[PRP] Forgotten Lives [A'nna & Bekh]

[Kaelyndra]

As much as A'nna's heart wandered and took her feet with it, the lioness always came home. There would never be anything like the soft sand beneath her feet, the delight of so many people knowing her name. Even more importantly, the feeling of being caught in a dream. It made A'nna feel as though she were living her dreams.

That disreality was startlingly active now. The ruddy lioness squinted at a palm which draped low, lazily dipping a frond into a fresh water pool. A'nna had begun to believe she'd taken a wrong turn. She began to doubt sights she usually took for granted. Her stomach growled with the prospect of backtracking, at the fear of being lost, though she had eaten just this morning.

Sniffing the water at the pool's edge, A'nna found it did not smell sour and quenched the parch in her throat. Mouth wet, she began to retrace her steps, making her way up a short dune.

The scent found her first. Familiar, yet somehow very different. But most importantly, it was the first.

When A'nna's eyes landed on the figure, she broke into a jog.

"Behk!" she called out, her more highly pitched voice perhaps betraying that she'd been alarmed only moments before. Where was everyone?

Neon Fly

 

[Neon Fly]

He'd been watching her from the distance, perched on one of the stone spires that rose from the ruins that had known rebirth and now, like a shooting star, began to fade away. Bekh would have recognized this lioness from miles away, let alone the span of a few hundred feet. The white of her markings twisting and curling like tendrils of smoke from a smoldering fire, the golden hues of her pelt which rolled like the sandy waves beneath her paws with every step she took. s**t--she was gorgeous.

It was almost unnerving to see her back again, at a moment like this and too surreal to be true. Maybe she was a phantom of his delusional mind? A'nna..

Sliding down the column stiffly, Bekh's paws left bloodied streaks down the length of the pale, make-shift watch tower. He stepped, almost stumbled, over the hyena corpse laying at the base of the pillar, feeling his shoulder hitch with the bite wound he'd taken there. Dirtbag.

Muttering under his breath, the dark Guardian kept moving, pace slow to keep from presenting too obvious a limp. This wasn't how he wanted to see her again, this wasn't how he wanted her to see their homeland either. Despite a soul-deep weariness, he managed to greet her with his head up, arching a brow at the elevation of her voice. Somehow he doubted it was due to her pleasure to see him, though it was hard to imagine this confident creature as anything but cool and collected even in the face of such an unwelcome surprise. A'nna... it's been a while.

Kaelyndra

 

[Kaelyndra]

The jog turned into a loping canter. A'nna's eyes flicked down, and then all chances for a romantic, cliched meetup came careening to a stop with the lioness' feet.

Blue eyes were focused on the smattering of blood she could now make out on the column, and the suddenly obvious offness to Bekh's gate. A'nna's ears swiveled forwards and her tail dropped between her legs.

"You're hurt," she began at once, without care for Bekh's masculine pride.

With her brows furrowed low over her eyes, she gave the dark coated lion a good, hard look.

Neon Fly

 

[Neon Fly]

Something about the golden nymph made it impossible for Bekh to maintain the sort of stoic, unwelcoming mannerisms he wore in the face of anyone who walked onto the now deserted Tuait'Tekem lands, regardless of whether they were friend or foe. Maybe it was because he had thought of her at least once a day since the first time they had met. She was a mercurial lioness, prone to follow her whims and the harder one tried to hold on to her the more readily she slipped through their paws. It was one of the things that fascinated him most about her. She was truly untamed.

And yet, to see her pick up her pace when she recognized him made his heart skip in his chest. A sensation Bekh doubted was uncommon when it came to those who had fallen under A'nna's spell. Braving a rakish smile as he drew up short before her, leaving several feet between them when she also stopped short to stare first with what appeared to be worry, but the longer she looked at him the more he realized he couldn't quite recognize her expression. It carried a weight in it like disapproval though. Didn't know you cared. Are you here to nurse me back to health?

Even if he hadn't meant to sound snide, there was an exhaustion in his voice that unconsciously converted his suggestive humor into cynicism. Pride made him stand tall before her, though his leg trembled to hold the weight as every second he endured it made the pain deepen from dull throb to stabbing agony.

Kaelyndra

I saw in your sig that you're leaving? ; m; I'll miss you. I also definitely don't expect a reply to this.. but I wanted to post for it anyway, because I've always liked watching these two interact. I'm sorry it took me so long.