[Cobalt Mountains]Perverted Eagle or Curious Kelvic?(Sondra)

[Ethan]

Ethan smirked at her comment. If anything Ethan would be the Rooster and Sondra his fertile hen. He welcomed the challenge though, it wouldn't be Sondra is she wasn't hard to get. The Konti lifted her branch up to take another swing at the cocky little rooster. He saw the move a mile away, raising his forearm in response... And grunted in pain as she slammed her heel into his leg and drove him to one knee. ”Agh, I have heard of hard to get, but this is a little much.” His leg was crying out in pain, but he gave her a little smirk. Then grabbed both hands and yanked her to the floor. If they where going to fight hand to hand, then why not wrestle? With Hadrian being such a book warm and Kendall not one for close contact. Ethan was pretty lonesome and had no one to rough house with. For most people playing in the dirt wasn't needed, but Ethan liked the aggression and close contact. It was the hatchling inside of him. ”If you don't like feathers in your bed sheets.” He grunted through the tangle of limbs. ”I can leave them behind. They would get in the way of our groin's anyways.” He gasped the last part. The air being squeezed out of his chest. Sondra had a tight grip. This might have been a bad idea. She was a lot stronger than she looked. He could feel the blood on his fore arms smearing their bodies. The smell of blood was both revolting and intoxicating.

[Sondra]

"Petch!" A quick swear as she was tumbled to the ground. So much for an orderly bit of training. Her own fault, she should have known Kelvics had very little by the way of impulse control. Those human faces were so easy to believe. This was likely where he wanted her to begin with. She should have made him used the handle of her hammer for defense, forcing a rhythm. Her temper had got the best of her, seizing on any opportunity to take a swing at something. As expected, he was a sloppy fighter. Good for actual peril, frustrating when you wanted to improve any sort of technique. She couldn’t really gouge his eyes, like she would to a real opponent. There was a downside to the proximity, though, one Ethan didn’t yet understand. He had only seen a chance to grab and take. It was the reason Sondra liked younger men in her bed, they had accumulated less sin to share. Ethan would feel a sudden onslaught of memory, richly marbled with fear and hate. All the powerful emotions wrapped around his basest sin. The feeling was quick as illness and just as powerful as it spilled from his gut. Mingled with that was the feeling of the sin being known, splayed open for another’s scrutiny. Whether he felt shame or not depended on his level of “human-ness”, as shame was one of the most fundamental human traits. Sondra was already extricating herself, her expression gone flat. Behind her eyes she was spiraling upward, buffeted by wind and rain. Below her was the center of her universe, wound with love and all the malignant emotions that anchor could bring. He wanted her to stay. To stay in the silver vortex of seas and storms that was rising around the ship. Was she really fleeing to get help? Or had she finally shucked the thing she hated most? Each pellet of rain was a punishment, but she did not stop even as he screamed for her to return. It was a defiance of primal need, eased only by a lie that it was for his good. The lie was rapidly repeating in her head demanding belief. “Enough of that nonsense,” Sondra half croaked as she tottered to her feet, “Doesn’t do me any good.”

[Ethan]

Some where in the struggle. Sondra's skin met Ethan's. Then everything he feared and loathed. Came crashing back into his mind. Unwanted and unwelcome. His body encircled the Konti as they struggled, but his mind was back to that terrible day. The storm raged around them, water crashing onto the deck. Men falling off the railing or from the rigging up top. This was the moment right before the mast broke. And in many ways. The moment he did too. Grimm had pushed him against the wall. Screaming in his face, hitting him to make sure he obeyed. How could anyone have loved such a man? He was his master but was he supposed to hold onto such a fate? Ethan watched the scene unfold before him. The mast broke and so did the young version of himself. He watched that kid fly off, escape his fate. But after all this time. He couldn't decide whether it was right or wrong. He wanted to say to hell with the bastard. To give up his chains as a Kelvic pet. But guilt would always come rushing in. To tell him he was nothing but a monster. Hadrian had once told him the name of the Wizard that created his kind. And he often wondered if this was the fate he envisioned for his children. To be the personification of enslavement... When Sondra untangled herself and stumbled to her feet. He rolled onto his side, feeling nauseous and too weak for words. ”You couldn't of warned me about that Sondra!” He said angrily, after catching his breath. Deep inside he knew it was her that did it. Obviously there was no other explanation. He could feel her inspecting his memories and prying into his thoughts. It was a dirty feeling, like knowing someone watched you while you slept. All boundaries where now shattered. This woman now knew the worst thing about him. His ugliest sin. And that wouldn't change no matter what he said or charmed her into. ”Well you might as bloody well, say something!” Her silence angered him. ”If your going to look into me like that, you had better well be willing to talk about it.” Finding the strength. He got onto his feet. But he was too disgusted and ashamed to look her in the eye. Who knows what she thought of him now.

[Sondra]

Sondra’s answer was half a growl as she leaned in aggressively. “I told you I didn’t like being touched! It’s none of your gods-damned concern why.” She was seething, “I tried to leave you at camp. I tried to keep you at a distance. I didn’t breathe a word to you before today.” Emphasizing the word “I” she made a beak with her hand and pecked at her heart every time she said it. The Konti wasn’t buckling under his fury and hurt, but was rollicking between her own angers and his borrowed shames. Every sin left a residue and the adopted memory would curl against her own, violating the sacred spaces of her consciousness. “I hate Kelvic sins,” she mumbled as her eyes travelled to the ground. “They’re thick with feeling, primal and sharp.” Her glance lifted again, the hot anger diluted from it, so only irritation remained. “But yours isn’t the worse I’ve seen. Nowhere near.” Shame had bent Ethan’s head and turned him shy. Guilt was an understanding Kelvics never wore well. Sondra’s Konti sensibilities did not recoil at his sin overmuch, but it was because she did not understand their varied conception of right and wrong. She read Kelvics who tore humans to pieces in their mouths and killed at a command. She was sickened by those sins, but they were little more than regrettable predation to them. But Ethan’s cowardice and hate would be an anathema to other Kelvics. It was a sundering of the bond they held most sacred. It was spitting in the face of their gods and lovers. “Let’s have it out then, bird. But look at me when you speak or don’t speak at all.”

[Ethan]

There was something disturbing about this scene. It had played out before. In another life half a continent away. It didn't sit well with him. Making it hard for the Kelvic to think straight. Ethan started shuffling his feet. Trying to forget the itch he got in his shoulders. Whenever he was nervous. "Very well." He said meeting her eyes with a tinge of defiance. Shame had a way of bending him, but he would never be cowed with anger. He had suffered too long for that. "Grimm was my teacher. Or trainer, depending on your perspective. I bonded to him. And loved him with all my heart. Like any faithful, pathetically blind Kelvic would. And he betrayed me." No matter how much he hated the man. Guilt always made its way to his ear. Whispering softly and telling him he was a bad servant. That it wasn't Grimm's fault. He was never sure if it was him thinking this. Or the work of Markus Kelvic. Human's where always petching up his life. "He hurt me night and day, to extents i won't go into. So when the time was right i flew away. Leaving him to find help. Or to die alone. I haven't thought about it much. and like it that way." He tried to be polite to Sondra. They hadn't known each other very long but he could tell she was a good woman. That she would treat his kind with respect. And for that she was a friend already.

[Sondra]

Loved him. The phrase made Sondra start. It was a word without magic, but had a stark power. As Ethan detailed his abandonment of the one who filled his life with all he had ever felt, be it anguish or adoration, blood drained from her face. It was too familiar a story to hear without pain. But even Ethan, an animal, did not pass into the sin that she did. Perhaps it was because he was animal he did not. Betrayal, love, hate, emotions born in the heads of men, not beasts. Sondra looked away, tasting ashes in her mouth. "You ran. I say it again, there are worse sins." She had lost her taste for practice, shuffling away to collect her hammer. "Make the memory as dead as the man." Or else it would eat him alive, she thought, and Grimm's cold dead fingers would drag the bright, brief Kelvic into the sea. Guilt was stones in the pockets. "I will not speak of it, nor search towards it unless you ask. Ability to see does not mean obligation to look."

[Ethan]

Ethan never had an easy time letting others know about him. His emotions, past and desires where sacred to him. He trusted a small portion of those he met. And even fewer of those, where trusted with knowledge of Grimm. But no one till now knew of how he left him. "I will take your advice into consideration." He lied. "You know... You're much more different than I thought you would be." He wanted to get the hell away from this conversation. She knew too much. And far too soon. It was starting to tie knots in his stomach. "When we're in camp you bite the ears off anyone that bothers you. And that overwhelming confidence. Usually suggests a terrible ego. Racial superiority, that sort of thing. " This is how it's was supposed to be. The focus must always be on the other person. Let them introvert while he recovered. "Which was in part, why i got so interested. I like to know everyone around me. And if you where just like everyone else. Smirking at my kind. Then i would know where we stood. But now I'm even more confused." He felt himself gaining more control of the situation. His easy casual smile was returning. "You're as tough and chipped as that hammer you carry. You don't know the meaning of subtlety. And yet you accept me as an equal. Without a trace of pity. If you are keeping some hidden hate for me. Do tell. Otherwise I think I'm becoming infatuated."

[Sondra]

"I keep secrets," Sondra answered, "But none so useless as that. When I hate a man, I like him to know it." She rolled her shoulder, a tell of stress, but what was agitating her was multi-faceted. "Talking gets me in trouble," she continued gruffly, "And I don't want to know every gods-damned thing about others. Stick around long enough and I'll begin to tell you your memories. What you are forced to ask for, I can take. And you like your secrets just as much as I like mine. Do you understand, birdie?" Her eyes were flints, and her mouth a sharp line as she thrust her next speech into his gut. "I know more about you now then you will ever know about me. More than your sin. I've other tricks that can come unbidden. Doesn't that gall you?" She spoke it like a challenge, pushing to see where he would give. "It would gall me." Pressing her face closer than what was comfortable she asked, "How's that infatuation coming, now?"

[Ethan]

Obviously Sondra knew little of the Lammergeier. Complications only made things more interesting. Walls made him curious whats on the other side. The more she tried to shove him away the more he would come back invigorated. Fueled by a new problem or hurtle to figure out. "Anger suites you. It makes your eyes pop. The flush in your cheeks compliments your skin." This would be a good time to kiss her. Shock her with his acceptance of her. But he doubted a woman like Sondra would fall for such romantic dribble. Instead he smiled. "It's actually exciting to have someone know this much about me. Saves me all the emotional stress of telling you my life story." Ethan never allowed himself to talk about his past. There wasn't a soul he trusted enough to let in. But if Sondra already witnessed his deepest shame. What was the point in hiding it? She had just become the closet friend Ethan ever had. "But enough about me. You seem so stressed, so angry. Why don't you let me help? I'm no expert with a Konti's... gifts. But if you get this stressed every time you touch another. Your back must be riddled with knots. I could work on them for you? I have been told I'm quite good."

[Sondra]

Sondra said nothing to Ethan's impertinent offer, at first. But she pressed her hand over her sternum, touching the medallion tucked under her shirt. Peace, she needed peace or she was going to fall into the Azenth mark and pull his fingers apart until they cracked. Konti were supposed to be wise and revered and here she was getting fumbled at like an adolescent. Her mouth kept its unyielding shape, but her eyes turned from enflamed to cinders. The hot spark of her temper was lost and with it her energy. "No, bird." She sounded tired, "And I can't read your whole life in an instant, so don't get too excited." She then walked away and began to quietly gather her things. When her hammer found its proper home in the loop near her hip, she spoke again. "I'm going back."