He's not right. Even without clothes, with his eyes closed, the identifying marks of blood and sign stripped away, he's wrong. The fins are only one thing. He's too tall. His body is the wrong shape and his horns are too long and when he opens his eyes, when he speaks, his high blood shines out through him and cuts her to the core. She hates him, because he's easy to hate. She looks at him and can see His death and all the horrible things in the world. She can see . He's not what she wants and he lives while He's dead and she hates him.
Her hair covers her shoulders in waves, not curls and its length is too short, but long enough to fool himself in the brief moments his eyes are closed. Her horns are too blunt and even with his eyes closed, even in the kiss, he feels the absence of the fins and the hair encasing them and all that he imagined. She's too short and when she looks up at him, all he can see is her low blood. The words that she speaks drip with faith that lingers despite His death and he wants to smother her in his hate, touch her until He is gone from her mind and she's just his. It won't make her the one he seeks but it brings it closer. She can be Her if he closes his eyes at the right moments, but sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he watches her, feels the claws raking over his shoulders and watches the arch of her back. He can make her forget Him. She can be just his, in the broken moments where they come undone.
He always was a jealous lover. Leave it to him to be jealous of the dead.
---
She watches him drip over the sand, the water pooling at his toes and the sand sticking to his skin. She'll hiss at him later, when it gets all over her and grinds into her back. For now she watches him sillhouetted against the inky blackness of the sea beyond. He's almost normal like this; almost normal when he's in his element. She almost forgets to hate him. She almost forgets that he killed a troll earlier for flirting with her. Just harmless red-flirting. It wasn't even a threat to his relationship with her and if it was, why would he care. She was just a lowblood he hated.
He could find dozens more.
She almost forgets when he presses her into the sand, covers her lips in a kiss that takes her breath away. He pushes her hair back and his lips are on her neck, her hands gentle on his shoulders. She hatehatehatelovehates him when he's gentle with her. He smirks and says land dwellers are made of softer stuff and what use would a broken toy be.
She's tackled hoofbeasts twice his size and its nothing to flip him over, be the one pinning and smirking and he's still gentlegentlegentle with her. She can't stand it any more, the feelings that caresses and soft kisses bring but all her clawing and hissing won't make him hold her any tighter, kiss any rougher.
Her tears come in fits and she hateshateshates him for it, for making her cry and for pitying her, loving her, hating her. She doesn't know what he feels anymore and she doesn't either. It's easier to hate. Easier because its not cheating and she can't love someone else again, it'll break her.
She remembers he killed a troll for her, remembers and then breaks again a little, because she remembers jealousy and biting her lip when she wanted to fight and hiss and claw. She was never cut out for quadrants; certainly not for hating deeply, for hating forever.
She understands jealousy when one shouldn't feel it. She thinks she understands him a little, in that brief moment, when he can't bear another one as close to her as he. Maybe he isn't cut out for quadrants either. Or maybe she's just projecting herself on him.
She bites his fin, delicately and he's finally rough and finally full of the hate she misses and abhors all at once. She feels for him. A lot of feelings. She just doesn't know what it is anymore.