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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    [private]  Unloved, undetermined -- Kavi
    #1
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    A wasted heart is a terrible thing to carry. A broken heart. That’s what they like to call it, no? It breathes into your mind a picture of something clean-cut and simple, like cracked glass. My heart did not feel broken as I turned away that time; it felt hollow, like someone had clawed into my chest and scooped part of it out with the bluntest thing they could find. It did not feel heavy and shattered – it felt badly, achingly, unbearably empty. It felt as if I had been giving and loving and giving, only to have everything taken and nothing given back as I had left it all behind. I felt as if I could have wept a storm, collapsed into stardust, become something furious like a hurricane. But I couldn't, and that I guess, is part of my curse. Maybe if I had done all those things, I would have allowed myself to stay by his side.

    But I had fled. Left them all behind for a life that was no life, a mere travesty of existence, until one day – those memories obliterated me. Until one day, I forget how to forget them. I kept telling myself that I didn´t know what it was that brought me back here; a whim, a smell, or the sensation that I was slowly running out of time. 
    Well, the sad truth was that I so desperately missed a presence at my side, a gentle living creature to break my morbid solitude. I so desperately missed the touch of skin, of life, of a shining eye alight through the passages of the endless night.

    I shouldn´t complain – faith had been kind to me although I was certainly undeserving of the blessings Beqanna had bestowed upon me in the form of Kagerus, my brave little warrior-woman and my oldest friend, Americus, sister and mirror-mare. I loved them deeply, coveted every moment spent in their company and swore to never again stray far from their side.

    But they are not him

     

    Maybe that stupid longing is what made me wind through the breast-high grasses for a brief moment of solitude. They are savanna-colored, I notice (my mind seems to find it easier to cope with the grasses rather than the world - as if it holds too much of everything; beauty,innocence;joy for me to comprehend) , in their last days of life as winter creeps upon them slowly. Honey-yellow shrubs collect along the edge of the meadow, crowding it like hedges. Like that I wander, lost in silence and to my own abject mind. 

    And I thought, as dreamers are wont to do, when all we have left of our dreams are a handful of memories that trickle away like sand and sorrow that shadows the turn of the neck, the fall of strayed hair. Mourning creatures are gloomy burdens. Even their breath on your shoulder feels heavy and blue, and you wish that they might cast off their sadness so that it wouldn’t rest at the back of your head like a corporeal black cloud; so that you wouldn’t be tainted. I know, after a life of mastering the art of yearning, and so I tried to fold my grief into something small and press it into the darkest side of my heart. I don´t want to be a burden to them. And I guess I succeeded, because here I am, as empty and hollow as ever. 

     
    All I need is a little time to myself to tuck those morsels of longing away from my faithless heart. 



    insignificance

    Reply
    #2
    Do you believe you're missin' out?
    That everything good is happening somewhere else?


    I do not know for what it is that I still live. The meaning of life has truly escaped me, with a passion, as if gleefully aware of how barren a soul it left me. Each breath of air that my lungs pull in feels like a sickening lie, a joke made at my every expense. And it hurts - the air. My lungs are old, rickety, they do not appreciate their sustained usage. Nor do I blame them. I cut off each breath bitingly, savaging what's left of my corporeal bonds to this earth.

    But no man can kill himself in such a passive way. My nervous system kicks in each time, forcing me to take another breath. It is a game I play most fervently, knowing no other way to pass the time. Indeed, for me, it seems as if time shall never pass.

    I was meant to die long ago.

    My family has gone on, to where I shall never know: Rodrik, my brother, disappeared since our time together in the Chamber. Rayelle, my sister, gone away since I was but a colt. My parents have been dead for years, my niece Straia gone away and leaving no trace of her daughter Weaver. Pomona became utterly lost to me long ago, and with her my son Bergamot - my mute little boy, with stars on his skin so like mine.

    Where are they all? And why, oh why, must I stay on this earth to suffer their absence.

    (Of course, I know the answers to these questions. I know the face that lights up in my mind's eye every time I contemplate lying down and never getting back up; I know the soul and the mind that rest behind her nutmeg eyes, behind her stoicism and gravity. For all my long, long years on this earth, she is the only reason that remains to tether me to it. Daughter. Kagerus. She is out there - but I have yet to find her. And time - it truly is wearing thin.)

    The grasses match my base colour perfectly as I wade through them, holding my breath like the stubborn old man I have become. Golden and faded, summer's dying gasp of life - an all too perfect metaphor. I pull lamely at a few strands of the dried fibers, my muzzle completely grayed, exactly as the fur around my eyes is. I am old - blatantly so, painfully so. The curve in my back is exaggerated, the dullness of my coat no longer charming. I once took pride in standing with good posture - but life has left me bedraggled and beached, and there are no kindly strangers to push me back into the ocean.

    Or at least, I thought there weren't.

    My amber eyes snag on an object far away, a dull brown horse meandering exactly as I do. Thoughtless, melodic, with no consciousness or care. My brows furrow. I cannot see her well, cannot see her features; my eyesight is going, and far more rapidly than I care to admit. Normally, I ignore other creatures. Something calls me to this one.

    A breeze blows into my nostrils as I approach the figure - she will not smell me, as the wind is against her. For some time, I do not announce my presence with a nicker, intent on discovering who has captured my curiosity when it has been lost for years. It's a mare, the same hue as Kagerus, but lacking the white patches.

    I see her more clearly now, and stop short. There are no thoughts, for a moment. The vastness of my mind is a canvas painted black, a void within which even the most guided could be lost forever. She is not my sister, not my wife, not my child. But somehow, she is even more than all of those things - the true thread that has been tethering me to this earth far past my allotted time.

    Then the thoughts do come, and with a vengeance. My ears are trained exactly to her, my nostrils flaring, eyes coming to life in a way that I thought they had abandoned forever. The dull colour of her coat and the way her eyes pray mourning and silence are songs of the angels within me - I take another step forward, extend my nose, begging her to close the distance.

    "Insignificance," I breathe, lost to her charm, to her darkened eyes and wonderous soul. I was barely a man the last time we spoke, when I stole her to the Chamber - I was sad man then, full of angst and need and lust for a woman's love. I could have found it in her, then. But I do not hold it against her that it did not happen so, for I love my two children with a passion that even the gods cannot match. Now, as I stand in my abhorred age, I am a man far changed from the one she used to know. I am far from my prime, closer to dead than alive, and worthless in this land. And though perhaps she is the exact same as me, it is not how I see her: she is my sunshine. That which I blossom for.

    "I..." I smile, shake my head, in utter disbelief. The words I need are not to be found. The fur on my skin changes suddenly, and an image of her in beautiful youth forms. It is how she stood when we spoke in the chamber, and snow falls gently onto her. I remember the day exactly - and it is shown in that same exactness upon my body. "Hello," I say.

    I needn't say more.

    KAVI
    Kagerou x Rhaego


    I don't think I've ever been able to write anything except novels for my Kavi posts. Goddamn you, old man. You have so much history, it made me so nostalgic to read back on you. Welcome back, Executive Grandpa.
    Reply
    #3
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    Kavi

    The name is a white-hot whisper in my blood. Like virulence coating every thought, every memory into bittersweet melancholy. Euphoria from moments spent together and swirls of sorrow for those spent apart.

    From the very first time I had the smell of the sylvan forest of the Chamber upon my body, and my eyes crashed over the never ending horizon splotched with every color the imagination could provide a hue to it had been my Home – there was no denying that.

    He had been my first just as I had been his.

    Even in my wandering days as I tried to forget the names and faces of my companions and friends I could not. It was an injustice to forget about them, even if every memory cut through my heart like a blade through paper. There had been no waves to fill in the footprints upon my heart and mind; there had never been anyone else.


    The time that has passed is close to an eternity, and then some. The world has changed and changed again, spun around itself and collapsed into despair, joy and finally repetition. Things are starting to get old. My memories are starting to look like starved ghosts.

    And once again I have let those ghosts haunt me. Slowly, I will my aching joints into movement – it is time to get back, lest Kagerus worry about what has become of me. But there is something upon the wind tonight that begs me to linger, just a moment longer. I hear him before I can smell him, and for a fleeting moment my first thought is to flee in the other direction.  But that scent, stored away in the darkest recesses of my mind – never forgotten – renders me motionless. My nostrils flare – and I begin to fear that age has led my senses to betray me. But the scent, accompanied by the light thud, thud of hooves, grows stronger – and there is no denying it.


    ”Kavi…. I whisper in surprise as the lone figure stalks closer.

    He has grown old – brittle-boned and underfed – just like I have. But in my eyes, filling with tears at the sight of him, he is still the same handsome stallion that had whisked me away in the dead of night so many years ago. Eagerly, or as eagerly as my tired legs allow me, I close the distance between us.

    I bury my tattered nose in his greyed hair – and I sob uncontrollably. I am a child-mare again, tethered to his words, for without them I don´t know if I would be able to keep standing. ”Hello” the word echo in my hollow mind. He wanted to be here with me, looking at me with all the tenderness that no-one should ever look at me with again.

    ”Hello” I echo, as my sobs subside. ”Hello” and it is laughter – wild and uncontrollable that now bubbles from my chest. I take a step back, unwilling to leave his side – and I stare wide-eyed in wonder at the image that forms on his skin.


    ”You didn´t forget” I whisper, but the tears streaming down my cheek this time are of joy.

    Unbridled, untamed, boundless joy. It overtakes every fiber of my being, and transforms my weathered body and withered soul into that which he once knew. I throw myself into his warm embrace (and oh, my heart whispers it is where I belong.) – and there is a spring in my step and a sparkle to my eye that is unbefitting of my age but I do not care.
    If only just for tonight – we can turn back time. 

    insignificance




    Awww <3 I love old people-love 
    Reply
    #4
    Do you believe you're missin' out?
    That everything good is happening somewhere else?


    Unlike her (darling girl, of fondest memories) the names of my past have been impossible to forget or forgo - but more than that, I never made an attempt. They were too dear to me, of too much importance and grace. Their names and faces have not begun to fade in my mind's eye, not even as the rest of my mental structures begin to weaken and crumble. There is something explicitly undeniable about those who have entered into my life - and suffice to say, this mare is oe I shall surely not deny.

    Her tattered nose is buried in the folds of my mane before I have even the chance to answer her. There is no hesitation as I wrap my neck around hers, pressing my cheek to her thin withers and clutching her to my broad chest. She is crying, the warmth of her tears saturating my greying fur; another instance and my own tears are mingling with her tawny hide. We are awash in our revival, in our rebirth: the chaos of our aging bodies rejoice in having found a reminder of our youth, and of our wills to live.

    She returns my greeting, then, untangling herself from my side. I run my mouth along the curve of her neck as she pulls away, lipping at her gently, unwilling to let any distance grow between us. But she sees, then, sees the image of herself decades earlier; and the distance is worthwhile.

    "I could never forget you," I husk, and it's true. Despite my having another family, another wife, another life - I am a widow. Besides Kagerus, everyone from my past has left me. I know in my heart that Pomona is gone, and it is that knowledge that stays my guilt. I am an old man, subject only to the oncoming symptoms of death. In this moment, as I stand across from this beautiful mare whom fate decided to present to me today, I shall allow myself the grace of her presence, of her love, of her beauty. To pass her by because of a woman who has long since disappeared is beyond me - I am a dying man, and she is my life's last sip of nectar. She is a sign - that everything is okay, that I have done all I can. She is my permission to breathe, even if it be my last.

    I pull her into my chest once more, a feeling of youth blossoming in my chest as I breathe in her familiar scent. Soundless prayers of thanks are uttered into her bedraggled mane, words that she cannot hear but which are soulfully delivered. Despite not having known each other intimately in our young adulthood, in our old age, that gentle connection has become a bond of an utmost fortification. We cling to each other, and trust confidently. I press my lips to her shoulder, pull her in close reassuringly, and then step back to meet her gentle gaze.

    "Where have you been?" I smile a lopsided smile, my signature expression of gentility and calm - but in this moment of exhilaration, it is not signature at all, but rather original and life like and all too becoming of the happiness I feel. "And," I go on, amber eyes flicking anxiously between the two of hers, "Why do you smell like my daughter?"

    KAVI
    Kagerou x Rhaego

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    #5
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    Every doubt, every insecurity and heartbreak is lost when I cling to his side, always my Kavi, and I try to remember that this isn´t a dream. My skin quivers as though a separate entity from the flesh it is bound to, flawed and etched with scars. It is a landscape, an escape, an endscape, that could mean anything, but perhaps it is just that; the end. 

    He is my rock in the tumultuous sea that is Life, and I cling to him like a drowning man clings to his last breath. His eyes like the ocean at midnight when the moon cast it´s morose reflection over the trembling recoil of waves. To me; they glittered like a bed of sapphires and diamonds, enchantingly so. His skin as golden as the great beaches I travelled during my years as a vagabond. My own hair, besilvered by night fell in supple curls messily arranged over his narrow, haggard face where it interlaced with his own. It reminds me of satin, how the spidery tumbles fell across his eyes parting that Great sea of a gaze like an impulsion, hurling me out into whatever vast world lay beyond this one.

    I had never been so compelled by beauty before, not like this.
     
    There is a gossamer thread of intimacy that weaves between us, spun of all things pure and good. And I know it shouldn´t be there, but it is. And I have wandered too far, lived too long and lost too much not to yield to it.

    And I shudder into the darkness, as he begs me to surrender my secrets to him.

    So many. So many.

    ”I was afraid” I whisper into his skin, and my breath is cold, cold, cold to the warmth of him. I was afraid, I want to say, of this, of us, of heartbreak and failure and not being enough. I was a coward then; I wish to scream, too broken to accept what was there right before my eyes. But I don´t and it doesn´t matter. The past is a fickle, sullen thing. I have not loved like he has, not put any lasting footprint on this earth save for my name on his lips.

    And then there is that smile; the smile that even now makes the butterflies in my chest flutter anxiously and tugs at the strings of my heart that I thought long since ruptured. And though I do not smile with my lips in return – my eyes gleam with a million unspoken truths.

    His next words almost brings me to my knees. Daughter.

    Ofcourse.

    Ofcourse

    I laugh then, and my body trembles and quivers like an erupting volcano. I laugh at my naivety, how could I not have spotted the striking similarities between father and daughter. I laugh at how life even now at the end of the road has a way of weaving the frayed edges of me together.

    ”Kagerus” I whisper-cough, my old lungs too frail to stand such assault.

    ”Because she found me”

    Because she is the reason I am still here, breathing, laughing, smiling, loving

    ”Because she is family”

    My eyes; feverish with mirth and pomegranate red from the strain of laughter beg him to understand, to delight as I do.

    ”She is wonderful. You should be proud.”

    Perhaps once, my lovelessness was irrevocable. No matter what august light shone onto me, into me, through me. But here – in this strange land that had given me so much and taken so little (save the gaping wounds that even now mar the mud-bay of my hide.) those words don´t ring true anymore. Because here – I am loved. And I have just found myself a family.

    And still, age has not given me eloquence. 


    insignificance


    Reply
    #6
    Do you believe you're missin' out?
    That everything good is happening somewhere else?


    She trembles more than she ought to. My lips travel to her trembling skin and kiss them into stillness, breathing warm air over her tense muscles. I have been walking for what seems to be years, lost in Beqanna's many hiding places; she is the one who called me back to the light. She need not tremble; she need not let her blood run too quickly. I am here now, I am hers. My white eyelashes tangle with her besilvered locks, but I don't mind. Every part of her is worthwhile. Every fiber a gift.

    I feel the warmth of her breath vividly as she whispers her secrets into my body. My heart breaks at the implications of her words, and I clutch her all the tighter. She needs to know that I forgive her - that I was never angry - that I was afraid too, but now, I am committed. The footprint I have set on this land may be larger than hers, but that does not mean there is room for both of ours to grow in unison. To leave another mark, new, and fresh. I kiss her again.

    "That was then," I murmur, feeling the heat of her - sensual. "Tonight, we have forever."

    Her darling eyes sparkle with a life that I crave and treasure. In the next moment, as I ask of my daughter, she seems almost to faint - I move to catch her, but it passes quickly, and before I know it, Insignificance is laughing. For a moment I can't decipher whether it is a sad laugh or a happy one, but in the next moment, my lopsided smile has extended into a grin that wrinkles my face jovially. I reach out and lip her laughing mouth, our mirth mixing together; breathtaking.

    Kagerus, she whispers. My gut clenches sickly at her name. My baby girl.

    Because she found me. The tension releases. She is safe somewhere - close.

    Because she is family. Tears spark without warning in my amber eyes, and spill over just as more laughter tumbles from my mouth. I cannot believe this - any of it - the chances, the luck, my luck. She grins right  back at me, as delighted as I am in this turn of events, in this stitching together of frayed ends into a satisfying, fulfilling endpoint. Peace, for both of us, is nigh.

    "Insignificance," I saw huskily, over come by emotion and endless gratitude. "My darling girl," I reach out for her, draw her into me once more. "All is well now. The darkness has fled." I kiss her withers, caress her wounded skin, embrace the passion mounting between us. On my skin, a new image: of my daughter and this mare, side by side, and myself with them. A family. I do not know if Insignificance sees the portrait - but she doesn't need to. In my heart, I know she feels it. It does not need to be seen.

    "I love you, darling. I've got you; you're safe."

    KAVI
    Kagerou x Rhaego

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    #7
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    At his side, I feel replenished.


    Indeed that the two of us if compared to the rest were amongst the oldest souls that still persisted against the fates of time with rich bodies and fiery souls. It had taken me far too long to come to such realization that I might be more than the child of diffidence and gloom.

    But even the wait has been worth it, as fond my beating heart has become of Kagerus there is not a wrinkle of regret upon it. Every step in the wrong direction, every minute spent apart from him and every mistake I have made has all been worth it in the end. I breathe in the scent of us – of him, of home. We are an irony of when we first met – old bones and greyed muzzles lovingly stroking the furs of our too thick winter coats. He brings me a second coming. In the crevasses of my soul and heart that was shrouded and beat erratically, in his absence in a place that had no dawn, no day, no night, no dusk but a grey twilight.

    His touch is the kindling to my own slumbering passion, and it flares up like a wildfire – wild and unpredictably strong.


    The both of us caught in this pool that resembles young love. I was never one of sentimentality but he has rendered me undone and rebirthed is a hopeless romantic thinking that our sort of love (such a simple word, so much power in it.) is for the blessed ones. I press closer into his hold, pressing one of my ears against his downy skin, listening to his pulse as it echoes down into my own core – and I can almost feel my flame flicker impatiently.


    My drab head bows and drifts along his neck as he presses tender kisses on my trembling body – and my voice is filigreed with an amorous sensation concealed only by the drumming of heartbeats. ”It hasn´t been the same without you”


    I brim with emotion – greedily clinging to his side. Later, I know, (and the greater part of me, the reasonable part, revels in that) I will share him with my sweet Kagerus. But tonight is ours – and the part of me that hisses and cracks underneath my skin at his every touch is eternally grateful for this night spent together under the stars. A secret tryst that was long overdue. So this is what it was like to fall in love. In our lost past – I may not have been so quick or this open to confess, but I won´t take anymore chances. Not with him, not this time. So I whisper back to him, lips pursing against the side of his muzzle, ”I love you, Kavi” 


    I press closer to him during our exploration – the surroundings seemed to shift as I close my eyes as he finds my sacred spots. He fits into me so nicely – a perfectly matched puzzle piece that brings the picture into a whole. And I am all the more grateful to be back in this land, amongst these people that I know so little of, only because it has brought my beloved back.

    ”I wish we could stay like this forever.” I challenge time, there is only him. As always he has an arcane quality over me, making every scar, every aching part of mine vanish. We are explorers re-tracing every contour upon our bodies, caught within our own rapture as if we wanted to make every inch of the other our own. I feel compelled to bite my own tongue (gently lapping the nape of his neck) just to make sure this is no illusion, but with my cheek against his woolly shoulder I drag my head instead down the side of his shoulder until my nose is filled with his scent and his scent alone.

    I am a silly, giddy thing – brushing my face  – lightened by our reunion – down his foreleg. Playfully, I nip a patch of skin on his knee and look up to meet his warm expression as his laughter not only fill my ears but also my stormy heart.


    insignificance


    Reply
    #8
    Do you believe you're missin' out?
    That everything good is happening somewhere else?


    She's right, you know - we are among the oldest. A wizened pair of souls. And yet in her eyes, I see the spark of youth that she has surely lit within me, too - but it's more than that. Her spark was there before we met again tonight, her youth is genuine. I don't know if she knows that, however, if she realizes that she truly does have more time left on this earth than I do.

    My time was so, so long ago. But I cannot think of that now, it is far too sad to mull over in this moment. Yes, this moment. With the woman I love, that I have always loved from afar, wrapped up in my embrace. Her tawny skin is the colour of my passion, her ear against my throat a tantalizing intimacy that I can't remember having ever shared with anyone before. Where she moves, my mouth follows, tracing her every curve and edge, eyes fluttering between open and close as the waves of anticipation and pure contentedness wash over me.

    It's a strange sort of duality: needing this moment to last forever, but not being able to wait even another second to become truly one with her. Confusing, but in a way that didn't demand any answers; agonizing, but in a way that made my heart skip a beat and the word love fall from my lips more than it has in decades.

    It hasn't been the same without you.

    "It will only make this, us, tonight, all the sweeter." Despite the pounding of our blood (once so slow and sluggish with age, now as spritely as any love-struck fools), I catch the amour hidden in her voice. My own notes are ardent and heady, a sort of masculine neediness that begs her of a thing most sacred. It is not a lust that guides my words however, but the intensity of my excitement at having found her: her; her.

    Her.

    I revel in her touch, not caring if it's selfish of me - I return each kiss, each light, needing bite, each hot look and murmur of love and affection. We are a fire that knows no end, dancing across boundaries and obstacles, a vision of beauty so bright and lively that in these moments, our old bones are traded for new ones, our aching lungs breathe easy. I do not want to share her with anyone, in this moment - she is the star around which my being orbits.

    Despite the openness of the meadow, what we share tonight is of the most private nature - beloved. We move together, as one, with an ease that inspires comfort and beauty, a sense of security that has been lacking in my life since before I can remember. For now, she is beneath me - but forever more, she shall be by my side.

    "For as long as we have," I whisper in her soft, sensitive ear, "I will be yours alone." I smile as I gently slide my muzzle along the length of her darling face, breathing warmly against her. "You are my wish come true." The happily ever after to a book whose ending is long overdue.

    The long hours of the night pass, and I feel no exhaustion. Her silly, precious face brings about a unique kind of youth to my expression, a glimmer in my eyes that is devilish and loving. We are children again, two figures in the moonlight playing tag and taking breaks to hold one another; her laughter piercing the night, rendering it sparkling and beyond compare - just like her. There is no pain in my bones, no cry from my lungs. She is the elixir to my every ailment - and for tonight, I am high off the scent of her.

    I do not know when we curl up together in a thicket not far off, our twirling laughter softly fading into the night as we exchange quaint stories about our pasts and our dreams. As her breathing gentles and slows, coming to a contentedness that warms my heart beyond all reason, I look her over. I watch her ribs rise and fall, her nostrils expand and contract, her eyelids flutter as sweet dreams fill her mind. Feeling my own eyes droop and sag, I smile. Craning my neck, I press a kiss to her flat stomach, sensing the life that we have created tonight.

    Before I know it, I've fallen asleep with my head curled atop her belly - listening as the beginning of our child takes shape.

    KAVI
    Kagerou x Rhaego


    This was the cutest thread I've ever been a part of.
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