Antaeus

Welp, here I go, writing a fic for my ridiculous crossover OT3. If you look at the tags you can probably figure out who it’s about. Also from the perspective of one of my OCs, because I’m self-indulgent like that.

Fic is under the readmore.

Nira doesn’t like it when her feet aren’t on solid ground. She can stand on the tallest mountain peak and feel no sense of vertigo, but the very idea of flying terrifies her. When she’s grounded, she can feel Terrakion’s power flowing into her, strengthening her. She doesn’t like being cut off from that power, even for the briefest of moments.

It would be an exaggeration to say that she becomes totally helpless when lifted off the ground. She’s made ridiculously long leaps before, with power if not grace. And there’s enough natural strength in her arms and her spirit-she’s given more than one overconfident psychic a good whack in the eye when they figured her helpless and dangling. Still, she likes to avoid those situations as much as possible.

Being surrounded on ocean on all sides, with nothing but a wobbly deck beneath her feet, is almost as bad. There’s no stability there, and it’s all too easy to imagine falling overboard and drowning. She’s aligned with the mountain-god enough that her skin and heart are stone, and the element of water is antithesis to her.

And yet, when Mako’s boat pulls into shore, she grins and runs on board without a second thought. She listens to his stories about the places he’s been, while she tells him about her latest battles. As they leave the shore, she leans against him, looking towards the horizon and their destination. When it gets too much, when she’s going stir-crazy, he’s there to talk to her, to take her mind off things, to tell her how much longer it’ll be until they reach land again.

When they reach land, sometimes Celestia is there to greet them, and sometimes she is not. But the reunion always comes soon enough, either way.

Celestia’s enthusiasm is infectious. Sometimes when she pulls Nira closer the knight’s feet leave the ground for a moment. But Nira finds she doesn’t mind those moments, is too happy to simply be with her other lover at last. Sometimes she initiates the hug, running forwards to pull the alicorn into a messy, many-limbed embrace. Sometimes she actually hoists herself up to get a proper grip, and her feet leave the ground completely.

She doesn’t mind being lifted then, she learns to realize. She doesn’t even mind on those later occasions where Celestia grabs both her and Mako up in her telekinesis, taking to the air out of sheer joy. There’s the loss of contact with the ground, and the loss of power-but it’s okay. She can let herself be vulnerable, let herself let go of some of her strength.

So finally, there comes a day when the three of them are sitting on the beach together, and Nira places an arm around Celestia’s shoulders, ruffling her wings.

“I want you to take me flying,” she says.