Devorre, and she would not be so bold to own its inflection. Her friend was either cousin or passerby, and regardless the shadow of the mountain would not reach them here.

Gauthier scoffed softly, his eyes drawn over the sifting seas that stretched beyond the frail line of the lagoon, their steady ripples culled beneath the horns of a waning moon. "Mind the company you keep," he lulled whimsically, a hint of humor chasing the grin across his sharp features. Shifting his weight, he rested against his haunches on the hard ground, surveying the vastness of the sea before them as he held her in his peripheral.

"I'm not here to eat you." chuckling darkly, his eyes flicked to @Gabrielle in her misplaced submission. But maybe a bite.

The lioness peered up at him with magenta eyes, she followed his line of sight out to the waves that slowly crashed against rock, she watched him with her peripherals, nothing the hint of humor in his voice and the grin upon his lips. She chuckles lightly, exhaling, I'm not here to eat you The lioness again feels her face flush, embarrassment maybe? "Could have fooled me with the way your jaws hovered over my hips."

A bold statement, but one laced with humor that he had given her, she smirked a bit, tail flicking the air as she felt a little more playful

code by anyu

The Butcher

Unholy water - Sanguine Addiction, those silver bullets a last blood benediction

The tautness of worry loosened in the resurrection of a softer humor; she unspooled, if only slightly, from a caution he likened to prey. The ocean roared, wavered, cast them in silver mists in the ebbing night. And in the quiet her voice filled the cold with a simmering jibe, easing carefully into that space of uncertainty. She was nothing like the being he had mistaken her for - the wild creature he had met at these very pools, though the hard ground had forgotten them both.

He swallows disappointment for a new sliver of apathy, not without its heathen amusement. She is too meek, too chary, however inviting; but fine enough company for the night. He remembered the way her hips rose to meet those teeth, the way her skin blushed beneath the furl of his warmth. "You didn't seem all that bothered." he countered greedily, raising a brow. @Gabrielle

Ruby colored eyes flicked to look at him, her attention not held by the waves but by the man who sat beside her, she had came to Amaryllis still with a youths minds, innocent, naive, untouched, but it didn't take long for Gabrielle to lose that pure, innocence she had carried with her. The present lioness had desires, needs, she wanted satisfaction, she lusted, she knew the world wasn't one for the naive, the pure. Finding herself in the presence of this male should have brought fear to her, but she felt comforted, Adeodatus was still a sore topic for her, and this lion didn't know her, she could be whatever she wanted right now.

His words caused the lioness to smirk a bit, repositioning so she lay on her side, her head now turned to face him, and she chuckled softly, "I guess you're right. An invitation is an invitation." She would shrug, turning to look back at the waves, the small smirk on her lips still visible from her side profile.

@Gauthier

code by anyu

The Butcher

Unholy water - Sanguine Addiction, those silver bullets a last blood benediction

You're right. An invitation is an invitation. He watched as she slouched to the side, her expression possessed by the carousal of her lacquered voice. A brow raised, surprised by the consistent show of submission, the admittance of it, cementing a separation of likeness of one to the other. Recalled the roll of her hips beneath the ghosting touch of his breath, the rousing rake of his teeth - an invitation. Hummed softly to himself as he mused, contented by, if nothing else, her honesty. But he looks for clarity in all things, transparency in the silly nuances of social cues he may otherwise miss. Not deft to it, but respectful.

In this place between heaven and hell, dry land and merciless sea, @Gabrielle was no less than he. His crown means little in the realm of wild animals, and it was a law he followed like religion. "An invitation?" he questioned, drumming over the implications. "I suppose you don't mind the company then."