"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
02-24-2017, 04:41 PM (This post was last modified: 02-24-2017, 04:42 PM by Deimos.)
A cold chill set up through the air, and the shadows that were cast across the meadow were not of natural making. The man in black that rolled his way down the sloped, grassy knoll. The smell of Ecco stinging his nostrils. That little tart of his had produced the most rancid of babies, and had left him to deal with the aftermath. Deathwish had been born as squalling black baby into this world, the scent of her enough to wake the dead— Until he had seen that she could dead things alive again. His eyes had widened, and his nostrils flared. Suddenly the wrinkled little one wasn’t quite so—untouchable after all. Deimos has yet to raise a child. Not since Sin has he ever stayed to see the product of his making—and her corpse was long dead in the sands on the beach. That Ecco had such a hold over him, drawing him back to her side, forcing him to be near her—he hated it. And yet he could not get enough of her. She is obsessed with death, with a beautiful body and a penchant for chaos. He would gladly take her home and do all the dirty things with her that he knew made her weak at the knees. She had been so good. The only problem with her— --was that she had a mother. Potion—a beautiful carbon copy of his beloved Ecco (if one can use the word beloved)—was a royal pain in the ass. She sneered down her nose at him with all the disgust of trailer trash. The black magician smiled grimly behind her back. There had never before been a personality that Deimos had not been able to quash underneath his influence. That his seemingly greatest opponent was an errant mother in law made him seethed all the more. Made him seem ordinary. Deimos does not do well with ordinary. The black fog that casts ribbons of shadow through the trees and into the open expanse like dry ice seems to follow him wherever he happens to be—and nearby the scent of his their daughter is about also. Just as well. But his presence here was for Ecco alone. That sickly sweet lavender body that made him tremble… and thirst for her blood. And for death. He can smell her. But he does not bother to call out. She will come if she is able. Or else he’d hear nothing but flack from Potion for trying to summon her precious baby girl… Deimos snarled. Feminists.
02-25-2017, 12:33 PM (This post was last modified: 02-25-2017, 12:50 PM by Potion|Ecco.)
It was unseasonably warm, the golden autumn beams doing their best to bestow heat to the land. The sun hung against the blue sky like a beacon, calling the residents of Beqanna out of their hiding places and into the meadow. Ecco failed to follow them, skirting the tree line of the forest, unwilling to mingle. Their differences were black and white and she had little patience to stir gray into the mix- of what use would that be? Instead she watched them, glaring a pale pastel curse in their general direction and quietly chewing what was left of the grass here.
She was unknowingly killing it, sucking its life force away, leaving a wide circle of brown where she stood. Above her a tree groaned, the branches wailing their lament as the solid trunk that suspended them grew ill and black.
Black, cold.
That’s how she knew he was near.
A chill in the air sent the warmth from the sun fleeing, she smiled, a wicked curve stretching against her lavender maw. Deimos… she thought sly and playful, not yet running to his call but knowing he could hear her. Someone reading your thoughts wasn’t always bad, especially if you were a sassy little minx like Ecco. She promptly thought of their trysts, flashing pictures in her memory of sweat and body heat overlapping each other, and then she laughed. Quickly glancing over her shoulder she saw no one was near, and by no one, Mother wasn’t hovering too close.
Shriveled flowers found her path, she need only head towards what everyone else moved away from. What was once green and vigorous turned yellow and cracked, shrinking away as they faded into dust. She let it roam, stretching out before her, turning in twisted ribbons to snatch at anything near. Birds perched in the branches of a birch tree, a rabbit bounding away from a fox. She left neither untouched, they sank deflated to the ground, with nothing left but a feast for maggots and flies.
Upon finding him, black and menacing and sleek against the cold, bitter air, she grinned. Pressing maybe too close, asking permission from the deceased grass and lucky, it couldn’t deny her. “You leave me too long,” she crooned, daring to press her pale snout to his chest before looking up into his eyes. “What’s a girl to think?” she feigned pouting, flicking her tail and rolling her shoulders in mock distress. “Don’t you miss me puddin’?” she asked, and if she had arms she would have crossed them over chest.
02-27-2017, 10:58 PM (This post was last modified: 02-27-2017, 10:59 PM by Deimos.)
He looked down at her, his face sober as he took in the rather wide swath of death and distruction that she had used to get to him—mass planticide. He snorted at her mock pouting, as well as her display, when it appeared that she was distressed that he had left her. Everything about her was so serious—until one got to know Ecco well. She was all about the show, and he rolled his eyes and stepped forward to her, closing the distance between them. His cold, not dead body brushed with the warmth of hers, and he exhaled audibly, sucking what little life was left of the world around them, shriveling up the leaves until they were black and falling off the trees around them like crinkled pieces of crushed origami. Deimos moved his head into the crook of her neck, and then stood tall looking past her body and into the open expanse.
“You know what I have been about, you silly girl,” he says. He is not the nicest to her, but that is not in his personality, and Ecco knows that. “The wolf is on his last legs; the time is coming sooner than even I would have suspected. But even magicians do not know everything.” His voice carries warmth despite the briskness he feels. Deimos, the son of Mars, is death incarnate. And yet, he has made his bed with the woman at his side. He does not think twice to question the nature of their relationship. Does it have a label? This writer is not yet certain. But what is obvious is that Deimos has taken a liking to the lavender mare—despite her ever lingering mother—that he has not taken in another individual in a lifetime. She had given him power, and he had given her; a girl.
Deimos had lingered long enough to know that the child was a girl, and he had not ventured too far from Ecco’s side ever since.
Deimos had a Deathwish. Literally.
And yet, here in this twisted menagerie of emotions he’d learned to develop for the woman into whose embrace he has so willingly stepped into, Deimos finds that even for such a demon as he, peace is found, even if it is fleeting.
Yet, even still—while he is having his very serious thought process—he hears her continue to pout… bestowing upon him another obtrusive nickname. Puddin’. Just as her ability to take the world of its life, she would do whatever she could to get underneath his skin—a place she very much liked to be. Deimos snorts again, and steps back from her—bringing his red eyes down to stare into her exquisite face. “About as much as you miss me, sugar.” Again with the sarcasm.
He rotates around her then, nipping her rump with just the barest bit of teeth. When he comes back around her he poses, showing off his fine black muscled body rippling underneath pleather… because he knows that’s how she likes her men. Beautiful, well chisled, black…
She can not break him, he only bends and she has learned to accept that.
It is completely new for her to be in the company of something that does not fear her, aside from her Mother. A reality check of sorts, because he was capable of far more than she would ever be. He could end her, he might end her. A sick part within danced with that outcome, gambled it because she was prone to addictive tendencies. It was part of her nature to tease at beasts and dance with death like a familiar lover. Knowing just when to say the safe word.
The smile that tugs at the corner of her pastel lips is small but does not go unseen. He meets her, he comes to her and that is a small victory that she grips firmly, afraid to let it go. Ecco had to take what she could get in the form of winning, it was likely she did not realize just how often she came in first. The misty grey mare would never ask him to solidify what this was, that left the opportunity for ‘no’s’ and ‘nothings’, games of chance were not her forte. Patterns, counting, she was a poker girl.
Everything around them turns to charcoal, black ash as he drains the life from it.
He spoke her language, is that not romantic?
His heat warms her, sending the cold away where he presses firmly to her flesh. The dark red eyes that settled themselves like rubies against his burnt skin looked out over her, towards the open field, towards nothing. You know what I am about, she nods, only the smallest dip of her regal head, trails of lavender blowing against her equally pale eyes. He goes on about the old wolf and she does her own hitching of breath, an inhale of air that leaves her in an intense hiss of excitement. Ecco adored when he spoke of dubious things, her ears turned intently to his brisque voice.
“Your patience pays off then,” she speaks, her voice a stream of honey and whispers, words meant only for him. “Best laid plans are better than precognition anyways. No one’s path is set, the future is relevant, it can change.” At times she could be serious, Potion would be so proud.
If only she had taken the time to bestow such qualities on her own child.
“Mmmm, you’d make a fine statue,” she comments as she takes him in, her rump stinging where his teeth had tasted her skin. “A lot less mouthy anyways,” she tossed her tail towards him as she slowly progressed down the slope of black ash, and wasted grass.
“So tell me puddin’,” she calls over her shoulder, turning her head a moment to catch him out of the corner of her eye. “When do we get to play?”
He smiles, darkly—a grimace that sets in. She wants to play. His little minx loved their version of play. It always ended up in her screaming his name in the middle of the night while they spoke of sweet nothings—dark plans that usually involved the undoing of society as they both knew it.
And they both got off on it. It is what made them such a formidable pair.
And in the dark, they had spoken of kidnapping, torture, and murder. Anything they thought they could get away with. They were not the type to simply copulate for the next generation. They simply enjoyed each other… and enjoy each other a great deal, they did. He stops his pose and laughs—a rumbling sound that resembles an earthquake. “You would not like me nearly so well if I was as still as your statues, and I would like you far less if you tried to make me as one of them.”
His wings had stayed quiet in these moments, only to thrust forward and reach to grab Ecco by the throat, dragging her in to a hot embrace. Deimos reaches up and nips her perfect lavender ear, before whispering for her alone.
“Which game did you have in mind, vixen? Keep your mother at bay, and I am yours to command.”
The gentle turn of his lips warms her. Lights her on fire more like, because she knows well that he understands her, if anyone does. He indulged her, far more than Mother ever did and he seemed to enjoy it. Potion always played with half a heart, she didn’t really appreciate the fun and that was so very disappointing to Ecco.
It's not hard to imagine what Ecco might constitute as play or fun for that matter. She had grown up in the Cove, surrounded by harbingers of doom and gloom. Chasing seals and other animals , only to take turns ending them, was a typical Sunday afternoon for the grayed woman as well as many of her relatives. Her family had even encouraged such behavior, especially her grandfather. Kirin really seemed to take a keen interest in ‘raising them right’, he often led the hunts or directed them to the choicest of victims.
“Oh wouldn’t I?” she teases as he relaxes, his muscles losing their taut tension and becoming fluid once more. “And you like me so very little now,” she pouts, lower lips extending forward. It is for mere seconds that she feigns a sad face because as soon as he drags her to him she laughs. It is a hardy and crazy sound, her eyes train on his as he does so, rivers of tingles running the length of her neck as his lips find her ear.
“Mhhhm,” she purrs, her tongue floating agaisnt the roof of her mouth. “I like the sound of that Dei,” she urges back momentarily forgetting her nonsense pet name for him . “Let us find someone to share the games with then, come on,” she practically bounces in his grip, ready to find the perfect third wheel.
