“You will let me fall.”
‘Never.’
‘Ner Vercopa.’
That simple reply. One word. It caught his breath in his throat, his heart fluttering in his chest like his feathers did in the breeze passing beneath him. He hung there up on that short gesture, upon the endearment, much as he did over open air – supported from teetering off the mountainous cliff by the massive hand gripping his shoulder and neck. His own felt the coiled muscles tense in his wrist and the opposing gentle grasp on him.
In this short moment of wonder, sunset eyes lighting upon solid crimson, there was no struggle as Foxen pulled the Omwati upright from the edge post catching him from falling in the middle of their wrestling. Releasing the younger and shorter man, his hand shifted to cup his cheek and Flyndt pressed back against it briefly. Foxen gestured once more with his scarred hand.
‘Will you still go?’
Crimson feathers rustled and raised with a responding hoo. Flyndt shifted where he stood stripped down to his shorts and eggshelled colored undershirt, olive skin exposed to Selen’s sun. The crack of a small grin danced on his inked mauve lips as he stepped closer and his tattooed chin tipped upwards, eyelids lowering.
“Yes~” .
And with a pivot, a step, the Omwati launched himself into the sky – silver tail feathers trailing behind him and arms outstretched like an avian in flight. Flyndt hooted as air rushed against him and the rocky cliff face sped past, his eyes trained on the crystalline blue glimmering beneath him. Just before he would smack critically against its rippling surface did he tuck and folded in on himself, piercing through the water hands and feet first like a thrown spear.
Several heartbeats passed before Foxen spotted the Omwati emerge, drenched crimson and silvery grey-blue black feathers plastered to his head. His shirt clung to his shoulders. Flyndt wiped his eyes free of water and swam backwards a bit to then tread water. He looked up to where the Nautolan-Chagrian hybrid stood, still a towering sight even when fifteen meters away.
“Come! Challenge stands still!” His mouth quicker yet again in that grin, wider now as he catches his breath from the adrenaline rush, a teasing hum to his tone, “Or are you one, how say you? Scaredy spine? Ech'enca!”
crunch
A scream. The smallest hint of betrayal wiped away by focus, pain, determination, threat in heartbeats. The warble of agony ignored as an ill-fit sword not of his own making plunged upward.
Crunch
The scream the scream Flyndt screams–
plp
It’s barely a sound at all, really. His bird slips into the water at the last second of his jump, tucking tight like a knife gliding symphony smooth between fifth and fourth ribs. He counts.
Three seconds.
Four.
Six.
Flyndt come back come back come back
Seveneight
Nineteneleven t w e
l v
e
Drenched feathers streaming water and sparkling with bright beaming sunlight burst from the crystalline blue island waters. The shirt is transparent. It clings to every muscle and the binder. He leans backwards and strokes almost lazily, chin lifted, calling that challenge happy and grinning and chest heaving with excitement.
Scared spine.
Baby bird I just might.
Instead, he says, Deny, and then, still leaning over the cliff edge and signing large for the distance and angle and possibly obstructed vision due to: wet feathers hanging down, water in eyes, water beading on brow and nose, lickable, down to the column of dark ink throat and inked shoulders and the way that fraking shirt sticks…
He is not scared, per se.
Not of the jump.
He is a Mandalorian, a soldier, an assassin, a weapon. He has made jumps that dwarf this. Deliberate, prepared, with gear involved. Dropping from ships for troop deploy from low atmosphere. Jumps with jetpacks. Jumps from cliffs higher with no water below that break the bones. He has scaled fraking skyscrapers over the course of hours/days with climbing claws and gear in order to do an assassination, reach a perch, etc. To snipe from. Or infiltrate. Parachute. It is work and combat and war, with injury expected. His mass is large. He is powerful and fast, but a poor landing hurts. Breakage disrupts mission. Breakage is–
-
crunch
NO.
Flyndt is below, teasing, alive, trusting, perfectly fine. Yes he is light and his bones are hollow and breakable. Yes the jump is far. Yes he did this as a child and adolescent and was quite good at it and he is happy now and it is fun.
But for fun?
Unheard of, foreign. Like the sleepovers.
But Flyndt is fine. Flyndt is fine.
Just jump it is not difficult you can calculate the angle/acceleration, it is only 15 m, and then you get to be close to him and that is very much wanted after the whole show he put on getting undressed for a swim. They swim together all the time now in the ocean. It is wonderful. It is the closest Foxen can be to Flyndt–
Just jump!
Red eyes meet sunset again, checking. The body has been poised at the edge for 1.24 whole minutes.
Foxen groans at himself and lifts a hand, asking, just to be sure, O.K.?
<@244244400488710155>
Time seemed to stretch as Flyndt treaded water. His eyes trained on the figure up upon the cliff, waiting for a response or a sign of commitment to the challange he beckoned. He watched while Foxen leaned over the edge, accessing the water below and all the details involved with such a leap. That’s what Flyndt knew of his partner to be true, and thus felt so sure…then a minute passed and his eager, bemused grin started to slip as concern seeped in.
Was it trepidation?
Should he have shown him how to dive?
Was it too far a leap? Cliff daunting?
Sodden feathers clinging to scalp tried to raise vainly with the weariness as the Omwati looked towards the shore for the nearest and easiest exit out of the clear mountain pond. To climb back up and coach the hybird through it. But then a circle of fingers, a tuck of a thumb between the forefinger and middle. O.K? O.K.
Flyndt paused and nodded. Taking a breath, he raised his own hand to sign the gesture back. “O.K. Just jump, then hands to feet before water. Like…”
He pinched his free hand that wasn’t treading water together a few times with a fairly metallic sounding tks-tks.
“The Pincher, grasping tool.”
The slipping smile was not wanted. But at his question Flyndt raised an O.K. back and provided instructions.
And then imitated a familiar clack and called it a pincher like some special torture weapon.
A small laugh erupted from Foxen, full of nerves and deeply traumatized hysteria. And horniness? Weird laugh. Grating and terrible. Nevertheless it loosens the chest by 0.023 psi.
Tongs, T-O-N-G, tongs, he signs back, and confirm, to show he understands what Flyndt is saying. It is not how he would have attempted the jump; he’d have dived full on, arms extended in a sharp point and body trying to follow with equal verticality. But that was extremely difficult at such a short jump without springing force to launch the body.
Tucking in half, objectively just worked. He can do this.
And if he fraks it up then the pain will likely be small.
Also: Flyndt is down there, FlyndtFlydntFlyndtyndtmmm.
Taking a short breath, the hybrid signed, O.K., challenge accept, baby bird, O.K. and then backed up a step. Whether or not getting the extra start was needed, he didn’t know, but it felt better.
Then he launched himself off the cliff as best he could mimick his Home.
The fall was shorter than he would’ve liked, angle and distance calculated. He tucked up right before contact, and felt himself impact. For the most part, it was smooth, hands and feet creating that breach point; but as usual the extraneous mass of headtails/horns/‘big head’ according to Bril was not so kind. He felt the shock like a hundred muted slaps along their lengths, and cringed even as he righted himself, twisting in the water and swimming deeper, gills expanding greedy.
The water was excellent, as clean and smooth as it looked. And of course–
Flyndt.
It hit him like the first blushing burst of sweetness on the tongue, then washed over his pallete, his whole self, as he circled underneath the Omwati’s kicking legs and churned, sucking his partner closer in the undertow.
excitement heartbeat fast ADRENALINE sharp astringent rich sour heartbeat pride happiness victory delight challenge pride excitement come come see me see me sour souring weary concern guilt thoughtful considering comforting dampening less pride more coaxing come come don’t just see me join me I can come to you it’s okay together…
It’s all of it, all at once, washing like the waves. He shudders, groaning soundless beneath the water, gills fanning, and closes in, closer and closer until Flyndt’s legs are dragged at the same moment he surges upward and wraps his arms around his Home, pulling that muscled, stocky, wet form flush into his chest and burying his mouth into throat and shoulder, a symphony of rapture, too good, breathless, he breathes the air and he breathes the water and he’s breathless with Flyndt–
“…Ciris…”
Foxen leaped. It went well. Form okay. It was really…good.
Despite the pond’s otherwise clear water, the angle of the afternoon sun made it difficult to see down to the deeper sections of the deep blue pool. Flyndt was left treading water and waiting, holding his breath and counting his heartbeats until that familiar dark head appeared, water sleeking thick tendrils and corded shoulders.
“Puhta!” he gasped as he’s tugged suddenly by the legs and before his head dipped back under the water. And then he was up again, held slightly higher than the omwati would normally hold himself, muscled arms pinning him flush to his lover. His hands found purchase propped on a shoulder and grasping a tendril gently. A huffed breath while Foxen buried himself into the crook of his neck. “Chikk'dikk! Bapti…”
Flyndt pulled back and pressed his forehead to the larger man’s. His breath just as breathless, finding tempo in the dying adrenaline as they drifted together in the wake of their temporary flights – for the leap was as close to flying unassisted by machines. He could feel the water tugging and pulling at what fabris did not cling to his skin, olive hue bleeding through the dampness and the faint outline of tattoos beneath. A chuckle escaped him and his shoulders shook with the laughter, a wide smile gracing his inked lips.
“I thought you in need of rescue…I was wrong,”
“ᴴᵏᵐʰᵏᵐʰᵏᵐ,” rumbled Bapti with equal amusement for his Home’s indignant but joyful reaction, absolutely giddy and helpless in the wake of Flyndt’s wide smile. The hand in his tendrils. The forehead to his. The damp warmth of scantily clothed skin and the heat of the sun and the pounding of their hearts chest to chest. He panted with it, unraveling, and nuzzled in again to lap and lick at that inked throat, unable to help himself.
His mouth opened a little wider, letting teeth free, the barest graze of points set against a pulse. He breathed there, arms unneeded to keep them afloat as he leaned onto his back and his legs kicked, stealing the Omwati further from the water and more into him.
Wet lips trailed up, brushing, fangs pulled away without any purchase or hint of press. He rasped in that precious ear, voice rough between them.
“Not wrong. You already did… Rescue me.” A kiss to the shell, and then lipping at a feather, so gently gliding to preen. “Would you like me to tell you…number of days, minutes, hours…you have saved me? Can tell you them all. Mmm. Kiss you for each one. Keep you right here. Could keep you here…for hours. Ner Ciris Naró.” Another kiss at the hinge of jaw, open-mouthed, promising. His hands, free from speaking, whispered in other ways, stroking down flank and rubbing first circles in hips with thumbs. “Only jump because you…are brave enough to jump first. My beautiful, reckless, clever bird…my world…”
The attention, the words- oh, the words! It all has a peach flush flaring over his cheeks and down his neck. Flyndt buried himself into Foxen’s chest for a moment, attempting to recover his composure. But–
“Tell me.”
A pause, clarification. “Tell me how many, Bapti.”
“Please.”
And he leans in to return the favor of several quick kisses, becoming lost in the moment.
Their wings unfurling as their passions grew and words spoken tied knots like promises.