[Flashback]Sort Me Out (Syllke)

[Mara]

Fall 81, 509AV

The night had been a torrent, not because of the tempest that had waved over an icy hand, but instead because Dra-Marvasa had spent his hours finding his way through a bottle of his father's whiskey in such a gale. In the wake of a storm that had hit like an emotional typhoon and flooded all soldiers of rational thinking, he had runaway through his window, uncolored into the breeze.

He had traveled nowhere that he could remember; he tried not to think of where he was, where he was going, or why he was there. So much so, he would have had no answer had someone stopped him to ask for his name or hold. He wanted nothing to do with such associations as titles and companies. He was content to wander namelessly for the entirety of the night. So he did until his mind was an impassive schmaltz of incomplete thoughts and repetition of one foot falling heavily before the other.

He had eventually found the punt of the glass bottle and his numb extremities began to ach and moan despite feeling no arctic bite, his body trembled but his face remained stagnant and flushed. Bloodshot whites found their way to a large wooden structure just before the light of day, sloshing the last of the backwash of the bottle in his swinging grasp. Mara could feel the heavy helpings of liquor piling into his esophagus and laboring to scale its way out in acidic mounds of bile. Each deep breath he took to silence their pommelling was met with a new upsurge of nausea.

Before stumbling to the entrance with a doleful yelp of a chuckle he leaned over by the side way and heaved out his stomach contents in wrenching coughs. Liquid swirled brown and red slid in artistic strokes across its sparkling canvas before the last of his sickness was expelled. The gradual sobriety that began to seep into his hazy mind was dire and he squinted his eyes while a hand buffed away the thread of saliva dripping from his gaping gateway.

Scooping some snow into the bottles chambers he rapped at his forearm and melted it into slushed water. He sloshed it about and then swigged it in its entirety.

A black boot scrapped snow over his excreted vomit and he slipped inside the tepid barn building greeted with the aroma that could only be described as the smell of beasts and manure. He walked his way to the back, assuming it would be a few hours before any handlers entered The White Elk Stables. Near the back he found the only thing that seemed familiar, a curled and downed body of a black and white sled dog. He only recognized this one by the markings imitating a war helmet crowning his white face. His chest felt heavy looking at him for he could only be reminded of one thing upon the sight of him...Syllke. It was one of the dogs that had been so vigilantly at Syllke's side the day he had crashed, or more accurately the day they had met.

He shuttered his dizzy lids to settle the room and entered the stall. It took little effort to stoop beside the warm bodies that were curled about the hay laden area. They stirred to look at him and recall his scent with pointed snouts, but seemed unthreatened and so they allowed him to stay. He lay beside the familiar canine and basked in his heat. Dark hair slipped over his eyes and his fingers intertwined in the grey fur, before sleep took him. Too drunk and too tired to return home through the open window he had left for himself.

Cloudless skies blushed as the sun peeked over its naked form, and the night fled like an adulterous stranger. The buildings horizon gave shadows that cast their coattails over the west and shrouded those still straggling inside from the shame of the morning's light. The snow had slowed hours ago its foggy breath still swirling in heavy gust of wind that tossed about untrammeled piles of ice like lace. Unaware and undisturbed Avanthal endured on, beginning anew with freshly paved ice ways.

[Syllke Skyglow]

It had been a long restless night, with little sleep gained from its seemingly endless hours. But it had not been an altogether unproductive one. Syllke had lain on his bed for a long while, but it was too early to try to sleep. Plus he knew that sleep would not penetrate the swirling vexation inhabiting his mind and heart. He didn’t want to go out and face his family, though, definitely not being in the mood to answer any questions they might pose about the now departed guest. And even if they asked none, he simply wasn’t in the mood for conversation of any kind. After an hour or so of just laying there, though, he was quite antsy, and had to get up and move. He went first to the pile of neglected bones, and toyed with those for a bit. But he could not help wanting to have Mara there to discuss his discovery and ask a million questions – many of which the healer would no doubt not know the answer to. But Mara knew a lot about a lot of things, having to do with anatomy, and not just human anatomy. So the exercise of scrutinizing the bones yet not having Mara to toss ideas around with simply added to Syllke’s frustration. Finally he threw the bone he was holding down, with a dissatisfied huff of air blown over his lips. In a moment of ire, he dipped both hands down and quickly scooped up the lot and tossed them in the air, not high. But they landed all helter skelter, disrupting what progress had been made in trying to articulate them in some reasonable form. He stared at them, hugging his knee to his chest as he knelt on the floor, and he frowned. The his fingers went out to trace lightly over the surface of first one and then another, and then another. He stared for a long time and then, rose. It was late by this time, and he could have conceivably taken himself off to bed. But he went to his satchel and pulled out a tablet and a piece of charcoal. Returning to the bones, he sat by them, cross legged. Placing the tablet on his knee, he began to draw. From time to time he would touch the bones again. When he finished one sketch, he did another. Then he set the tablet and pencil aside and once again, tossed the bones in the air, higher this time. Rising again, he went to a chest and opened it, withdrawing a few things from within – a feather, a sea shell, a small piece of driftwood. For hours he worked in silence, his conscious mind filled with the act of creation, though some piece of what was in his heart still snuck in, under the radar. He knew this, but he wasn’t bothered by it. This was who he was – this creative force that incorporated what he needed to process into what he needed to understand. Mara and the bones. The two converged and then split and then came back in a new form, over and over. It grew very, very late – or more precisely, very early, and dawn would be coming in a few hours. With some hope that his mother for once had not been obsessive with her tidiness, Syllke snuck to the kitchen and looked about. Yes! There were the little boots, still on the edge of the table. He snatched at them, like a coveted prize and retreated to his room, adding them to the mix, stroking them over and over, every surface and texture, much as he had done as a child. Finally, spent, he dragged his pillow onto the floor along with a blanket, and curled up before the fire and his friends, the bones. With the boots clutched to his chest, and a few black and grey smudges on his cheek and forehead, he fell into a deep sleep. He slept like the dead, until his father woke him with a knock on his door, and a reminder to go feed the dogs. Syllke patted the bones tenderly, rose and went to the kitchen to pull on his jacket and boots. Replacing the mukluks on the table, he ventured out into a morning caked in frozen water. Nothing new or unusual for Avanthal. His feet carried him quickly to the stables, and, honestly, he was not thinking of Mara. This was because he had already decided, in the wee small hours, what he would do, upon rising (he had obviously forgotten about feeding the dogs). He had determined that he would go right over to the Whitevine hold and find Mara and just kiss him until he saw sense. First he would apologize – for whatever it was that he had done to piss his friend off. Then he would kiss him. Hopefully that would do the trick. Poor Syllke – he couldn’t come up with a better plan. And no way could he conceive of actually separating from Mara. The certainty he had felt the evening before – that Mara didn’t want to be around him – had evaporated. There had to be some other explanation for those words – somehow, Syllke was sure, he had gotten it all wrong, again. Wasn’t that always the way it was? And didn’t Mara always take the time to explain it to him and tolerate his stupidity? He had just been rash – and he had basically kicked Mara out on his ear. So, it was his fault. He’d apologize and they would kiss and then it would be alright. He hoped. Pushing open the wooden door, which gave out a loud creaking protest, Syllke stopped long enough to grab a large bucket, which he filled with frozen fish from a huge, open wooden crate. He walked crablike, one shoulder dropped low as he struggled to carry the weight to the pen the dogs occupied. Reaching it, he was already calling out softly to them, to let them know it wasn’t a stranger approaching. Lifting the latch, he pushed them back with his leg as they crowded about, ready to each grab a fish and take it off to devour it quickly before another dog snatched it away. There was a bit of a mob mentality to the scene, until each dog had his or her breakfast. As the great, furry bodies finally were no longer pressed up against him and jumping up all over him, Syllke’s eyes just happened to glance in the right direction, to see . . . Mara! “What the fuck . . . “ the boy murmured softly. Yes, Mara was nothing if not incomprehensible – that much was for certain. He crossed to his friend still curled up in the straw, though his erstwhile body warmer was at that moment growling over his meal. Syklle knelt, his hand reaching out to touch the healer. But he hesitated. His eyes took in the sight of that face, mostly hidden under the black fringe that fell from this side of Mara’s head. It wasn’t anything he’d seen often, Mara’s face in repose, the tranquility of Morpheus smoothing the lines of anxiety and unhappiness that were so often a part of his waking mien. Syllke smiled to himself. Leaning forward, his hand in the straw by Mara’s face, he placed a gentle kiss on the still cheek. “Wake up, sunshine. It’s morning.” His fingers then went to Mara’s cheek and he kissed him a second time, on the lips, getting a good whiff of what he immediately ascribed as the reason that Dra-Marvasa Whitevine was sleeping with the dogs. “Damn!” he grimaced, and then smirked. “You had a party and didn’t invite me?!”

[Mara]

Mara had not shifted, phlegmatic in his liquor-induced unconsciousness. He failed to detect the mutts rousing about and scrapping their claws along the straw and up upon his latent shape. What stimulated him was a voice, effortlessly decipherable and startling in the timbre that crashed into his wrecked skull. He groaned like a hibernating bear and hands slid over timber and hay to cradle his throbbing crown. "...what?" was the most intelligent thing that came to mind in scarcely more than a murmur.

The daylight sifting in through his askance looking eyelids was out of place. When did the sun come up? When did he get here? Where was "here"? It was disarray he was having trouble recalling, the spellbound condition of his rootless ends had legated him no indications, but it did not really matter. The assault of odors and resonances were succeeding in developing heaps of irritability in his hung-over lethargy.

His arms slid beneath his svelte stature and heightened him so his coat crawled down a reedy shoulder and straddled atop a crooked elbow. Once tilted and nearly ninety degrees upright his loosely wrapped appendage abandoned its supporting post to dash to the relief of his peak. Straw clung between tousled wires of auburn and a desiccated gradient of burgundy was scraped, from his formerly fragmented lip, across his cheek now flushed with the stamp of the flooring’s spread. "Ugh, I feel like shit." The sudden movement sent chills across his skin in discomfort.

Syllke's tone was unchanged, something he had not anticipated, and he considered him through one eye with a crumpled and aggrieved countenance. Finally giving up any inclination he had of what had occurred between his disseminated memories of the aforementioned night after departing the young Vantha's home and their quarrel.

That's right; it all seemed so imprudent now. The artist's amiable demeanor and complete transformation from just hours earlier, was making him feel stupid.

He bowed over. Greeted with a shoulder he was already half-aware was there. "You know," his voice slipped into a chuckle. "Sometimes, you really suck." the ineloquence and careworn out breath of each word made it apparent he still cleaved to some of the alcohol in his system.

He wanted to be upset with him for being here and suddenly behaving as if Mara was not the lout he had made himself out to be. He could only construe that it was once again his own error, for he could deduct by the yaps buzzing in his ears and the fragrance of where he had rested that he had put himself into a position to be discovered.

So was this where he was supposed to apologize? An average person may have had an admission of guilt rehearsed, or played the situation out several times until retrieving a better outcome, trying to understand where it all went awry, but not Mara. He had not expected to apologize, he had no intention of much of anything past what he had completed, but then again he had ended up here, in front of the boy, so maybe he had. There was no memory left to tell, all expelled with a heave of morning bile.

"I would ask what you’re doing here." he pulled back just far enough to stare sardonically at the panting muzzles just feet from their hunkering bodies. "But it's probably more appropriate to ask what the hell I'm doing here, and unfortunately I don't have an answer." He slid his sights back to Syllke in a glassy expression of someone not pleased to have met the light of day.

[Syllke Skyglow]

Syllke rocked back onto his heels, grinning at Mara’s bumbling wakefulness. The Vantha had some good idea of how the healer must be feeling. Mara might be in dire need of some of his own medicine. At the healer's first coherent statement, confirming what Syllke had already guessed, the artist quipped, “You don’t look much better, friend.” He smirked as Mara glowered at him through one eye, his cheek bearing the patterns of crumpled straw, some of which now decorated the dark chestnut strands that hung bedraggedly into his friend’s face. Mara shifted and half slumped against Syllke’s chest and shoulder, and Syllke’s arms went without thinking to wrap about Mara loosely and help prop him up. Mara’s wry comment brought a laugh from those less odiferous and scummy lips. “Yeah, I do.” Syllke’s voice was good natured and amused. Mara pulled away, but only far enough to survey his surroundings. The dogs were through with their quickly consumed meal and were panting all about the two boys. To Mara’s observation of being clueless as to his own motivations for being in the barn, Syllke chuckled. “Me neither – so I guess it’s pointless to waste any time wondering about it. Here you are, and here I am, so . . . “ One hand went to pluck a few pieces of twisted gold from rumpled ebony and auburn, and he smiled, a genuinely happy, warm smile. His fingers then dropped to Mara’s cheek, brushing away a bit of chaff. “So . . . help me get the dogs some water – or . . . “ He surveyed his friend critically. “ Better yet, stay out of the way while I do it myself. But – here . . . “ One hand went to under Mara’s elbow and the other to the healer’s other bicep. “Let me help you up – or do you prefer to sit?” The latter choice was not as comfortable a proposition as it might sound, as the dogs were literally barreling into them and buffeting the two to the point they were at risk of getting knocked over. And though Syllke was not opposed to a roll in the hay with Mara – it would not be this hay and not with Mara looking, and no doubt feeling, like death barely warmed over. And the dogs were definitely not part of that picture, either.

[Mara]

"No I'll get up." he cast the mutts another grave look. He was not around beasts enough to appreciate them, and right now they were grating on his nerves needlessly; their animated pants, obtrusive faces squashing damp tips to his bared and sensitive crust and flogging tales belting at his legs with each rotation. With help from Syllke's supporting grip, he was heaved from the ground to sway in midair on shifting feet. It took him only a moment to stabilize his hollow weight and hold himself upright, drawing his arm between the eye of Syllke’s hold.

Mara tipped downward and tried caressing the wing of a dog’s fluffed face only to sweep away the replied furry snout snuffling at his pant leg "I can come with you." he looked toward the exit, preparing himself for the further battering of daylight that would foray his burning pupils. Avanthal would be the least forgiving in mornings glow, for up or down he would be greeted with equal hues of shattering white light.

His side of the dialogue withered into submissive stillness, he did not have much to say or the exertion to build the judgments. The concoction of onus and hurt still dangled somewhere in the backdrop of his consciousness. His threadlike inked arm was re-sheathed with the wrinkled sleeve and held in place like he was embracing at his own ribcage, as they made their way out of the stalls.

The sun collided with him as he had presumed it would, like a violent arrow pierced straight through his domed eyeballs and foraged within his skull. He covered his eyes in coats of eyelid and palm and was still met with an angry red glaring through the creases. An elusive "ugh" was all that was audible of his struggle, before fronting the sun for a second round determined to best it through the splintered blinds of ebony lashes.

They retrieved the water, well more like Syllke retrieved the water and Mara stood at his side looking worse for wear. Once they had returned to the stables and the dogs were being provided their fetched drink, he finally spoke up.

"I need to get back to my home and get cleaned up." He was well aware of how he must smell, not to mention how he felt. The lukewarm water spilling over his cramping muscles and swabbing away the layer of filth that glazed him sounded a rational request. He watched as the dogs gleefully lapped their slimy tongues into the water's surface, flinging droplets at their pelts and blackening their snouts. He tried to recall the day, or the previous one to deduct if he would be alone in the spacious apartment. If what he remembered was accurate, his father should have left for work after plenty of time to sober up. He would be elsewhere for most of the day and therefor no cause for worry.

He turned toward Syllke looking over his features like he had their first meeting, with abundant attraction hidden behind a wall of indifference, coated like a shield of hardened cardinal gems. "Are you coming?"

[Syllke Skyglow]

Syllke shrugged, indifferent to the indifference. As long as Mara wasn’t actively mad at him, he was fine. He smiled. “Got no place else to go – so yeah.” As they trudged through the half frozen slush, bright sun bouncing off every surface to shine like beams of pure white, reflected and refracted a thousand times over, he watched Mara obliquely. Syllke wasn’t old enough to worry about any lasting effects of over indulgence in alcohol. He was simply curious, not having seen such excess in Mara before. Syllke found his behavior comical, and not alarming, and he didn’t immediately connect the result with the cause. If Mara didn’t know how or why he had ended up in the barn with the dogs, then that seemed to be the end of that. One thought that did occur to Syllke as they walked towards the Whitevine hold was a recollection of his intent to apologize. He’d gotten the kiss in, sort of. But now he was unsure. If he voiced his regret for making Mara mad and then kicking him out, what purpose would that serve? In the little quips that had so easily passed between them, it seemed that their previous equilibrium had been re-established. As Syllke wasn’t at all sure he wanted to hear Mara’s answer – should he ask the healer what did you mean, when you said this was a mistake? – wouldn’t it all just be better left to drop behind them, like the receding wake of a boat? Let it ripple away and die and let the status quo settle comfortably about them once more? That seemed the best course. With hands shoved deep in his pockets, Sylke moved along silently, the only sound being that of their boots sloshing through the thin layer of slightly melted ice. They walked closely enough together that from time to time one or the other of their sleeves would brush against the other. Each time he felt Mara’s coat against his, Syllke wondered, just a bit, why he liked Mara so very much. He typically wasn’t the type of boy to engage in a great amount of introspection, and usually just went with what he felt without trying to analyze it to death. But, it seemed the reason he was giving some thought to it right now, had more to do with Mara, and not himself. For thinking about his own feelings made Syllke wonder about Mara’s, and what Mara truly felt – about him. Syllke didn’t question why Mara might (or might not) like him. But he did question , with some trepidation, if Mara liked him. Some moments it seemed so certain, in his mind, and in his heart. Others, Mara was just like a blank, black wall – hard, impenetrable, unscaleable. But Syllke had never read any self-help books about the importance of open communication in a relationship, so he settled back on the same old philosophy he typically ascribed to – let sleeping dogs lie. Or better yet, when sleeping healers lie with dogs, don’t ask too many questions. When they finally reached the door to Mara’s house, Syllke slid his hand into Mara’s pocket and reached for the fingers there, dragging the hand out, meaning to simply hold it now that they weren’t exactly right out on the street. His fingers touched the raveled skin - which the other boy had up to that point managed to conceal from view - and Mara winced. Syllke held the hand palm up to examine it in the sunlight. It was . . . a mess. Syllke frowned, holding the hand gently. “Gods, Mara,” he said simply, for there was little else to say. “You better do an extra good job of washing that.” He shook his head sadly, suddenly feeling a wave of guilt wash over him. If he hadn’t opened his big mouth last night . . . His downcast eyes lifted from the hand to Mara’s face. Despite his resolution to just let the night before pass into history, his heart compelled him to do otherwise. “I’m - I’m sorry, that I told you to leave. And – whatever else it was that I said. I’m sorry.” His fingers touched the skin of his friend’s hand right below the now greatly irritated burn. “Gods, I’m so sorry, Mara.”

[Mara]

Mara regarded his aggravated injury, welted skin scraps buffed away from a plain of inflammation. His fingers shook once it was jarred, the nerves sending pulsations of discomfort to their tips. He nipped at the inside of his cheek, the pain was not what disturbed him, it was the admission that he had made it worse in his own effort to ease a different aching for himself.

He enclosed his suffering digits tightly over Syllke's unscathed ones, indulging in the sting that lingered there. His other hand glided over the artist’s chin and elevated his jaw so his eyes would follow the corridor to greet his own. "Don't. I'm responsible for my own actions. We both know that."

Looking at the Vantha now, blurred all reason for resentment or upset. He could find no ill-intention within him, like none had ever step foot within the chambers of his heart. Mara felt like his blight, the cause of the stirring within him that would only drive him mad. His self-indulgence drove the thoughts away, hoping to outrun the agony that would make a scathed palm inferior. He wanted him around, his unwavering nature and pardoning soul. He did not feel he deserved it, but the gratefulness he held for Syllke grew, and he could almost see his parasitic barbs feeding off of him. "And don't look at me like that. I'm still a little drunk. You will cause me to do something you'll later regret."

He turned to open the door his hand slipping effortlessly from their clench, scanning around the room for any sign that they would not be alone, but found none. He paced inside and shrugged his jacket off, arranging it along the bar. "I won’t take long; I'm just going to get cleaned off. Help yourself to whatever you like, ok?" he continued talking as he peeled off his clothes on his way to the back. A cool breeze shifted through the rooms from the window that still swung open in his room.

His back to the other, he waved his scathed hand at Syllke in his farewell as he walked into the other room. "I'll just be a minute." he reiterated.

He took a fair amount of time to soak and scrub away his scent of alcohol and the coops he had slept in. When he emerged, his hair dripped with water, slipping down his bare torso to the towel that hung at his waist. He only walked past the doorway, a fresh bandage wrapped around his palm that held the towel in place. He robed in a pair of loose grey pants and a sleeveless white top, still drying the moisture from his hair as he exited the room to greet Syllke once again.

"Sorry, I hope you weren't too bored." He sauntered across the room to him and tended down to press a casual kiss to his lips, the first he had offered since the previous night.

Taking a seat he folded his hands in his lap as he often did. He had some sober time to think of what to say while he was separated from him. So he was going to go ahead and get it out of the way. "Look I'm sorry, about last night. I know it's not my place to lecture you. Just understand, having parents that care about you is not something everyone has, you should cherish it. Don't take advantage of it." his eyes met the floor as he spoke until gliding back to Syllke. "I won’t say any more about it now."

[Syllke Skyglow]

Did he know that? Syllke wasn’t sure. He hadn’t ever been required to think quite as much as Mara seemed to inspire him to – in order to keep up with the healer. His thoughts were just a jumble, trying to sort out who had sparked their disagreement – and what had urged Mara to this self-mutilation. If it wasn’t him, then it must be Mara himself. But that didn’t make any sense. Syllke had no words to explain what he felt, so all he could do was to silently accept Mara’s assertion – that somehow Mara was taking responsibility for the inflamed skin, though his heart told him otherwise. The other statement too, did not go past without some modicum of inspection that took him nowhere. Syllke had no idea of how he was looking at Mara. He was just looking. But if his look, whatever it was, could inspire Mara, drunk or otherwise, to . . . . whatever that look, in those crimson eyes, seemed to suggest – well, Syllke would have stood in front of a mirror and practiced it for hours. As he followed Mara into the house, he only wished that he knew what it was he was doing with his facial features. The only response he could muster to Mara’s was that he would never regret anything that Mara chose to do – with him, for him, to him – but the moment had passed so he simply kept his thoughts to himself. It seemed like it was becoming a habitual thing with them – this undressing upon entering Mara’s home. But so far it had been confined to the ‘examining’ room. This time, he began stripping right in the kitchen, but of course, Syllke only kept his eyes glued to that lithe form and made absolutely no protest. Mara was already taking himself off, with an assurance to be right back, when Syllke finally slid onto a chair at the table, a sigh escaping his lips, his fingers coming to light on his thigh, rubbing the material of his trousers gently up and down. His other elbow went to rest on the table top and his chin planted itself in his palm, as he waited. He was well pleased that Mara seemed to be over whatever it was that had happened, and that things could just return to normal. The image of Mara walking down the hall seemed burnt onto his eyeballs, and even when he let his eyelids drop, it was still there, much to Syllke’s satisfaction. As time passed – more than Mara had so blithely indicated – Syllke got bored and stood to wander about the kitchen. He wasn’t hungry and wasn’t in need of anything, he was just nosy. His curiosity didn’t take him as far as peeking in the cupboards, but he did inspect the various things scattered over the counter tops. They seemed an eclectic combination of both culinary and medical devices, perhaps more of the latter than the former. At the sound of soft foot falls, he looked up, and wondered if the towel wrapped healer meant to come back into the kitchen still dripping. But no, he passed on and after just another few minutes was back, this time dressed and scrubbed and not quite so soaking wet. Mara came right to Syllke and left a drive by kiss on the artist’s lips, which Syllke accepted with good grace – or to be precise, he accepted Mara’s moving quickly to the table, despite how he would have preferred to catch a hold of that shirt and pull Mara into a more sincere clench. Syllke accepted too the words Mara let fall, as he sat and brooded slightly at the floor. When he came to a halt, Syllke nodded and crossed to him, leaning one hip against the edge of the table, standing beside Mara’s chair, arms across his chest, looking down at him. “Alright,” he said in a quiet voice. It wasn’t quite clear if he was agreeing to the apology, the admonition, or the putting the incident to rest. One hand moved to grasp his other arm, running down to his wrist and then back to his elbow. It was a diffident gesture and it was clear Syllke was still a bit subdued. He was glad they could move on. He just wasn’t sure how to do that. Slowly, he extended one hand, taking Mara’s black tipped digits in his – the ones not swaddled in the bandage. Tugging gently, he pulled Mara up from the seat he had just taken, so that they faced each other. All he could think to do was to fall back to his original plan. He wrapped his arms about Mara’s waist, to pull him closer, and placed his lips over those that now smelled only slightly of last night’s binge. Syllke kissed Mara lightly, and then more deeply, finally breaking away to murmur against his mouth, “Are you sure you’re not even a little bit drunk still? I wouldn’t mind to have some regrets you know. It’s a sign of maturity.” He kissed Mara again, and whispered right into the kiss, “I don’t suppose I could convince you to take me some place a bit more private?”

[Mara]

Tugged to his feet and uprooted into expecting arms, it was all too illustrative of how he felt around Syllke. He was always hauled into more than he anticipated himself capable of and then where he would assume to find a descent, he would instead be scooped up and held fast, quieting any impulse to run. "Maturity?" he sighed in reply against the moistened rims still hovering about his, stifling a laugh "That's the reasoning you choose?" he was charmed by his delightful answer, assuming now that the boy was endeavoring to petition him in a way that he would be more disposed to accepting. For the sake of maturity? He swelled with amusement and care. Accepting the ensuing caress entrusted to his awaiting maw.

A flushed tongue sashayed over his lips taking in the flavor of the other. "I'm sure you could convince me to jump from cliffs if you tried hard enough Syllke." His head tossed in a surge of dampened and glossy yarn. He snaked down his arm, a contact imitating the one he had been pulled from his seat with, and unraveled their hold as he caught a thin wrist between his fingers. He twisted and began to pull him into a room only a few wing beats away. He was too nervous to converse another word against the patter of their feet upon the floorboards.

He piloted them to his room. A quaint four-sided expanse, faultless, with a cot settled about the axis of the unembellished area. He stilled just before the edge of his bed and traced his hand over the artist’s chest to curl around the nape of his neck and stroke at the mellifluous black hair draping over his fingertips. He ducked in closer, sketching his own portrait of the face he inched toward, each quality and curvature. His lips skimmed Syllke's mouth like a rounded stone gliding over a melted lake, with gentle dips and bounds of brushing lips and despairing breathes of unfulfilled air with each limiting act. He finally descended into the kiss and plunged between the edges and into the water’s depth with a desire that could not survive suspended about the surface.

Lean reaches, circled about his shoulders and neckline, clinging to their embrace and his waist pressed against other’s, hips pleated against one another in a perfect fit. The heat of the moment occupied his gut with the wags of dozens of veiny butterfly wings splashing at his innards. He was uncertain, only because he, as Syllke, did not know what he was doing. He was just as helpless. He followed instinct and rudimentary information alone to force deeper into the bliss of their flattened bodies, rippling from his ribcage to his loins and demanding blood from his head so that it tumbled into an animalistic distortion.

He drew away with some exertion, so their noses swept against one another “A-Are you sure?” he peered up at him with concerned eyes still glazed with lust, that matched his winded and stammering qualms.

[Syllke Skyglow]

Syllke smirked against Mara’s lips at that comment. If there was going to be any jumping off cliffs, or through hoops – even hoops of fire – Syllke felt for sure it would be his role to play, and not Mara’s. And he would do it willingly, he was convinced at this moment, without question or a demand for a reason. Of course, the sensation of Mara pressing against him might have influenced this heady belief. When Mara’s slim fingers slipped down to encircle his wrist, Syllke made no protest – and no jokes either, unbelievably – and let Mara tug him along, the few steps it took to reach his room. The kiss that Mara first bestowed, and then stole back, was as passionate as the best they had shared to date, if not more so. Syllke felt his very breath being pulled from his lungs, and the fire of that kiss flew through every vein, every fiber, every cell of his body, from hair to toes. Just as Mara’s thin arms encircled his shoulders, Syllke’s wrapped about Mara’s waist and they seemed fused, like transparent glass shimmering in a white hot flame. His heart hammered so loudly in his ears that he barely heard Mara’s half whispered question – Mara’s need for assurance written in his shy look. It was only the sudden loss of those crushing lips that had brought Syllke back to the surface of this drowning pool. Syllke had to swallow to force some air back into his chest, before he could speak. It came out as a gasping sound, like swimmer just coming up for a life-sustaining breath. “Yes. Yes . . . “ He swallowed again before pouncing on those luscious lips once more. He was lost, so very, very lost, in this other boy. What might have been a more gradual process of shy exploration had suddenly been ramped up to an urgent quest for complete knowledge of what was yet unknown – by virtue of the near loss of each other. Once offered, and accepted, they seemed bound in a mutual vow, born of normal human longing and curiosity. Lust, affection, desire, friendship, hormones and heart, they all played a role. It was the culmination of many weeks of companionship, shared hours, goofing off, small adventures, laughter, quiet contemplation, teasing, exasperation and infatuation - and then their short lived separation. They had been thrown together by chance. Now they were drawn together by mutual affinity. Opposites had come together like a lodestone and iron, and in the passing moments of growing ardor, they sealed their bodies together in a way that seemed magnetic, magical, fated - as natural as breathing and as mystical as it is for any being, the first time. Had an hour passed? Two? Slightly more, or slightly less? Neither could have given any lucid answer to that, as slowly they resurfaced and came up for air. Syllke was tracing a pattern on Mara’s skin, running his fingertips over one of the healer’s tattoos, his eyes trying to burn that image onto his mental scrapbook. As is the case in such circumstances, every square inch of Mara had somehow become unbearably precious to Syllke. His crimson swirled eyes, which were slowly cooling to a contented violet, sought out Mara’s, half hidden behind his fringe of auburn streaked-ebony. “I love this. I’d like to have one,” Syllke said, his lips curving up into a slow, almost feline smile of contentment, his fingers still tracing the pattern. “Could you do one for me?”