1964-02-24 - Reunion
Summary: Namor returns to the surface (with a new player), and finds a woman scorned (continuing plotline with Skali).
Related: None
Theme Song: None
skali namor 


Skali didn't consider herself poor. Certainly the wolf god had been wealthier in a different time, as well as far more impoverished than she found herself now; sprawled across the steps on the shared front porch of a shabby apartment building, a cigarette dangling from between her fingers. The night sky wheeled overhead, stars hidden behind pollution and light defraying from the cityscape, nostrils flaring as the smell of trash in the nearby alley and sea water blasting against the pier four blocks over.

The sound of boots scuffed on the sidewalk announced her motion to rise in a swagger down the dark streets, prowling more than strolling, a swing to her hips that rolled every step of her gait into the next shift of musculature. The cigarette stub flicked the ground spent, and February air plucked at her skin, the wind tousling dark curls and begging her to give chase. Not yet. She tempered the desire to sprint for the docks, as the only individuals who ran in this neighborhood were running from something and not towards it.

Time, money, friendship; it all shifted and sifted through the fingertips of a nigh immortal being. She got to the docks when she intended to arrive there, city sidewalk giving way to the boardwalk of harbor side. The golden eyes closed, features turning into the wind, as her senses filled and she found the air wanting.

*

He had been waiting. Waiting for a wolf god that he hadn't seen in too long. Longer than he meant for, but at a certain point, he had to weigh the risks of meeting her again. So he waited at the docks. Where they had tested their strength the first time. Namor, the prime regent of the nation under the sea, Imperius Rex to an aquatic army, waited under the docks like a lowlife.

His eyes followed the sway of her hips and knew her before she was close enough to make out her features. So it was that he let out a sigh and made his way up the beach, up the stairs of the boardwalk, and into the open air for the first time in months. Downwind, he admires her for a moment before his smile erupts back into the confidence that a breath of sea breeze always brings. "Hello Skali."

*

A pause. There's always a pause before a dog bites. When it looks quietly up, the stilling of the frame, the tension drawing along the lines of neck, into the jawline, body taunt like a bowstring. Skali stared openly at the speaker of such words, a the bearer of that scent, a mix of brine and fish and salt that she had buried herself in and soaked sweat unto. In that moment of disbelief was his warning, the eyes hardening, the smile that stole over her lips more snarl than good-humored delight.

In another life, she would have restrained herself. The human aspect of her so desperately wanted to play coy, to make him squirm, to twist out apologies and feign indifference and arrogance until he regretted ever leading her side. Skali wasn't a human though.

Their bodies slammed together before most would sense she was in motion, the blur of speed and skin and sudden warmth of her mouth on his bringing them to the rocky shore in the murky shallows of New York City's waters. There was nothing romantic about the reunion, a light little whimper of excitement in the back of her throat as she kissed him, nipped his neck, found the tipped part of his ear and nibbled before managing huskily into the curvature of it.

"I'm going to fucking kill you, Namor. Where have you been?"

And for all the enthusiasm of their reunion, she sounded incredibly serious about her homicidal intentions.

*

He responds simply, "At the bottom of the ocean," the strength of him keeping her close as she writhes against his bare skin, soaking her with the seawater still dripping from his hair. Of course he had been ready for the impact. He had been ready to meet the wolf if he had to, ready to fight her, hold the woman scorned. Wrestle her to a week-long stalemate in the depths like his own personal Grendel. Posiden knows he's dealt with more difficult women.

Returning the hungry affection, he murmur with each bite, tries to catch her lips for a kiss before giving up at her nips. "Regal business."

*

The snarl that roiled up from her throat was fiercer than any human chest could form, though he would know what it belonged to even if it filtered through much duller teeth at the moment.

"You impulsive son of a -"

The profanities continued, as was her way when in such a snit, throttled back only when she remembered that he was there, and finally physically present, warm and whole and alive. Then she would kiss him, the sort of kiss that clicked together teeth and left a man gasping. There was an obvious fracture between all the things she wanted to do to him, a balance of which desired to rip out his jugular between her teeth instead of tapping his pulse with her tongue and listening to his heartbeat echo in her ears.

"You left me. You just left me. I can't follow you. Maybe that's the point, I don't fucking know, but gah-"

And instead of completing her sentence, she trailed off in a low growl even as she reluctantly peeled herself off of him and let him up. With jeans and boots soaked, she glared at him unflinchingly, as if expecting something he would never give her. An explanation. An apology. A promise he wouldn't do it again.

*

Namor meets her glare from the ground, his cockiness swelling in proportion to her restraint. The kiss had taken his breath away, tugged at his very soul, but as the woman stood, removing again that warmth, so uncommon in the ocean, he hardened again in his steadfast resolve. "You fucked royalty. And royalty has obligations."

Standing slow, still ready for that blur of flesh and hide, Namor brushes off the stony sand clining to his thighs. "I hear even the Odinson must leave the mead hall and pleasure rooms once in a while." And at his own arrogance, he smiles. His was the smile that could invite the worst from a person, infuriating his opponents, or crack through that shell of rage with a raw display of hubris that leaves lovers dismissing his actions as a force of nature. As he watched her eyes flick, those nostrils flare subconsciously, he couldn't tell which she was.

*

She hit him.

Certainly the Asgardian could have hit him harder than she did, a restrained display of power and ferocity coiled into the blow she aimed for that perfect, beautifully chiseled jawline. Even if she knocked that smug smile back to the bottom of the ocean, it would heal. The sudden flare of anger and violence seemed to catch her by surprise, and for a moment she stood quavering after the punch was thrown, catching her breath as two parts of her instincts warred. Then with a shuddering exhale she managed,

"And you fucked a god. Gods expect humility."

*

Namor couldn't have stopped that wing if he wanted to, but he could have tried. He could have stayed where he was, still dripping wet, and stonewalled a blow from Thor himself, but somewhere under that smirk and arrogance, the King of Atlantis knew he deserved it. Or at least deserved something. He took the blow, checked as it was, and felt his teeth clack. He felt skin that could hold off bullets tear and bleed as the smile faded from his lips, fueling the fire in his eyes, and the respect in his voice. His feet never moved.

"It seems we both have expectations to adjust then." Finally, he takes a step, makes his first advance since seeing her. Blood begining to ooze from his cheek, he smiles again, though this time to show her just how much he had been left wanting under the waves. "But maybe while we work on those, you'll let me take you to dinner by means of apology? I haven't had a steak in months."

*

The woman he had taken as his own was as wild as the waves themselves, and nigh as powerful, though his command did not so easily sway her. A lazy rivulet of blood working from where she had split his skin open drew her attentions, something akin to guilt flickering over her expression before she nodded stiffly at his observation. Silence met his advance, her posture unapologetically confident and the air she adapted disaffected. Once more, she regarded him not as a fascinating specimen, a man who needed to learn to love, a story that would suit her own romantic notions; No, he was simply Namor to her, and always would be.

Even when she wanted to kill him.

"There are other things more pressing than steak that I've been without for months."

The distance between them closed as Skali curled against him before dragging him into the lowly darkness from whence he had first emerged under the pier. Dinner could wait.

*

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