Closed Getting to Know You - Again - [Tydus]

[Callipsia Tempest]

46 Spring 514 AV

Callipsia laid under the sun on the deck of Tatianna’s Fury with a lackluster gaze in her eyes following the clouds. Her body was still wet from her late morning devotions to Laviku, which of late seemed to grow longer as she struggled to find peace within herself. Today she sacrificed a nearby fish that jumped into her hand by the will of her gnosis with a sort of reckless abandon of an old life that had given up and wished for something to end. She frowned taking the life from the creature, and left it in the water for Visi to devour as she dried naked.

The snake, now looking a bit funny with a bulb in the middle of her long figure, slithered her way up onto the deck and across her partner’s body, nuzzling her cheek and face affectionately. Calli passively stroked her head with her hand, but her empty stare remained on the spare clouds above.

Eight days ago, she had failed. Eight days ago, her brothers were running away from her. Running away from her horrid leadership, and her poor excuse of Liaship. Eight days ago, she was a Lia no more – she was a sniveling child begging her family not to leave her.

At that, the girl could help but laugh. I never was a Lia, the words bitterly crossed her mind. I never even deserved the title.

Calli didn’t know if her snake could read the melodramatic thought, but she felt a familiar chastising squeeze nonetheless. Visi hissed at her moping face, and she raised her brows at the concerned snake, before sitting up and reaching for her shirt, letting the snake pile on her lap and legs. As she pulled the shirt over her, the snake persistently snuck her head between her breasts and out the top of the shirt to stare at her concernedly again. Calli let out a deep, slightly annoyed sigh, and pulled the snake from her. “Y’know, you’re not really helpin’ much, auntie fangs,” She finally said aloud exasperatedly, pulling on her simple brown shorts for what looked to be the hot day to come. They normally paired well with the sash she had made after she had been made Lia, but that had stayed in her drawer since the confrontation days ago.

Callipsia moved to get up, but felt a tug at her ankles as the sea krait entwined herself about them, hissing again with her fangs back, empathetic black eyes and tongue flicking at her skin hopefully.

“By Laviku’s wrath, what d’you want?!” she snapped at the snake. “What d’you want me t’do, hm? I petched up everything, I nearly lost what was left of m’my family, and I’ve disgraced ev’ry living Svefra woman b’fore half a seaon’s been out. You’d want me t’just let that go in a few days, smile and laugh again like I’ve not just failed?”

She felt the silence between them, and hoped it was enough. However, as the Svefra woman tried to move her feet, the snake pulled again. “Petching snake, I will skin you-,” She started, before looking where Visi was pulling. Tydus’ ship.

Truthfully, it had been hard to talk to him since that confrontation. Really, since that night. Since she found herself pressed into his arms, feeling rushes of pleasure she never knew existed, gazing into his symbiotically blue eyes. She felt something so powerful right then. The respect she felt in that moment – maybe, just maybe a hint of love – only made his sudden retreat hurt that much more. And her groveling after that much harder for her to take.

“I don’t know if I’m ready yet,” she offered quietly, afraid suddenly of being heard. This made no difference to Visi, who pulled her again despite the refusal. “Visi please – “ The snake hissed and looked her dead in the eyes, this time pleading.

Releasing a heavy sigh, she nodded and detangled herself. “Fine,” Callipsia finally admonished. “But you can go t’your basket, for all you’ve done today. I’ll keep you out’f my business.” The snake nodded obediently and slithered off to the basket, accepting the small victory.

As they hadn’t started for the day yet, Calli only needed pull an oar and lightly row herself closer to Tydus’ boat before redropping the anchor and making the jump. Nervously she knocked upon his cabin door, trying to think of some excuse for the visit.

“Tydus?” She asked nervously. “I was wondering if y’wanted to talk. I..” She stumbled here as she struggled to think of an excuse, before finally eeking out, “I wanted t’look at the atlas with you, an’ make sure we had a few other routes t’Kenash. In case of a storm.”

It was a weak excuse at best. There were only a few clouds on the horizon, sparse ones at best, but it was better than nothing. When he saw her, he would see what the sleeplessness had done to make her eyes droop into their holes, the way the laugh lines on her face, normally weathered, have faded. Upon seeing him, she’s forced a small smile, and is trying to force memories of him holding her down while she screams in ecstasy away.


Common | Fratava

[Tydus Tempest]

Quite the long time had passed since Tydus Tempest had felt so incredibly free. He felt the surge of control over his own existence, the hands of fate no longer mercilessly casting themselves unpredictably upon bloodthirsty waters. In the first cycles after the destruction of the Waverunner's Fist, Tydus felt caged, limited, broken... Confusion ran amok and a reigning, sovereign state of despair capitalized upon the insecurities that followed. He hated himself, drove himself to the edge of suicide, wreaked havok upon his body in the form of alcohol and distraction. All in all, he had further wedged the sorrow into himself with no true expression to cleanse himself of it. And, he had done the worst thing of all. He ran away from the submerged sorrows. He allowed it to fester.

Tydus was as of yet unaware of it, but he was setting himself up for an even greater despair, a more tempestuous reign imminent, much like dark stormclouds looming over the horizon of what was, for the moment, a bright day. The Tempest scion could sense it within the welling, deep pits of his soul. Tydus, as a Hypnotist, was far too aware of the looming and all consuming destruction that could reign over him should he continue to ignore the feelings of grief and unsettled emotions he held with Callipsia, but there was fear, as well. Tydus did not do well with facing genuine emotion. He was far more prone to simply changing it. Eliciting emotional responses in his targets, swaying the ebb and flow of conversation in order to ignore the genuine was what he thrived on.

And it was all he knew now. He panicked whenever genuine was pulled from the depths of the false, the armour that he wore over his heart filled with holes and worn to the bare, weakened essentials of what was needed to assume a guise of normalcy. Tydus hated himself, but he carried the guise of confidence so that it could hold him together. He wore the masks of happiness, drunkenness, nonchalance, and narcissism, using women and Hypnotism as tools. A frown pursed the Tempest's lips as he looked up at the wooden boards that protected the Tempest's cot and his cabin from the elements. His body lay upon the woven strings of the hammock until he heard the knocking upon his door, the directive from Callipsia, or rather, the request, a shady one at best.

Tydus, in all of his years working in the grounds and means of business, had never once even looked at an atlas, let along attempted to read it for himself. He relied solely on directions and the knowledge of the progression of the tides, a gift from Oceanus, to tell his direction, but he and Kel were planning on sailing without the slightest of clues as to where they were going direction wise. It had been the opinion that they hug the shore, sailing less than a mile from the shore so that they could, at the very least, know that they were heading out, but with Callipsia catching up, that no longer became an entirely necessary juncture. They were, despite their earlier desire to leave them behind, making much better progress now that Callipsia was with them.

She's not useless. I never thought that. But, she did nothing for us as a Lia. We belong as equals now that there is no true leader to command us. This arrangement... is much better.

"That's fine. Come on in, Calli."

Tydus called out to her, extending the metaphorical branch of peace to her. When the door opened and the woman entered, Tydus was again struck by her striking resemblance to Tatianna, a momentary frown pursing his lips as he, again, made the analogy in his mind. He sought to erase it, but he could not. He felt the bridged connection, the want for the previous Lia still tugging at the strings of his heart, though the emotion was cleverly hidden behind a sleepy smile, the Tempest attempting to give off the impression that he had awoken from a nap.

Anything was better than letting Callipsia know the wounds that still stirred. She knew some of what pained him, for she had broken through before, but Tydus kept the armour on, he kept the fight going, the insistent, building will to keep others away from the vulnerable, genuine side of who he was, for the pain that would roil and expose itself was far too deep-seeded to share again.

"What did you want to look at, specifically?"


Fratava | Hypnotic Fratava | Common | Hypnotic Common | Vani