A Bird May Love a Fish
folder
Fantasy & Science Fiction › General
Rating:
Adult
Chapters:
1
Views:
886
Reviews:
2
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Fantasy & Science Fiction › General
Rating:
Adult
Chapters:
1
Views:
886
Reviews:
2
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
A Bird May Love a Fish
A Bird May Love a Fish
by Ember
A/N: A bird may love a fish, but where would they live?
I wrote this forever ago. Wherein forever is the equivalent of somewhat more than two years; I wrote it the last time I was on this website to prove I could, indeed, write straight-love too. I was either fifteen or sixteen, I don’t really remember, but I hope it was the former, ‘cause then I’d sound a lot more talented.
–
Tell me your secrets
And ask me your questions
You don’t know how lovely you are
I had to find you
Tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart
-Coldplay
–
For a second, just one heartstopping second, he hovered in midair, the wind tearing through his wings, keeping him aloft, suspended. The tropical sun beat down on tanned skin, washed-out blonde hair, the strong, angled profile that always distinguished the birds of the sky from normal men. His shoulders extended into the feathered pinions that kept him aloft, above human arms, but aside from that he could have been mistaken for a man, were he safely on the ground where men belong.
The hovering moment passed and he plummeted twenty feet, changing the angle of his fall and catching the air beneath his wings again, shooting back away from the cerulean of the sea, back into the pale blue of the sky. He twisted, running parallel with the face of the earth, studying the facets and planes of the sea beneath him, the crystal water running in waves and ripples over the deep blue, and finally picking out his mate amid the sapphire planes.
She was small and lithe, turquiose fins and black hair spreading out, floating on the surface. From her round, smiling face, down the gilled sides of her neck, to her small breasts and her narrow shoulders reaching out into human arms and webbed human hands, she was just slightly to the left of normal woman, though with the huge, purple-veined fins reaching from her sides and the lean, scaled tail that ended in a billowing fish tail, the mistake was difficult to make. She swam the pattern as he flew, ducking under to breathe every once in a while, coming up and tracing pale blue eyes along the sky to catch his whenever their gazes were torn apart.
Slowly he descended, wings spread wide and casting her for a moment in shadow relief from the sun, which irratated her sensitive under-sea skin, and as he came in low over the ocean they touched for the first time, their hands reaching towards each other, the fingers brushing against each other. Then he was flying past her, then upwards again, pumping his wings and throwing himself into the sky, turning around and circling back towards her, controlling his speed to match her’s. They moved beside each other, her in the sea and him in the sky, a foot apart, almost touching but not quite, for a few moments, before she reached up and he reached down and she pulled her head from the waves and kissed him. He pulled away from the water, desperate to keep his wings dry, and she wrapped her hands around his biceps and allowed herself to be dragged from the ocean, pulled towards the sky into the embrace. They continued close to the water and he released her when she broke the kiss, pulling away from the water as her dive broke the surface.
They pulled away again, he upwards, she down, he losing himself to the sky while she buried herself underwater. Then he was flying parallel to the surface, and she was swimming parallel to the sky, and they slowly closed the distance between each other, synchronising their speeds, watching each other’s eyes, pledging their love for one another silently, with the passion of their movement. Her face, fingers and breasts broke the water first, followed by the pale plane of her belley and the curves of her tail, her narrow, strong shoulders and the clouds of her hair. His fingers graced the water right beside her’s, his knees dragging along the surface to either side of her scaled waist, inches above her, then pressed against her, his heated flesh against her cool skin.
Their coupling was short; it always was. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he enterred her, and he pulled away from the water before their motion against it splashed too much on the feathers of his wings. For a few seconds they flew through the air, his arms wrapped around her lower back, her arms around his shoulders, their hips flush against each other, then she tried to cry out and couldn’t breathe. In panic she buried her face into his neck and clung, vice-like, to him; he dove down to return her to the water, releasing her back into the ocean, still buried in her, their hips still pressed together. In their passion she almost dragged him under; he fought to keep his shoulders above the ocean and they finished the mating at the surface of the water, him above and her below. He came outside of her, in pale clouds under the surface of the water, for mutual fear that there would possibly be a child between them, a child who wouldn’t belong anywhere, land, sea or air.
Exhausted from the mating and the flight, he barely made it to the island, a protruding rock above the ocean surface without quite enough span to house actual plant life, but large enough for him to sit comfortably. She couldn’t swim over there, there were too many rocks and they tore her delicate fins, but she could swim around it, thirty or forty yards away, almost close enough that he could see her face.
“I love you,” he said in the language of the birds, too far away for her to hear.
“I love you,” she said in the language of the fish, the words lost to the depths of the ocean.
He came every day, and watched her surface and look at him, blinking large, pale eyes at him. Sometimes, he called to her, but she never came to the island surrounded by rocks. “Why don’t you come to the sky with me?” he would ask her in a language she couldn’t understand. “You could swim in the clouds, and we could live on the wind, you and me, forever.”
She came to meet him every day, but he only sometimes came out beyond the circle of rocks to meet her, and never answered when, in a language only fish could speak, asked him, “Why don’t you come into the sea with me, and live in my kingdom, away from the sun, where everything is cool and quiet? You could fly in the currents and dance with me in the coral reefs.”
Then one day he came to the island and she didn’t come. For a day and a night he waited for her, then flew back to the clouds. Again and again he returned, but never to see the pale-eyed face break the water like it had the first day he’d seen her, and never again to see the narrow shoulders poke from the blue water or the tangled dark hair fall heavily over one eye. Never to carry a fish towards the sky or be dragged down towards the sea, suspended in sensual purgatory with his mate, his lovely mate.
And then one day, many months later, he saw a bird flying south on the currents, tilting back and forth the way he flew, wings spread to catch the thermals. And he thought she was beautiful.
The End
by Ember
A/N: A bird may love a fish, but where would they live?
I wrote this forever ago. Wherein forever is the equivalent of somewhat more than two years; I wrote it the last time I was on this website to prove I could, indeed, write straight-love too. I was either fifteen or sixteen, I don’t really remember, but I hope it was the former, ‘cause then I’d sound a lot more talented.
–
Tell me your secrets
And ask me your questions
You don’t know how lovely you are
I had to find you
Tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart
-Coldplay
–
For a second, just one heartstopping second, he hovered in midair, the wind tearing through his wings, keeping him aloft, suspended. The tropical sun beat down on tanned skin, washed-out blonde hair, the strong, angled profile that always distinguished the birds of the sky from normal men. His shoulders extended into the feathered pinions that kept him aloft, above human arms, but aside from that he could have been mistaken for a man, were he safely on the ground where men belong.
The hovering moment passed and he plummeted twenty feet, changing the angle of his fall and catching the air beneath his wings again, shooting back away from the cerulean of the sea, back into the pale blue of the sky. He twisted, running parallel with the face of the earth, studying the facets and planes of the sea beneath him, the crystal water running in waves and ripples over the deep blue, and finally picking out his mate amid the sapphire planes.
She was small and lithe, turquiose fins and black hair spreading out, floating on the surface. From her round, smiling face, down the gilled sides of her neck, to her small breasts and her narrow shoulders reaching out into human arms and webbed human hands, she was just slightly to the left of normal woman, though with the huge, purple-veined fins reaching from her sides and the lean, scaled tail that ended in a billowing fish tail, the mistake was difficult to make. She swam the pattern as he flew, ducking under to breathe every once in a while, coming up and tracing pale blue eyes along the sky to catch his whenever their gazes were torn apart.
Slowly he descended, wings spread wide and casting her for a moment in shadow relief from the sun, which irratated her sensitive under-sea skin, and as he came in low over the ocean they touched for the first time, their hands reaching towards each other, the fingers brushing against each other. Then he was flying past her, then upwards again, pumping his wings and throwing himself into the sky, turning around and circling back towards her, controlling his speed to match her’s. They moved beside each other, her in the sea and him in the sky, a foot apart, almost touching but not quite, for a few moments, before she reached up and he reached down and she pulled her head from the waves and kissed him. He pulled away from the water, desperate to keep his wings dry, and she wrapped her hands around his biceps and allowed herself to be dragged from the ocean, pulled towards the sky into the embrace. They continued close to the water and he released her when she broke the kiss, pulling away from the water as her dive broke the surface.
They pulled away again, he upwards, she down, he losing himself to the sky while she buried herself underwater. Then he was flying parallel to the surface, and she was swimming parallel to the sky, and they slowly closed the distance between each other, synchronising their speeds, watching each other’s eyes, pledging their love for one another silently, with the passion of their movement. Her face, fingers and breasts broke the water first, followed by the pale plane of her belley and the curves of her tail, her narrow, strong shoulders and the clouds of her hair. His fingers graced the water right beside her’s, his knees dragging along the surface to either side of her scaled waist, inches above her, then pressed against her, his heated flesh against her cool skin.
Their coupling was short; it always was. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he enterred her, and he pulled away from the water before their motion against it splashed too much on the feathers of his wings. For a few seconds they flew through the air, his arms wrapped around her lower back, her arms around his shoulders, their hips flush against each other, then she tried to cry out and couldn’t breathe. In panic she buried her face into his neck and clung, vice-like, to him; he dove down to return her to the water, releasing her back into the ocean, still buried in her, their hips still pressed together. In their passion she almost dragged him under; he fought to keep his shoulders above the ocean and they finished the mating at the surface of the water, him above and her below. He came outside of her, in pale clouds under the surface of the water, for mutual fear that there would possibly be a child between them, a child who wouldn’t belong anywhere, land, sea or air.
Exhausted from the mating and the flight, he barely made it to the island, a protruding rock above the ocean surface without quite enough span to house actual plant life, but large enough for him to sit comfortably. She couldn’t swim over there, there were too many rocks and they tore her delicate fins, but she could swim around it, thirty or forty yards away, almost close enough that he could see her face.
“I love you,” he said in the language of the birds, too far away for her to hear.
“I love you,” she said in the language of the fish, the words lost to the depths of the ocean.
He came every day, and watched her surface and look at him, blinking large, pale eyes at him. Sometimes, he called to her, but she never came to the island surrounded by rocks. “Why don’t you come to the sky with me?” he would ask her in a language she couldn’t understand. “You could swim in the clouds, and we could live on the wind, you and me, forever.”
She came to meet him every day, but he only sometimes came out beyond the circle of rocks to meet her, and never answered when, in a language only fish could speak, asked him, “Why don’t you come into the sea with me, and live in my kingdom, away from the sun, where everything is cool and quiet? You could fly in the currents and dance with me in the coral reefs.”
Then one day he came to the island and she didn’t come. For a day and a night he waited for her, then flew back to the clouds. Again and again he returned, but never to see the pale-eyed face break the water like it had the first day he’d seen her, and never again to see the narrow shoulders poke from the blue water or the tangled dark hair fall heavily over one eye. Never to carry a fish towards the sky or be dragged down towards the sea, suspended in sensual purgatory with his mate, his lovely mate.
And then one day, many months later, he saw a bird flying south on the currents, tilting back and forth the way he flew, wings spread to catch the thermals. And he thought she was beautiful.
The End