Eternal Beasts

A Touch of Earth Normal

Morning dawned as it usually did in the Pacific Northwest in the middle of winter: gray and raining. Yet, it was bright enough to stir Jared to wakefulness on the floor as it splashed across his face. His eyes half closed, he made to stretch and loosen up his limbs before getting up, having learned how to sleep on a hard surface during his time in the wilderness of Cael Nerath. Only to find himself surrounded and unable to untangle himself to stretch.

Jared's eyes shot open. And, having slept on his side with a bundled blanket under his head as a pillow, he found Nikeera snuggled into his body, small spoon style in front of him, one of his arms pulled over her and held close with both of hers. And behind him, turning him into the little spoon, was Samantha, one arm under the one he had over Nikeera to put her hand on his collarbone, and the other pushed through the blanket to hold him from beneath. One leg was partially captured between Samantha's legs, the other between Nikeera's to truly tangle their limbs so definitively, any movement by one would be felt by all.

Which meant, by trying to stretch:

"Good morning, my lord Jared," Nikeera said before she leaned forward enough to kiss him on the arm. "Did you sleep well?"

"Well enough that you two getting off the bed to spoon the hell out of me didn't even wake me," he said with a wry twist of his mouth. "Well done."

"Thank you, Jared," the tuathan princess said somewhat smugly, her highlights a warm orange of happiness and satisfaction. "I do possess some skill at being stealthy."

"Mm." He looked over his shoulder to find a pair of golden eyes gazing steadily back at him even as her lips and nose were once again nuzzling the back of his neck. "And you? You're a griffon. Stealth isn't really in your nature."

"But it is in my nysim form," Samantha unrepentantly replied, also sounding a little smug. "Finally an advantage I can appreciate."

"Huh. Well, untangle yourselves, ladies, and get cleaned up. We need to go and grab some breakfast and we might as well make a day of it by taking a tour of the town!"

As it turned out the city proved to be far more hospitable in the daylight and both Nikeera and Samantha transformed into wide-eyed tourists as Jared showed them around. The ocean especially captured their attention like nothing else did.

"So much water!" Nikeera breathed as storm-ruffled white caps pounded the causeway they walked across, rain hissing across the water's surface and the whole bay shifted uneasily in the waning grasp of the storm that had gone through the night before.

"You've never seen an ocean?" Jared asked, looking over at her. Comfortable in his rain shell over a t-shirt, hoodie, sweatpants and newly purchased ankle deck boots on her feet, she shook her head.

"We were at war," she said. "I never left the walls of Tara Hill until the day we traveled to the shrine to be put into stasis. It was just too dangerous for members of the royal family to be outside the walls' protection."

Jared nodded in understanding. In the High King's place, he would've also done whatever it took to keep his family safe. Including locking them inside the city.

"Samantha?"

The griffon shook her head mutely. Frowning, he focused on her. And felt her unease over the bond, along with a measure of fear. To see so much water go on without end in every direction without land to serve as a place to alight upon, was troubling her as she measured it as if she was flying over it.

- Don't worry, Sams, - he said as he sent reassurance over the bond. - We won't be flying over an ocean any time soon! - And he smiled as she reached out to take his hand and give it a hard squeeze.