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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


    [mature]  you’re dripping like a saturated sunrise, Tunnel
    #1
    Her mind is asleep, but her body doesn’t care. Her legs stretch and collect beneath her, the tree limbs pulling at her mane and snapping against her black coat. Somehow, she knows to dart in and out of the trees, she knows to leap over the fallen logs. Her eyes see black, but her mind and body are in overdrive. They keep her from colliding with the obstacles that spread out before her, they guide her through the maze, but her mind still can’t seem to recognize that what she runs from isn’t real. She can feel the hot breath of It along her back, It’s growls seem to vibrate from the ground and into her very core. The air around her smells like sulfur and rot, and while her lungs scream for her to wake up, to stop running, she doesn’t listen. She is in a reckless dash towards the beach, a dead end, and already she is thinking does she drown or does she succumb to whatever hunts her?

    The waking is a slow process. With each stride, the tunneled darkness begins to fade away. The crashing waves she had been running towards begin to disappear, towering trees growing in their wake. The relentless snarls wither away, replaced by the sounds of the night. The only breathing is her own, and it comes it sharp and short gasps. There is the familiar burn in her lungs and the ache in her legs, her black coat glistening with sweat.

    She stumbles to a stop, her dark eyes darting around as she picks out pieces of reality. Trees. The stars. The wind. She is in the Forest, of Beqanna. She belongs in Hyaline, and she thinks maybe that was where her night had started. She lowers her head, eyelids fluttering over her brown eyes, flanks still heaving as she struggles to catch her breath. She doesn’t usually run this far. The nightmares are getting worse, or she is becoming more fit and able to cover further distances. A shuddering sigh is expelled, opening her eyes once more. She is awake. And through the shadows, the faintest ribbons of moonlight glint off a pair of eyes, and barely she is able to make out the shape of a stranger. ”Hi,” it is a quiet word, issued hesitantly, as though she is unsure if he’s really there, and if he is, does she want him to be?
    briseis.
    you’re ripped at every edge but you’re a masterpiece


    @[Tunnel]
    Reply
    #2




    Many things live in the forest. Among these things is Tunnel, cerulean and dripping in black smoke. He is not the worst of the things, the flesh-carvers and blood-letters have darker tastes. Of course that may be a matter of perspective. Tunnel does not hunt, he waits. A dark undercurrent brings him the things he desires. A demon unseen drops them at his door like gifts, hoping to be voyeur to his perversions. Tunnel for his part, acts only for himself.

    Autumn has brought down an evening of deep chill and the wind has teeth. Delicate things seem to go astray on nights like this, to shatter in the frost of a newborn morning. In time someone might come along and look upon the things broken by nature and wish mournfully that they’d been able to help. Senseless and impossible regrets that Tunnel has never been stirred to, though he is occasionally willing to intercept if he will benefit.

    The sound that comes to him is of a breakneck flight, and he listens with a vague interest. Tunnel does not begrudge his neighbors their pleasures, as long as they keep far from his precious things. Though he listens for a sound of the pursuer there is nothing but wind in his ears. Pale eyes narrow and a few long strides bring him along the bare side of a half-dead cedar. Through the bars of black tree trunks a dark woman stumbles to a stop, sweating and trying to fill her lungs with stuttering breaths that rale through the eerie night. Blinking slowly the stallion relaxes and watches, remaining motionless. He can smell stale fear, but there is nothing behind her and he thinks she knows this.

    When she sees him the corner of his mouth twitches, but he utters not a word. Moonlight and shadow ripple and slither over his bicolored hide and slowly his masked features bleed free of the murk and he breaks cover. His eyes glitter in the moonlight and he draws near to the still mare without uttering a word. What has brought her to him? She is grown, ripe, not lost, not it the way they usually are. He turns beside the woman, to draw a long draught of her scent from the dock of her tail to the summit of her withers. His dark muzzle drags against the grain, tracing the curve of her inky neck pausing just behind her cheek, his neck arched and head high. His lips brush the latch of her throat as he echoes her greeting. “Hi.”

    He has left a trail in the damp sweat of her neck and Tunnel considers smoothing it back but instead, keeping his position, his side pressing toward her own, he speaks again in a tone rumbling and low. “Why are you here?” Likely he doesn’t care what her answer might be, she might even run from him that way she’d been running from nothing a few minutes ago. Not that running would matter, he would make her worth his while.

    Delicate things seem to go astray on nights like this, to fall beneath Tunnel’s caress and wish that they might shatter.

    like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves
    as though we were drowning inside our hearts




    [Briseis]
    the heart moving through a tunnel
    in it darkness, darkness, darkness
    Reply
    #3
    Her eyes seek his through the darkness, unwavering, like a deer unable to tear its stare away from the wolf. The muscles in her legs grow tense, her weight carefully shifted and balanced to her back legs as her head elevates; ready to flee. With quiet steps he moves closer, and for some reason she can’t get her mind to make the connection to her legs to run. She has had several encounters since her time in Beqanna, and none have been negative. She doesn’t know what raises the fear in her throat, why the sight of the shadowy streaks that adorn his face tell her she needs to get away. Maybe it is the adrenaline of the nightmare still thick in her veins, fogging her mind, but she watches unmoving and unblinking as the shadows fall away from him, until he is next her.

    His touch is cold against her damp skin, as he traces the path along the slope of her neck and then the curve of her cheek, and involuntarily a shiver courses down her spine. She has been touched before. Even if it had been without love, Leilan’s touch had been warm, inviting, and reassuring. But this was empty, chilling, and somehow intimidating. His greeting seems hollow, and the singular word causes her to flinch, but she still has not pulled away. Her troubled eyes search his own, but she is met with only disconcerting darkness.

    The heat from her sweat radiates off her body, and slowly her breathing has steadied, but it betrays the fact that her heart is racing. She can feel him next to her, the mass of his body pressing into hers, and cautiously she tips her head upwards to face him. ”I don’t know,” Her voice sounds small against the weight of the night around them, diverting her gaze, unable to shake the feeling that he was somehow staring into her core. ”I...I thought I saw something.” She never revealed to anyone that she had nightmares; she always felt so foolish and stupid once she was awake. From behind a black veil of tangled forelock she watches him, daring to be bold enough to finally ask, ”Who are you?”
    briseis.
    you’re ripped at every edge but you’re a masterpiece


    @[Tunnel]
    Reply
    #4




    He is not a man that craves fear, though it can often be side effect of his ministrations it’s not what he desires. Her fear is only a layer in her scent, a thread in the tapestry, something he expects and does nothing to discourage but he isn’t trying to frighten, he just is they way he is.

    Her dark face tips up to search for him and Tunnel meets her gaze with his cool grey eyes. She doesn’t offer him much in the way of words but he is already well aware that nothing had been chasing her. But his deep rumble drops words against her necks as she looks away from him. “What do you think you saw?” He asks, and her lips smooth against her neck after all, tasting the salt of her sweat, breathing against her skin like a lover though his touch lacks any tender consideration. He raises his head again, tension twisting through his low command. “Tell me.”

    She fails to run, too tired or too afraid to try and this is acceptable. He would have given chase and she wouldn’t be having this pleasant conversation with him, not now and not when she’d been caught. Maybe she will still run, or maybe some other time she will run and they can see what happens. Because there will be other times. She has asked who he is and he will not let her forget. She looks him in the face as she does so, and so he looks back, black-masked face undefined in the low light. ”Tunnel. Who are you?” He is almost polite in the asking, but there is a void in his tone where kindness would live. After speaking Tunnel turns back to his persistent invasion of her space, not yet properly inspired to make her understand just what she has run into. He likes that she is so dark. Like Shroud, like the places beneath the trees where he waits. She can be a place in which he waits, forever living in her stuttering little heart.

    like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves
    as though we were drowning inside our hearts




    @[Briseis]
    the heart moving through a tunnel
    in it darkness, darkness, darkness
    Reply
    #5

    He asks her what it is that she saw, and her muscles coil even tighter beneath her obsidian coat. She has been asked before, and it is something difficult to articulate into words. For a moment her eyes close, feeling his touch as it ghosts across her skin, letting her mind fill with the grim web of shadows that made up her nightmares. ”I can’t explain it,” She starts off slowly, not entirely sure that his question comes from a place of genuine interest, and the idea of sounding foolish is at the forefront of her mind, ”It’s more of a feeling. An intense fear that I’ve lived through before, and it follows me.”

    She suddenly stops, the words clipping short at the end of her sentence. She sounded insane. She doesn’t know how to explain why she flees from her nightmares, an obscured reliving of the events that had driven her into the sea and washed her upon the shores of Beqanna. But the memories only come to her when she sleeps, tumultuous and chaotic, but igniting a fear so tangible that it screams at her to run. She has been running from her demons for years now, and still the haunted memories of her past hide from her during the daylight hours. She cannot remember the invites that inspire them.

    But she can’t tell him that.

    She fears him, much in the same way she fears everyone. There is only distrust coursing through her feral blood, regarding everyone with a timid caution until they give her a reason not to. So far, despite the way his lips trace invisible paths across her skin, he leaves her feeling uneasy, but her curiosity is what anchors her here. ”My name is Briseis.” She is nothing special. Not in the way that she looks — not vibrant and unique like others in Beqanna, although her lengthy wind-tangled mane and the spider-web of scars made her appear far more wild than most here — and not unique in her place here. Few knew her face, and even less knew her name. She is quiet, reserved, and somehow she has stumbled into the grasp of this intriguing and confusing man. She wants to ask him why he is here, and why he has feigned such an interest in the shadow mare of Hyaline, but she can’t seem to form the words on her tongue.

    briseis.
    you’re ripped at every edge but you’re a masterpiece


    @[Tunnel]
    Reply
    #6




    There is an intriguing coiling of muscle beneath her scarred black pelt, as if he needed any further evidence that the nothing from which she was fleeing had truly and deeply frightened her. He looks into her face as she tells him reluctantly about this fear following her. Her words cut off short but he does not press her to continue. Instead he returns to inspecting her sweaty side, absently grooming her about the withers without any indication he cares or is considering what she has said. When he is satisfied with his work he stretches his neck and lays his great head over her back with a sigh.

    “So something happened to you and you run from it even though it’s over.” He says, at last replying, words heavy. Something is happening to her right now and she is not running. He feels the vibration of her fear, the ancient desire to flee or fight, but she stands under his touch like a paralyzed deer. “Why do you run from it? Why don’t you stand your and see what happens?” He asks then, sweeping his chin along the length over her spine like his brushing away and itch, pressing at her tolerance, prodding at her ability to stand here and bear his questions and inconsiderate touch.

    He does want to know how the flight begins, what takes her from whatever place she normally roams and sends her blindly fleeing into the night. She could break herself that way, though chasing her down would be a pleasure, he didn’t like his things ruined. Briseis already counts among his things.

    like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves
    as though we were drowning inside our hearts




    @[Briseis] Okay so it is horrid, but I really wanted to get him out. <3
    the heart moving through a tunnel
    in it darkness, darkness, darkness
    Reply
    #7
    So something happened, the words reverberate within her, ricocheting off unstable walls and filling a hollow space. Something happened, but she doesn’t remember it. Not all of it, at least. Fear was her most poignant memory, but it doesn’t have a face. She knows that she had been running away from something, or someone, and that they had been real; she remembers hot breath against her back, teeth snapping at skin, and her heart beating louder than her hooves against the ground. When faced with the decision of swim or die, she had chosen to swim, letting herself be swallowed by the cold waves. It has been almost three years since she first washed up on Beqannas shores, weak and trembling, and with little to no memory of anything that had happened prior. She vaguely remembers her family, but much like the Fear, they don’t have faces; they are simply a feeling, not a memory.

    ”I don’t remember,” she says in her typical way, speaking in fragments that make sense in her mind but not always when spoken out loud. Much like the nightmare itself, she can’t explain what happened. She can’t explain to him that she runs because in the confusion of sleep it feels real. Of course it wouldn’t make sense to someone like him. These horses of Beqanna, they are not like her. They fight with their words, using tongues like swords, and many of them wield supernatural gifts or possess the physical strength to fight when things blow up. The little mustang is not like them; she reacts before she can talk, escaping through any crack she might find. It would only be with her back against a wall that she would face something and fight.

    ”It’s not a conscious choice. Running, I mean.” For the first time she shifts away from his touch, slipping out from beneath him. Her body curves so that she may face him, her head tilting to divert her gaze upwards and settle on his own. ”Not everyone is as fearless as you.” But her voice is quiet, the words holding no malice or accusation; she wished she could only be half as bold as the blue stallion.
    briseis.
    you’re ripped at every edge but you’re a masterpiece

    @[Tunnel]
    Reply
    #8




    Briseis slides away from him at last, but he does not think it’s because he has pushed her. There is a boldness in the set of her face, and she looks at him chin tilted up, eyes clearer. She is definitely still afraid, but in facing him she turns away from one nightmare and towards another. Not everyone is as fearless as you. His lip curls slightly on one side, but it doesn’t pass for a smirk or even a sneer. He appreciates boldness however gentle, turning and facing him instead of running. It does something for him, that steadiness in the face of the barely chained cruelty waiting behind his lips and twinging through his corded muscles.

    He watches her for a moment and relishes the redoubling desire to touch her, hurt her, possess her.

    “You assume I’m fearless.” The creature Tunnel growls without inflection, but does not confirm or deny her statement. “And what do you think fearlessness is, Briseis?” Softer tones, her name coming off his lips slowly, savored and dark.

    Tunnel is attentive, no twitch or shift is ignored. She is a feral thing, prey, but the fight is in her, it shivers underneath her fear but can be coaxed up enough to make her enchanting. Enough to give him something to play with, something to destroy and rebuild.. It’s like she was made for him.

    like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves
    as though we were drowning inside our hearts




    @[Briseis]
    the heart moving through a tunnel
    in it darkness, darkness, darkness
    Reply
    #9
    He makes her shiver, the way his eyes look at her, and the low tones of his voice; cold but smooth, like river water over rock. She is used to the dark, and is used to being afraid, but not like this. She is fatigued from her previous run, and she knows she could not escape him, if he were to give chase. She isn’t sure if he would, but it’s not a chance she wants to take.

    Instead she has chosen to remain placid, in hopes that, much like with predator and prey, if she is quiet and still, he will not be incited to attack. There is also, perhaps even more so, a curiosity, a sick desire to see what would happen if she stayed. She is not sure what his motive is, but it does not go unnoticed the way he says her name — like it is his, as though the syllables were somehow forged for his tongue.

    But feral Briseis, she has never belonged to anyone, and does not fully know how to recognize the warning signs.

    ”Am I wrong?” She does not say the phrase with same implication as most; she is not trying to argue, is not trying to dispute what he says, but is instead asking with transparent innocence. ”If you are not fearless, Tunnel, then what are you afraid of?” The words are spoken so carefully, watching him still with dark, doe-like eyes. She does not understand the game that he is playing, and feels as though she is tripping over the rules; and regardless; she is not sure if this is a game she can win.

    briseis.
    you’re ripped at every edge but you’re a masterpiece


    @[Tunnel]
    Reply
    #10




    She dodges his question and it irritates him, but not enough to act on. The well of his patience runs deep or dry and there’s no knowing which it will be from one moment to the next. He takes a step forward, filling the space between them with his blue bulk so that they are nose to nose. ”Some of the same things you are, I imagine.” When he exhales his breath collides with hers, a cloud in in the cold. His eyes search hers in a slow, cold way “Does that surprise you, Briseis?”

    What is fearlessness to you Briseis? He had asked, and she had not replied and now he decides that he does not require an answer at all. He knows the answer like he knows she will stand here and watch him coil around her

    The creature Tunnel shifts closer still, tracing his lips up the side of her face and then withdrawing. There is a gentleness in the caress, but it is weighted with the tension of ferocity. ”Wouldn’t you like to be less afraid of those things? Just a little less?” He purrs, growls, coaxes perhaps, though it is not something he often bothers with. She can run from her dreams, into dark forests where he waits and he can wake her from here fear with fresh abuses. Trade those terrors of night, and dangers of day for all those that he would give her. He could steal her breath and make her forget, she’ll just have to pay the price of possession.



    like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves
    as though we were drowning inside our hearts




    @[Briseis] I had another whole paragraph but I took it out, I know what he wants and it isn't for me to blabber like I do on my other characters.  Tongue
    the heart moving through a tunnel
    in it darkness, darkness, darkness
    Reply




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