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    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


    where the stolen roses grow - castile
    #1

    Solace

    Weeks had passed and the marks he left on her body healed into smooth pink scars. But in her mind she brought Castile everywhere with her. He stalked her thoughts night and day, refusing to allow her the rest she needed. His image, the blinding spectrum of emotions she had felt during their day together, interfered with her kingdom obligations and diluted the contentment she found in completing her daily tasks. She could hardly hold a conversation without losing focus halfway through, and her easy smile was hard to come by.  

    Her favorite season was passing her by - springs blossoms were fading, giving way to summers gaudy hues, yet she barely saw any of it. 

    Still, she sticks to her routine. This morning starts the way she had planned it (with a quick flight over the western coastline) but her eyes continue to wander south - to Loess. The frustration builds in the young queen's chest, causing her wings to propel her higher and faster than she usually flew. He had left her with so many questions, and even more turbulent emotions. She couldn't stand it anymore. With a look of resolve hardening her delicate features she gives in to the magnetic pull she had been fighting.

    She goes alone to find him, the thought to bring someone along with her never crosses her mind. Before her battle with Titanya, the young queen would have only returned to his territory with several of her own by her side. But she had found a new power within her self during the Alliance. That experience had fortified her - giving a steel to her glances and a touch of age to her blemishless face. 

    Solace lads with the mountains of her home to her back and the rolling expanse of Loess before her. She doesn't call out - she hopes that he is as drawn to the place where their kingdoms meet the way she is.

    caretaker of hyaline

    Solghostdoll2

    #2
    What happened?

    The question has been pestering him for days – or has it been weeks? – but he has thus far been unable to devise an answer.

    Castile was able to finally track his way home from Tephra’s volcano, his body weak, exhausted, and bloody. Loess was far beyond the sea channel, but minutes felt like hours as his wings trembled from exertion. He has been diligently tending to himself since then, soaking himself in the springs and resting as often as he could underneath the warm sunlight. Often times, he wandered toward Hyaline’s border where the lands kissed. Solace is just beyond the hills, he tells himself, but her pretty face is the last memory he had before everything swirled into a black void and was lost.

    In reality, Castile is afraid of what happened.

    Her face. He shifted. What then?

    A breath catches in his throat when he sees her looming toward the border he so aimlessly trails. The muscles in his body are pulled taut like ropes and his jaw clenches. Deep in his chest, his heart pounds dangerously against his ribs. Yet he hesitates. His metallic eyes dart toward the bosom of Loess, but they trace back to Solace again, unable to fathom the idea of abandoning her. There’s a magnetic pull that he cannot ignore, and before he can even tell himself to stay, his legs are already moving toward her.

    What stretches across her neck, however, isn’t what he expected.

    There’s an intensity in Castile’s stare as he scrutinizes the puckered scars on her body, but his gaze cannot help to soften when they level on her face. ”Solace,” her name is still honey on his tongue, ”what happened?” But his gut wrenches in fear – in half-knowing – that he did this to her.

    Solace’s face. Then his world went black.
    He attacked her.
    Those scars are from him.

    Emotion chokes him of asking more questions. Fear of himself – of the truth – keep him from pulling her into a familiar embrace.

    #3

    Solace


    Castile

    Inside her chest, Solace's heart twists in a familiar way. She doesn't have time to decide if her presence in his kingdom is justified before he has found her. All at once he is there - scrutinizing the marks that he had made as if they were something new. She does not flinch under his gaze, (like she had with Svedka's, she had tried to hide the marks from her twin) instead she lowers her wings so he may fee the full length of her scars. She had no reason to hide the truth from him. 

    But the harsh edge of her gaze is softening as she searches his handsome face and finds the answer she had been looking for. "You don't know..." she says in a way which leaves in words hanging between a question and a statement. Her heart beats a little faster as she realizes that what she had hoped is true - that he and the creature were two different beings. Keeper had been much the same; the pony-mare had very little connection with her bear-self and Solace had been clinging to the idea that Castile - the true Castile - had no say in the damage done to her. 

    "You stopped," she blurts as she takes a step forward. The fear which chokes him makes her reckless, driving her towards the man who had scarred her. She reaches out to touch the line of his shoulder where onyx and alabaster meet. "You listened to me; It listened to you. You told it to let go and it did." 

    Just as her lips touch his skin she draws back, seeking his gaze with her own and hunting for any sign of the shift which could spell disaster for her.

    She wanted a steady man, a kind man, a man who would make her feel safe and content -  but there had always been Castile.

    Maybe it's her mother's premonition in a diluted form (or maybe it's common sense) but a part of her knows that he will break her. 

    She just isn't sure if it will be her heart or her body

    caretaker of hyaline

    Solghostdoll2

    #4
    The eyes that trace her scars aren’t the ones that hungrily bore into her in Hyaline. He is tame, and his expression is that of concerned tenderness. ”Solace,” he can’t help but to say her name again like it will take away his thoughts of what may have happened. The uncertainty reflects in his metallic eyes and she sees it well enough to realize his ignorance. ”Did I—“ he almost asks, but fear grips him and chokes him of finishing the question. While she reaches forward to him, Castile pedals back. ”Me?” He cannot fathom harming someone so dear to him. Is no one safe? Is he truly so monstrous?

    There is more emotion in his voice now than there ever has been. It rattles his core. He struggles to lift his eyes to hers. She should scold him, punish him… hate him. Like a child, he waits for something, anything, but the voice that follows is gentle and enveloped in bright hopefulness. Castile listens, evident by the way his ears swivel, but it isn’t enough to pull him from his deep shame and guilt.

    ”But it wasn’t enough,” he whispers, barely loud enough to be heard over the soft breeze, ”I hurt you.” Admitting to it shares the equivalence of two dozen knives burrowing into his body. Suddenly, every fiber of his being hurts and he just wants to retreat back into the darkness. It’s where he belongs, he tells himself, but then when he finally looks up into Solace’s eyes, he questions it. What place would the darkness be without Solace?

    But look at her.

    (Look at what we did)

    Castile holds his breath when he reaches to touch her as though she will disappear, as though it will be the last time. ”I’m dangerous,” he reiterates to her with a voice saturated in regret and sorrow. ”It could have been worse. I could have accidentally…” he can’t bring himself to say it, letting the statement dissolve unfinished in the intimate space between them.




    @[Lavender] @[Solace]
    #5

    Solace

    . . .

    Her words seem to fall on deaf ears as he backs away from her forgiving touch. She forgets that she has had weeks to process what had happened between them, and he is only now getting the full details. She forgets that the sight of her healed scars is an unpleasant one, for she has been living with them for so long now. 

    "I’m dangerous," he reminds her. 

    But these words she has heard many times before. In her mind, they had echoed and echoed again after their last, confusing, encounter.  She shakes her head, not to contradict him, but in growing frustration. She wants to scream at him; she wants to hold him. She has so many conflicting desires that she denies them all.

    "What do you want." Her voice is low, flat in her inability to chose the dominant emotion he is producing in her. The sorrow in his eyes melts any anger she feels, and the truth of his words subdues the passion his touch has always ignited. "Do you want me to leave you alone? Is that what you want? You think I don't know you are dangerous?" With the final question, her voice rises and her blue eyes finally show the hurt she is feeling. She can see that he is trying to push her away.

    Along with her shoulders and haunches, the muscles of her legs engage as she begins to move forward, but something stops her. The queen can not bring herself to close the distance for the second time, and she remains rooted.

    "I came here to figured out what happened that day. I wanted to know if it was you, or just that thing, that had feelings for me."







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