#Glory and Gore || IC

[royalreef]

"I do not like how many of landfolk emotions are secretion based." So says the person with the natural slime coat.

[royalreef]

GET IN THE WATER. GET IN THE WATER. GET IN THE WATER. GET IN THE WATER. GET IN THE WATER. GET IN THE WATER. GET IN THE WATER. GET IN THE WATER.

[royalreef]

She can't read suddenly, she doesn't know what this is.

[royalreef]

[royalreef]

"Ugggghhh!!!" One of her thumb-claws is partially stuck into her mouth, lifting up the edge of her lip to reveal the cream trim along the inner edge, and poking at the gap between her teeth. "Losing teeth is so terribly annoying! Every time, I could swear that they are picking the absolutely worst moment to drop out! You landfolk had the right idea — why could I not have just done this once and gotten it over with?"

[royalreef]

@paleobird || Starter Call.

The first thing that comes is a heavy snort, a deep rolling of the breath, jaws opening for a sliver as the scent wafts in. It is a familiar one. A known one. It is one that sets the body tensing regardless, fills the air with a silence that could swallow ships whole.

Miranda jolts a little, but does not respond so directly to her sister. There's a touching of the end of her head against her sister's temple, a softer chirrup that cannot be translated into the languages of those who do not know it by heart. As ever, when she pricks her head up, fins framing her face, the sunshine of late summer dappling over her scales and warming the sand around them, she already knows it is the harpy. Any greeting is moot by this point, politeness extended in a certain crucial direction, one where whether or not Ava herself introduces her intrusion onto the private beach or not hardly matters. Other things swing into crucial motion now, and they are determined by the blue merfolk laying in the sun, her legs kicked back and her heels buried in the sand.

"Ava," Miranda introduces her first, her hand snaking up a few precious inches to grab onto Bellanda's wrist, hooking gently over the extension of her arms that billows out into fins. "Bellanda- Ava, you were not called for. Why are you here?"

Why today, she doesn't say. She glances back down to her sister, finds Bellanda looking back at her, her fins loose around the back of her head. Another nudge of Miranda's head against her sister's temple, and her second chirrup gets a more quizzical chirrup in reply. She wants to talk, wants to speak, wants to use the words that were laid beside her as a pup as her first gift, but Miranda keeps flicking the ends of her fins, keeps blinking and turning her sight back to Ava out of the corner of her vision, keeps feeling it bud along her spine.

Bellanda takes her turn first, speaking while her younger sister stalls, twisting her head up so as to get a better look at the mess of blue and feathers and penguin-posture. There is not a point at which a smile crosses her face, not a point at which she does anything more than stare plainly down at the harpy, so much larger than her younger sibling, so much more well-muscled, so much more the gesture of violence incarnate that her position promised.

"Ava...? You are the harpy, correct?"

[royalreef]

"[I don't like having to eat in here. There's no covered outdoor section?]"

Bellanda tilted her head up at the ceiling, squinting her eye in the harsh fluorescent glow. It was all white up there, just a repeating pattern of mass-produced tiles flecked with tiny speckles of black. She didn't know why it had to be white. It felt like an odd color for a ceiling, distressing in some strange and subdued way, like somehow the landfolk were trying to trick her into thinking it wasn't there at all, like they were trying to get her to bump into it. Not that she could, of course, gravity holding her firmly down to the floor and pressing on her hips, but still the thought was there.

Miranda, pressed to Bellanda's bad side as usual, paused with her older sister, waiting for her to step forward again to keep pace, rather than risk falling out of tune. "[It is too cold out there, remember? There are tables there, but they are not... It is better to eat in here. I do not like it either.]"

Bellanda huffed, and moved ahead again, pressing tighter to Miranda, so that she could feel her younger sister breathe in and out. The entire thing left her feeling vulnerable, exposed. It might've been how Miranda had been living for years already, where she had spent most of her time, and, really, this wasn't too different from the mess halls of her soldiers or the banquets of her fellow royals, but it was just...

The people. They still set her on edge, still felt like they had something to hide from her, still felt like they were watching her specifically in a way that settled poorly under her gastralia. Bellanda was used to being the center of attention in a bad way, used to being marked out as the least favorite of her sisters and a black mark against the rest of the courts, but at least she had settled into some kind of routine with other royals. Here, she had all the same feelings of being talked about behind her back, like having someone plan all their moves in advance on how to hurt her and torment her, and none of the familiarity to know their moves ahead of time, to guess at what was being plotted. Worse yet, Miranda was here, factoring in, and whatever attention they gave Miranda felt worse for it, as Bellanda knew too well what lurked behind those gazes leveled at the Crown Princess.

Too much on the line. These weren't her people, weren't anyone who she could have called a companion, and even if some hopeful part of her thought she could have used this to her advantage, she didn't want to be so open around them.

The table was set off to the side, which brought the moderate comfort of having something that Bellanda could press her back against and keeping her head turned outwards. It also meant she could keep Miranda in full view of her good eye, which served as another minor mark of confidence, something that she could draw back upon if needed.

Miranda, settling into the chairs that had already been brought for them, nudged her head forward, and pushed the squirming, fuzzy bundle up to Bellanda's hands and claws.

"[It doesn't feel right,]" Bellanda complained again, lowering her head and sinking her head down into its side, speaking with her throat and not her mouth. She punctured her teeth down into the stomach of the otter and pulled back up, the abdominal cavity hanging low beneath her mouth for a moment, like a bag filled with stuffing, before a slight toss of her jaws tore it open and spilled the hot, steaming viscera out into the plate. "[I feel like they're all looking too closely at me. You know we can't trust them, right?]"

"[Well, yes, I know—]" Miranda was protesting, just a little, her voice warbling with a childish overtone. "[But it is not all bad! You just have to give them a chance, that is all! You would like some of them!]"

"[I don't think so.]" Bellanda shook her jaws, slinging off a few stringy pieces of gristle that clung onto the mass she picked out. She lifted it up, gleaming hot and slick in the strange light, and dipped her head forward, to gently press it against the tip of Miranda's mouth. "[Here, can you eat this? For me? I just don't think any of them know what they're dealing with, and ignorance is more dangerous than malice, you know that.]"

Miranda pulled her head back, gently shook it. The meat had dyed the front of her jaw red with blood regardless, sticky and dripping off of her scales with a dark sheen in the high light. When Bellanda saw Miranda's tongue flick out, darting along the blood and lapping it up, even that alone felt like a victory.

"[Well, yes, but... You just need to talk to them more. That is it.]"

[royalreef]

Name: Oz // @omnifobia hhehehe

Age: ...yeah.

Do you like to cuddle?: yeah . . . . . . .

Can we make-out?: y. yea. a lot

A night in or dinner out?: depends on the occasion? anight in is always nice, tho.

Ice cream or chocolate covered strawberries?: ice cream!!!

What makes you a good Valentine?: i mean, uhm. I'm not sure, haha. I like to think I'm kind of a good company, sometimes? also can and will do whatever you want me to. it's hard to say no.

Would you cook for me?: of course! ( author's note: don't eat what he makes )

Would you let me cook for you?: i'd love to!

Be my Valentine - Accepting

In lieu of any or all forms of reply, what Oz gets is Miranda's jaws around his head.

She can move so startlingly fast when she wants to — there one moment, sitting there so prettily, and the next lunging forward with the kind of force and velocity that knocks him over in an instant, an impulse, a dream. Miranda was never built for speed, being an ambush predator. Being an ambush predator, though, means that all that speed is stored up and left here, in moments like this, in the space between heartbeats where she has cleared unimaginable time and distance to wrap herself over and around Oz's skull, press her teeth in tight over his cheeks, grind him down underneath the weight of her upper body, her talons spread out over her chest.

All it would take is but a moment more, one more dream, a simple lapse of afterthought. She could spring her hands shut, dual thumbs piercing down and into bones, cracking ribs and wrapping around their bars, pulling their apart. She could have slammed down a little harder, burst lungs like popped balloons, shiny and red and abandoned long after the date.

There's enough muscle wrapped around her skull and wound through enough reinforced bone to bite down with two tons of pressure per square inch, and that's more than enough to wink out, to provide more than anyone else would ever be able to handle. To pull this curtain closed early.

The growl that slides out of her is sultry, easy, slick and dripping against Oz's face, the vibrations of that thundercrack sound worth a thousand kisses. Her tongue is there, dark purple-grey like a dog's wet gums, forked tips sitting prettily against the bed of her lower jaw. Her vocal organ sits the length of her entire throat and lies hooked around her ribcage, nearly as big as Oz's entire torso. She could make sounds to tear apart the sky, to simply speak Oz down into dust.

It's so deceptive, to look at Miranda. Most here would look down at her, and it would not be unprompted to do so. She's never needed to be tall, to demand her size to extend upwards and into the sky like the great sails of a vassal ship, to catch wind or to carry her elsewhere. Most people would forget, then, that there are other dimensions than that. They would forget that she's shaped like a torpedo, even with her bony ribs and boxy struts, would forget that she's larger than even several of them combined together.

"Ozzy," she purrs, limbs so short and thick and close enough to her chest that it rolls over Oz like tornado green. "If you think that you want me, then prove it."

[royalreef]

@captainseamech replied to your post:

I mean… If there's food involved…

"There is not! We are speaking of drinks. Likewise, is your anatomy even capable of fine appreciation of tastes? I would not presume so."

[royalreef]

@littlebadger replied to your post:

"19 FEET LONG, YOU GREW???"

" ...... I have been this long for years??"

[royalreef]

She has two tickets for Nosferatu. Who is going with her.

[royalreef]

Technically produces milk. Good luck finding it, though.

[royalreef]

@labmousin inquired: "Whoa... Excuse me, do your eyes glow in the dark? They are beautiful!" // I hope you don't mind!

"Oh — no, they do not." The answer might have been a bit of a letdown. Miranda certainly doesn't deliver it with much emphasis, all the same smooth edge of her voice, deep and mellow and rich, born in her chest, without much inflection to guide nor direct it. She flicks her fins a little and glances away, the light going with the movement of her pupils, returning to the same darkness of the room, the darkness that wraps her scales in a deep blackness.

It might also seem a little odd, because assuredly, her eyes did seem to have a light coming from them. Bright and electric blue, a stunning shade otherwise found in the heart of an abalone, and with a similar pearlescent sheen that made them float in midair, detached from the rest of her body, their texture shifting and changing with minor alterations so that it may as well have been the equivalent of staring into a pool of dark water. Not now, maybe, with her glanced away, but she looks back again, and the light comes back too. It is not illuminating, does not reveal more than the place where her sight lands, but there would be no mistaking it.

"It is the light—" Miranda lifts up a hand to point, habit instructing her to use her middle finger to do so, her dual thumbs curled under her palm. "It does not make light, it just... reflects it. You call it a tapetum lucidum, I think? To see better, yes? I appreciate the sentiment, but I am afraid I cannot return the compliment... It is making it a little hard for me to see you, in turn!"

[royalreef]

@miratenebrarum replied to your post:

P vc you can shoot me I guess. If you want to see things explode. Not much blood but lots of blue.

"Maybe..." Her fins are swept back, her eyes pinched up with frustration, but her words are startlingly genuine. Nearly comforted, even, cooled over with the light fondness of someone experiencing the kindness of a stranger.

Considering the topic, it's a tad strange. But, even if she's shooting the idea down, she does seem to genuinely appreciate the gesture all the same. "I do rather like blue... It is easier to see than the red, which is always rather nice. I suppose I will have to keep you in mind."

A pause. And then, quieter, smaller, she asks, "Does the blue glow-?"

[royalreef]

@baiika replied to your post:

Vicky; I can upgrade your limbs if you like <3

"NO—!!!"

The word tumbles out as a shout, louder than Miranda wanted, sharper than she wanted, too deep and too heavy like the thudding of a drum as her voice comes before she can think about it. The noise has made her move, a realization that occurs to Miranda only after the sound has already ceased to startle her, realizing that she's risen up onto her arms, back legs still tucked beneath her body. She glances down at herself, the pale of her fins flushing a dark pink, and then she has to glance up at Vicky again, stumble over herself to make that seem natural, intended.

"No, no, no, nope!!! No thank you!! I do not need your limbs, now or ever!! It is not even in my limbs tonight!! And I don't want to anyhow!!"

[royalreef]

And there it goes—