He stands before the ocean. The tides stop further traversal like a wall. It stinks of rot and sulfur and things that never dry. Those who set foot upon the steppe often likened its drafts and vastness to the sea. But this is nothing like the quick-running winds of the grassland that slip under a deel and tug at a wolf’s bones. Distance on the steppe invited a man forward instead of hemming him in.

“Never cared for the sea.” The nomad turns to look sidelong at his companion: the lithe Daiyu. She appears far more taken with this stretch of coastline.

Their feelings towards the ocean were drastically different. Batu greeting it with obvious and even a spoken disinterest, while Daiyu dashed towards the waves as though to embrace an old friend. To her, she was doing just that.

Is that so? Silken black ears would perk as she turns her back to the sea to face the burnished copper, stout man which she had wondered off away with. Well, perhaps not exactly all that. They were on task by word of the Emperor. It sounded far more exciting the other way though.

Can't say I've heard that very often... or ever, really. Of course, she had been living on an island before now. Anyone who took the time to venture there likely had a spot for the sea in them.

There is magic in her dance— a bright, effervescent current that runs strength from the tides and up into her dark limbs. The nomad would sooner have studied the access lines along the seacliffs, yet he finds himself rooted instead, paws braced in the surf, a half-grin peeling his mouth.

“Perhaps you can show me what there is to admire,” Batu says, eyes flashing in good-humor.

skill: escort

He was young and filled with wild energy. The strength of a stallion in his legs and loins, perhaps. He stood effortlessly proud on the sands, though they didnt fit him like the rolling plain.

I can show you many things. Her words drawing invitation to match the curl of her body around him, only to dash down the beachside to test the might of those legs to be true.

“That so,” he rumbles, already giving chase.

The sand underfoot is treacherous, swallowing his stride where the steppe would have bolstered the pursuit. Daiyu darts like a seabird over the foam-kissed shoreline, black tail bannering. Their riot scatters gulls into the wind as he endeavors to keep pace. Even here, on this wet, foreign coast that smells of decay, his body remembers how to hunt.

Teeth seek to close around the inked tip and beach the siren when a wave crashes against their legs and sprays cold water up his chest.

“Sho! (fuck!) That's cold!"

skill: escort

His feet, his ankles, they do not know the churning of the sea. They do not move with the tide as the land sinks away from his footing each time the water retracts. It is his young pride and determination which keeps him at pace with the siren woman.

She yips in surprise as his teeth just barely snag the black fur at her tail tip and causes her to jolt. Laughter escapes her as a large wave of water washes over them and she reels around, barking out and nipping at his nape and chest playfully. Her body never staying in one place for long as she dashes around, made to press her now wet body against him and than out of range once more.

Daiyu means to tease him, but Batu had no need of coaxing. It had been some time since he’d enjoyed the company of a woman on the road, and none so enchanting as the siren. He barks a laugh as she springs up and joins them together lightly before retreating into the surf.

Now the sanded shore has devoured wide paws of the steppe, and the horselord stands as a heavy, sinking edifice. Paw after paw he is wrenched free, shaking loose the clinging grains. Fanged and grinning his hunter’s countenance is darting low and quick with the intent to catch what has just slipped laughing from his grasp.

skill: escort

She cries out a loud 'yip!' as he sweeps in low and captures her and laughs as their bodies tumble among the sands. Daiyu keeps to her lay, where her belly pressed to the sand, arching herself so that she might press her backside to his own underside if he were to straddle her there under him. If not, inviting him to do so. Her muzzle tosses up, seeking to steal a kiss at his jawline, his cheek. See? The beach can be quite fun. He has captured her and yet truly, the siren has captured yet another man.

---

timeskip or fade? <3

There, the streaming tail is within prising teeth, drawing, wresting, releasing only to run a damp chin up to the base. He nuzzles the slim hip and stretches out over her arced body, taking the siren’s chest within one arm and bracing their weight with the other. His deel covers them both and beneath it teeth comb through salted furs, preening, pulling, savoring Daiyu’s taste. He drags lips over eartips, murmuring in words of the steppe, and when they are past any need for speech the horselord draws her back onto him with a pleasured grunt.