"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
And inside you're burning with some secret yearning
She aches. She aches in a way she never has before. Not through injury or childbirth or heartache. No, this is soul deep, a gaping, festering wound that can only be remedied in one way.
They had taken from her, stolen the very thing that gives her life and happiness and purpose, that encompasses her entire being. Her stars are gone, ripped from her unceremoniously by a jealous god.
Oh, they still twinkle far above, teasing, untouchable, so very beautiful. In that moment, she knows anger, and she knows grief. And she knows betrayal.
Her other gift is gone too, but she does not feel its loss like she does the theft of her starlight. It had been a pretty thing, amusing and occasionally useful, but ultimately insignificant.
But the stars, she cannot bear the loss.
She would retrieve them, somehow. She would take them back.
But not tonight. Tonight she grieves. Tonight she seethes. Tonight she stands alone in the vast expanse of the snow-laden meadow, silver eyes turned upwards, slender red and teal frame still against the white slopes.
09-09-2016, 09:56 PM (This post was last modified: 09-09-2016, 10:17 PM by Pollock.)
“I thought I would have preferred you more vulnerable.”
Many years ago, he would have.
But that was many years ago. That was before many trials and tribulations. Before he earned his crown and vestments, spun black and festive.That was when he had nothing but concealment; flattened, belly-down like a snake in tall grass. And, no doubt, he still likes to pick his teeth with the delicate now and then – life is all about variety – but he has developed something like a soft spot for those willing to show a little pluck. There is joy in both endeavours – the fight and the surrender.
There is submission after each, of course, but they are flavoured just a bit differently. Sweet and savory.
“But this is no fun for either of us,” and if he can have no fun, then what is the point. He frowns like a petulant child, considering her as she is – plain; cool, jewel skin, still. But so considerably less… sumptuous. But then, he fidgets his wings (beautiful, as they are – glossy and cream-coloured, over-large, powerful, unwelcomed), and he is not without self-awareness, though it is an uncomfortable weight to be shackled to. No matter how temporary. He can only come to her openly. He cannot sidle to her, unseen and dangerous like a carnivore, to whisper across her neck like he once might have. He cannot rush her skin with his great headgear, feel the friction against her defenses. He cannot arouse that tasty part of her mind and watch her bend to him.
(So unfortunate, that they would have to meet again, naked and barefoot in snow, after having authored a constellation together! – splitting the sky open with it, dismay and revelry.)
Everything he has known and loved so. Gone.
For a moment he considers the merits of mercy – to snuff her out and let that star die in his palms before it can disintegrate any further into inelegance. Rather more pathetic than it would have been when he had his first chance, when she may have imploded magnificently and tried to take him with her, stellar barbs wrapped around his throat.
No fun.
He passes his tongue over his lips and moves in closer, his mind a wriggling vipers’ nest of everything that had passed between them – how she had rankled him and tested him; how she had yielded to him, willingly, in the end.
And everything that has happened since – how he had ensnared himself in indigo and had paused for a moment when that buckskin boy had donned his stars, secure in a thin bright, teal light around his body and he thought…
—but it had slipped his mind (has slipped his mind even now, face-to-face with her), as his whelps (and possible whelps) so often do. At the time, he had eyes for only the girl that the boy seemed to watch over like a guard dog. The minutia of how they came to be together (that they might both be his dropped seeds – but of course, for their conceptions were alike fires, both! – bright, destructive and beautiful) had not occurred to him, as he hunted only for that rich and mischievous blue.
And then, the rapture. The bald-faced thievery, plucking the gems from their bodies one by one and holding them captive at the false mountain.
“How do you feel? Without your pretty stars, Lirren?” It is mocking – sharp and wry, a cornered dog snarling. But most of all, his words roil with anger, and in his own way, it is meant to be a cup of bittered wine shared between them.
And inside you're burning with some secret yearning
Of course she does not remain alone for long. She never could. Her desire for beauty and power and danger never lay sated for long. And she had forced an abstinence for too long, kept herself herself away, untouchable (except for that one moment, but we will not discuss that. It had been a mistake).
This time though, it is not her initiating the touch. It is he.
She had never thought to see him again, the glorious goat-horned stallion she had spent one star-studded, tension filled night with (oh, but everything she does is filled with tension. She cannot seem to do otherwise). She had thought their paths long ago parted, never to cross again. Still, she cannot say she would not… enjoy a new encounter.
But he is different now, so much less than he had been. Golden still, but plain, with two whole wings and no other brilliant gifts. How disappointing.
She too, is less. It infuriates her like little else ever could. But he has come to her, perhaps at a most fortuitous time.
”Who says I am vulnerable?” Her voice is almost coy, but there is an edge to it. An edge only a fool would ignore. She has never taken him for a fool.
He seems almost hesitant in his approach, leaving too much air gaping between them. So she takes those last steps, pressing in close to him with the faintest of smiles curving her lips. Her touch is gentle (she remembers how much he hates it, but that only makes it all the more alluring) as she brushes her muzzle against his metal-bright skin. Such a lovely contrast against her russet and teal.
”You remember.” He would never forget, of that she holds no doubt. Just as she never would. And she wonders if he misses it. She wonders how many lovers he has taken since, wonders how many of those others he had looked at, remembering only their furious union.
But his next words distract her, infuriate her all over again. Blue-tipped ears flattening momentarily, she nips sharply at his neck. A gentle reprimand.
”Much like you, I imagine.” Her soft, almost kind words belie the icy tone of her voice. If he wished to play such dangerous games, she is more than happy to play. ”Without your fear, what are you, really?”
He is connected to many, by now, it seems, as if by destiny. They are a web of stars making up vast, cruel constellations. (She, perhaps more so than others, because their divided halves call to each other like severed twins.)
They come together.
Of course they do.
He had never doubted it, even if she had. Their world is too small and he is too hungry. If he must be sated once, let it be because he had put the period on it himself. He makes it final, or else he seeks seconds voraciously. She had left, star-studded and expectant – alive – and so she would never have been free of his prying, wolfish wants.
“We with working eyes,” he does not miss it, her sharp tongue. He returns it with equal bite. Pollock has come to like that dance. But if they are both plain, and both more vulnerable than before, she cannot hide from the softness of her skin, now. That striking difference he feels when she takes to him and touches is self-evident.
He steels himself against it instinctively, as he had last time. It is the most infuriating thing about them, and he is sure she likes the way he pulls his head back and groans, irritated, deep from his chest.
He would have liked to push her back, deflect her by invading her mind.
(Things have changed since they last came together. He has grown into touch. He had numbed all the meaning once attached to it – not forgotten.
But he will never grow to welcome it like a lover, because it has never been a loving thing.
He likes best when it is at his disposal – she uses it, so brazen and forward.) “I do,” he grunts, he remembers everything that burns as hot as that had, before and since.
When she retorts, he smiles, but her question rankles him. He steps back from her, winter cold replacing the space.
“Like I was before.”
His eyes narrow, warning slits, his word are glowering and cautioning (maybe a tiny bit thoughtful), there is none of the irksome tones of the memories they incite. He doesn’t let the jagged edges of that grief and havoc surface and arm her.
Is festers where it belongs, down in his belly.
“Much like whatever it is you are without your pretty stars, I expect,” an impasse. They are two on-coming meteors. “Except, I know what it’s like to be without. I’ve built myself once.” It is a promise, and perhaps a veiled rallying call.
They both lost things, inborn and things fought for (—in the same northern warfare… but nevermind that…), and are pale leftovers.
“Oh. And I can fucking fly,” he stretches out his glossy, bright wings (so virginal and out of place), over-large in their span, acid burning his mouth to bone.
And inside you're burning with some secret yearning
It is such a familiar dance, the one they so easily fall into. Give and take. Push and pull. Neither of them surrendering more than an inch, neither of the willing to concede, pushing the buttons that produce the most heat, that garner the greatest reaction. And she loves it. Loves it more than she would ever willingly express.
His retorts are quick and sharp, and that bite brings a smile to her lips, a bright glimmer to her silvery eyes. He might believe her vulnerable, and she is more than happy to allow him that belief. Less because of any misplaced sense of discretion, more because she wished to see what he might do with this erroneous thought of vulnerability. A thought, the possibilities of which she is far too intrigued by.
Give and take. Push and pull.
He does not respond to her touch as he once had, and she grows curious. What had he done to so inure himself to these gentle caresses? Her smile falters as her consideration fills her star-bright gaze. ”Ah, of course you do. But you’ve changed.” That slip of a grin edges back onto her lips as she continues. ”Not just your… pretty exterior either.”
But then he is stepping away from her, anger simmering between them as they each so brazenly call out the other's faults. She is not a creature made for anger though. Even his cruel words cannot maintain an ire that is so unnatural. He festers, she lets go. So similar on the surface, yet down deep, where it truly matters, they are vastly different. It is why she has never once doubted she would prevail. She knows just how to play life to her advantage.
She laughs then, a throaty chuckle that displays her amusement so charmingly, all vestiges of irritation vanishing from her delicate features. ”Darling.” She all but purrs the word even as she steps in nearer once again, closing the space between them he had created. ”Such pride.” A subtle light glimmers briefly in her eye as she shakes her head once, just enough to show a disingenuous censorship. ”Do you doubt me?”
It had been years. Years, since they broke apart like disintegrating spacestuff, but not before colliding and leaving trace evidence on each other’s surfaces – panspermia, life had existed in that universe. Beyond all odds; against all warning. (He would say he is sick of shepherding all their little, lost lambs – but if that were really true, he’d stop rutting the ewes.)
She had not been the only one. No.
It had been a hot and busy summer.
He had found a plaything that had twisted herself deep into his mind, like a fly stuck in a web. She had prodded and pushed him, like Lirren does. Except Lirren had given him her name. That’s how best to control a demon – this thing (this defiant, abhorrent, striking, indigo thing) had kept those lips tight, as they grew bluer and then still.
He had no name for her, so when he chased the phantoms of her hue, he bellowed nonsense into the night.
“Everyone changes.” She seems steadfast, though. Still she fishes. Still she bends, but resists breaking. Still, she insists on gravitating into him. Still, she prods. Fine – except for the starlessness, she is the same. He feels the tight, inflexible knots of scar tissue on the underside of his head, from his chin down his mandible – three, because the fourth had not struck true enough.
(his lip curls when she calls him ‘darling’)
“What would I be without my pride?”
(he has been ignoble – it is really no way to be)
“Doubt you?” he lets her step close, in that he does not strike her for it – but the tensity in his body stretches up the ropes of his neck, across his flexing jaw, and belies any calm he might try to feign – “no. I just think I’ll beat you to it.”
That would be an advantage.
soooo late, if you are over it, let me know, I just felt determined to reply because they are fantastical <3
![[Image: kkN1kfc.png]](http://i.imgur.com/kkN1kfc.png)