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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


    and you say that i hurt you in a voice like a prayer, leliana
    #1
    VulgariS
    take me, take me back to your bed. i love you so much that it hurts my head.
    say, i don't mind you under my skin. oh, let the bad parts in, the bad parts in.
    There will be risks, leaving the Pampas as he does now. He knows this and still he runs headfirst into the fray. His legs carry him as quickly as he can manage and only one thought drives him until he’s soaked in sweat, glistening in the setting sun like some reckless diamond. Vulgaris’s strides show no signs of slowing as he spots the river up ahead. No, he plunges straight through and onto the other side. He has to find her. He has to know she’s alright. And if she’s not, then the plague can have him anyway.

    But then he spots her. She’s red like life, like everything he’s ever wanted. And she’s sick.

    Vulgaris slows until he’s in front of her, pulling her close with his head over her neck in sweet reunion. She’s burning hot to the touch and he doesn’t know what to do or say to comfort her now. His lips find the curve of her throat, still practiced and greedy for her as before while he kisses along her skin. This is the only heaven he’s ever known, he thinks. This is the closest to God that anyone could hope for. The apologies come bleeding from his lips so readily.

    I’m so sorry. I never wanted you to go. I never wanted you to think you weren’t enough,” he mumbles against her skin. More and more words flood the air between them but his voice is too slurred between ugly, shaking sobs to make sense. He closes his eyes tight and tries to just be thankful she’s alive. But god, what does this mean for her future? What does this sickness mean for their unborn baby? He doesn’t dare give voice to these horrors but instead lets them eat away at him from the inside with the guilt and shame.

    Before now, he never knew the greatest way to punish him was through the ones he loved. Break his bones, whip his back, set him on fire – all of this would be fine with him. But to see his true love ill and to dangle his children’s lives before him? This was pain he never knew existed.
    @[leliana]
    Reply
    #2

    I waited for something, and something died
    so I waited for nothing, and nothing arrived

    She gives everything she has to give.

    Exist finds her, pours herself into her, and she still gives.

    She sharpens the edges of her gift and uses it to hollow herself out, uses it to scrape the last bits and pieces of her healing to pour into what she already knows is an impossible task.

    And, ultimately, it doesn’t matter.

    Because Rhonen still falls underneath their trampling hooves.

    His body breaks beneath them and she cries out, horrified, nearly rushing forward if it weren’t for her sister at her side. She screams until her throat is raw, her healing snapping back into her chest, the fog beginning slow and then curling outward, around her legs and into her lungs. She can feel the sickness settle into her like a seed, branching outward with its vicious thorns, digging into all the pieces of her.

    The minutes after pass in a blur. The hours are lost.

    All she knows is that she eventually ends up near the river because isn’t that where she always ends up? Where so much of her history started, where her family started. Her thoughts turn to Adna and she has to choke back the fear, the hope that tangled impossibly in her throat that her beautiful, brilliant girl would stay where she planted her in Tephra. Magnus would look after her, she thought. She would find some way to send word to her daughter that she was safe, that she was okay, and that she needed to stay away.

    She couldn’t risk her. She couldn’t risk spreading this.

    Her wings tighten around her belly, and she thinks of her unborn child—

    No.

    Not today.

    She couldn’t think of what may happen to her child. Not now.

    She shudders with suppressed fear and turns her eyes to the raging waters just as Vulgaris comes charging across it. Her exhausted heart leaps at the side and she crashes into him, letting him draw her near. Her lips crawl over his chest, tasting his heartbeat as she has done so many times before, and tears slip down her face. “Vulgaris. Vulgaris.” She tastes the familiar salt on her tongue and her heart hammers in her throat at the nearness, but it is only for a second—maybe two—before reality crashes around her.

    She feels the trembling in her limbs, the feverish heat to her skin, the couch in her lungs.

    She pushes him away with a force that surprises her.

    “No,” the word sputters on her tongue. “No, you have to stay away, Vulgaris.”

    His words cause her to flinch and she looks down. “I’m sick.” She glances back up from beneath the curtain of her forelock. “I’m going to try to get better—to find a cure.” Even though she knows that it isn’t likely; even though she can feel it rattling around in her. “You need to stay away. Go find Adna, if you want her. She’s at Tephra. Magnus is watching after her.” She swallows and then looks at him.

    “Maybe if I stay away, Shiya will help look after her. Maybe you can both stay safe.”

    it's our dearest ally, it's our closest friend
    it's our darkest blackout, it's our final end



    @[vulgaris]
    [Image: avatar-1975.gif]
    the heaviness in my heart belongs to gravity
    Reply
    #3
    @[vulgaris] has rolled a 5 and is infected.
    He also rolled a 6 so he's just a carrier.
    Lastly he rolled a 4, so he won't express a new trait.

    @[leliana] rolled a 3 - congrats, you can pick a carried trait to express!
    Reply
    #4
    VulgariS
    take me, take me back to your bed. i love you so much that it hurts my head.
    say, i don't mind you under my skin. oh, let the bad parts in, the bad parts in.
    He doesn’t know what occurred in Pangea but he saw the dream same as everyone else. Being a butcher for someone he doesn’t know never interested him and he always loathed magicians anyhow. A bluff, he thought at the time. Had he known that Leliana was caught in the battle, he would have stayed by her side and torn apart anyone who tried to harm her. But he was too busy languishing in his cage and feeling sorry for himself. He wasn’t there to drag her away to safety when everything lost control. What a miserable failure for a husband.

    And yet she presses against him like nothing has happened. She says his name and it feels something like absolution, like the quiet death of his sins, mumbled gentle against him. It becomes easy to forget the awful world continuing on all around them for just a moment before she shoves him away. He staggers back, furrowing his brows in confusion as he looks up at her. The wounds had just begun to heal and now they've ripped open again. He’s choking on the agony flooding up into his throat and it burns all the way through his head. Now it’s her turn to banish him, it seems. He takes a step back, obeying like the spineless worm he’s always believed himself to be.

    Shiya was right. No one could ever love a monster like him.
    How stupid, how arrogant to believe miracles could happen to him.

    I understand. You don’t have to pretend to love me,” he says as he lowers his head to avoid her gaze. The words Shiya said to him play on a constant loop in his head, mocking him with her cruel laughter. But his legs won’t move and he can’t bring himself to leave her side again. Even in the haze of misery, he believes it would be worth getting sick to make sure she’s alright. “At least let me walk with you so I know you’ve got somewhere safe to stay. I’ll leave you alone after that.

    His body yearns for hers the way ancient leviathans crave the dark, silent depths of the oceans. Primal, innate, and older than time itself. He wants to sink into her and sleep there for centuries in her perfect embrace. But she doesn’t want that. Vulgaris was only a stand-in for something much greater than whatever he thought he could offer. It’s only a few feet but it feels like a canyon has opened up between them.

    If Shiya ever tries to hunt you, I’ll rip her throat out. Even if you’re done with me.
    @[leliana]
    Reply
    #5

    I waited for something, and something died
    so I waited for nothing, and nothing arrived

    She can still feel it all in her bones.

    She has not yet taken the time to fully heal her wounds so although her skin is feverish, her neck is still burned, her chest is still gashed. Exist had done what she could to help heal Leliana’s face from the worst of the damage, but the sickness had taken over them both—taken over Exist’s whole family—and there was only so much that could be done. Only so much that they could do now and in the coming days.

    But none of that matters.

    The grief, the sorrow, the weight of it all falls away before the pain in his eyes.

    And, suddenly, it’s too much. She can't bear it. The old wounds from watching Dovev misinterpret her words time and time again, never understanding her intentions. The fresh wounds of Vulgaris driving her away from him. The vision—that living nightmare—of Rhonen falling beneath the writhing horde.

    It all floods in and through her, crawling up her throat until she can’t breathe.

    And that constant wall around her emotions, that careful hold she keeps, crumbles.

    “Pretend to love you?” she chokes on the words, coughing. “You think I pretend to love you?” Her voice rises, an alien heat showing in her hazel eyes. “I love you with everything I have. I love every piece of you that you were willing to give me. I didn’t ask questions when you came back with your face shredded and accepted that you weren’t willing to share all of yourself with me. I didn’t ask questions. I just loved you. Love you. I love your silences and your voice. I love your tenderness and your violence.”

    She shakes her head, trembling, coughing so that blood flecks the corners of her lips.

    “And then you tell me there’s another. Your sister.” She remembers Khuma’s words ringing in her head, the sickness that swelled in her. “You chose her over me. Over Adna. Over our family.” Her feathers flare here slightly, the swelling of her stomach beginning to show, despite the slender angles of her.

    “And I still love you.”

    A tear falls down her cheek but she doesn’t close the distance, despite the fact that she wants to rage at him, wants to pound on his chest. “I am a weak, foolish woman and I love you even when you don’t love me. I love you when you drive me from your bed. When you reject me.” Her voice breaks but she continues. “I love you and your family so much that I will give you up to Shiya so that you can stay safe. I will give you our children so that you can protect them. I will step back so can have the life you want.”

    She falls quiet, looking at the ground, blood smearing her mahogany neck—defeated, at last.

    All of the energy bleeds from her so that when she looks back it is with quiet, bruised eyes, the thinness her face more prominent than even before. “Don’t accuse me of pretending to love you, Vulgaris. I have given you everything I have to give—even when it’s not enough. I will still give. I will still love you.”

    it's our dearest ally, it's our closest friend
    it's our darkest blackout, it's our final end



    @[vulgaris]
    [Image: avatar-1975.gif]
    the heaviness in my heart belongs to gravity
    Reply
    #6
    VulgariS
    take me, take me back to your bed. i love you so much that it hurts my head.
    say, i don't mind you under my skin. oh, let the bad parts in, the bad parts in.
    He watches her warily as the lines of her face turn sharp and cruel, her anger spilling into the words she spits at him without hesitation. But he does not recoil from her or the awful shame that coils tight around him when she speaks. The word ‘sister’ twists his stomach into tight knots until he can hardly breathe with the weight of his awful guilt. Never in the silent winter nights had he ever breathed a word of the sick desires that hung like bait from cold metal hooks. He kept it all stitched inside where no one could see it.

    But she knows, she knows. God, she fucking knows.

    His gaze drifts between the ground in front of him and her chest, never daring to stare into the heat of her eyes. She is red like fire, he thinks now. And still she claims to love him and every wicked facet of his being. A trick, a trick. It has to be. Because if it isn’t, then Shiya lied and he pushed his lover away for nothing. All his fault for nothing. The thoughts flicker in and out like a bad fluorescent bulb, buzzing and scraping at his skull. He wants to bash his face into a rock to make it all stop.

    I don’t know what to do, Leliana. I don’t even know how to begin,” he says as he finally lifts his head to look at her face. Her cheeks are thin and tired while blood trickles from her lips. If only she could claw him open and use the parts she needed, he thinks. But that’s not how these things go. At the end of the day, he is alone with what he’s done.

    I need you. I’m sorry I never said it, but I do. I need you with me or I just lose it,” he finally confesses. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. No more secrets, no more bent truths. I’ll give you everything you want.

    He dares to take a step closer, then another, until his lips touch her cheek with a feather-soft kind of delicacy. It fills his mouth with ash to even think of finally cracking open his ribs and revealing all the festering secrets within him. But she is worth it and he finally relents to his needs instead of his repulsive desires. Slowly, he kisses until his lips are just behind her ear.

    Please don’t leave me. Please, please stay with me forever.

    His voice shakes around the words and comes out so thin he’s afraid she won’t hear him. But then he is silent, holding his breath that she’ll agree to be his one more time.
    @[leliana]
    Reply
    #7

    I waited for something, and something died
    so I waited for nothing, and nothing arrived

    Everything has emptied out of her—and yet when she looks at him, she feels it flood through her all the same. Her heart constricts in her chest and she wonders at how she has more love to give to him still, how he has so easily crushed her heart before, obliterating it to dust in his palm, and how she would gladly give him the opportunity to do it again. Her eyes trace his handsome face, the way he won’t look her way and she wants to break before him, wants to apologize, wants to beg for a forgiveness she doesn’t need.

    She wants to bridge the gap between them but she remains rooted.

    Shiya’s words echo in her ears, the fear, the doubt, the agony and she finds she cannot move. Cannot try to reach for him and comfort him. Cannot turn and finally leave him alone.

    Instead, she remains still, eyes dropping when he confesses that he doesn’t know where to begin. She doesn’t either. She has no idea how to go about fixing this—to even try to repair the chasm that has opened up between them. But he’s talking again and her eyes lift, uncertain, bruised. The words are everything she has ever hoped she would hear from him, everything that she’s ever wanted. Her stomach twists with dangerous hope, stabbing in her belly at the mere idea of it, blossoming into thorns.

    His lips find her cheek and a soft whimper leaves her, eyes closing as she leans into his touch, endlessly greedy for it. “Vulgaris,” she tests his name again, wondering at how it tastes like salvation, at how it soothes the rawness in her throat. She knows she should push him away. She knows she should protect him from this disease that tangles in her veins. She knows she should protect her family from Shiya.

    From this darkness that spreads around him.

    But she can’t.

    She just can’t.

    Instead she folds into his chest, mouth lingering on his scales and then travels up the powerful curve of his neck to his jaw. She is so hungry, she thinks. So hungry for all of him. For the way that he can flood into her life and build her up again. She craves it, all of it, and her gentle kisses turn greedy for a moment, feasting on this moment that she hadn’t expected. Her teeth skim over his flesh, and her breath goes slightly ragged before she pulls away to press her forehead into his neck, still intertwined with him.

    “I don’t want to leave you,” she whispers, her voice huskier than usual. She kisses his neck again, roaming over it, uncaring to the consequences, wholly selfish in the way that she wants to devour him, in the way that she wants to sink into him. “I never wanted to leave you, Vulgaris. I never wanted to leave.”

    There’s a pause, her breath catching in her throat. “But I have to keep our family safe.” She closes her eyes. “Shiya,” the word tastes like poison, the wicked words of his snake sister twisting around in her.

    “She threatened our girls. I can’t let her hurt them just because I am too selfish to give you up.”

    it's our dearest ally, it's our closest friend
    it's our darkest blackout, it's our final end

    [Image: avatar-1975.gif]
    the heaviness in my heart belongs to gravity
    Reply
    #8
    VulgariS
    take me, take me back to your bed. i love you so much that it hurts my head.
    say, i don't mind you under my skin. oh, let the bad parts in, the bad parts in.
    Looking at her, it’s so easy to imagine how many times he would walk through fire just to stay near her like this. Shiya fades from his memory when he looks into her eyes and all the shadows flee in the light of her love. The world goes quiet when she’s around. His thoughts don’t race to violence, to disaster, and back again. She is an oasis in the desert of his life, he thinks, and he wants to stay with her until the end of time takes them both. She says his name and it’s the first drink of water he’s had in a hundred years.

    He lifts his chin to fully expose the most vulnerable parts of his neck. This is a solemn promise of trust, of the absolute love he feels for her and their growing family. Vulgaris lips at curve of her neck when she buries her face in his neck. It feels wrong not to kiss her skin every moment they’re pressed tight together like this. She explains how she never wanted to leave Loess or him and the relief washes over him to hear her say it.

    But they have to face the dangers that lie ahead. He knows this.

    No one will harm our family, Leliana. I won’t let them,” he explains as he kisses along to her shoulder, relearning the curves of her body. His pale green eyes examine the swell of their next unborn child within her belly. “Come home. We’ve found somewhere protected from the plague for the Loessians and Sylvans to stay for now.

    His eyes betray the fear seeping into him, though, knowing that Shiya has already found her way to the Pampas. But if he can keep Leliana safe, if Adna gets to come home, then he will do whatever it takes. Even if it means tearing his sister apart. (He dreams of it, knowing that she swore to harm his children. He craves it now.) Vulgaris pulls his head from her shoulder and rests his lips gently to her forehead as he tries to come to terms with what lies ahead.

    Once you’re home, Wolfbane and the others can watch over you while I go get Adna.

    But they each know things won’t be quite that easy. It’s going to have to get worse before it can ever get better.
    @[leliana]
    Reply
    #9

    I waited for something, and something died
    so I waited for nothing, and nothing arrived

    She sinks into him, drinks in the moment, feeling the warmth of him seep through her.

    She can feel the tendrils of fear from Shiya still rooted in her, constant seeds in the back of her mind, but she doesn’t think on it—not yet. Not now. She wouldn’t ruin this moment; she wouldn’t let her. Instead, she focuses her energy on him, on the feel of his lips on her skin, on the thudding of his pulse. All of these things that feel like home, that feel like sanctuary, that feel like everything she had known that it would.

    “I will go with you.” Of course she would follow him. She would follow him to the ends of the earth. She would walk barefoot through the fire to trail in his wake. “You’re my home,” she whispers into the sensitive skin behind his ear, reminding him of the time where they pressed into one another, where they pressed the secrets of their hearts into each other’s palms and trusted the other to care for it.

    She pulls back ever so slightly when he mentions their daughter, gaze going to the horizon.

    “I sent my friend, Chaol, to send her a message that I was safe—to let her know that I will be gone for a while.” Concern etches onto her features when she finds his gaze. “I’m scared to extract her from Tephra, to expose her to whatever is growing in me, but I trust you, Vulgaris. I know you’ll do what’s right for us.” She pauses again, thinking of her purple companion. “I’d like to invite Chaol to come with us, when he returns. He’s been a good friend to me. I’d like to know that he’s safe in the coming days.”

    Her thoughts turn once more, weakened and feverish as they are, to the months of anguish, to Pangea, to the chaos, to Dovev. Her heart twists in her chest when she thinks of him charging into the flames. Of the way they had been separated in the chaos. “And I need to find, Dovev.” She is almost hesitant to say his name, but she refuses to apologize for it now. She presses into him, ignoring the pang in her stomach. “He protected me in Pangea, but I lost him. I need to know that he’s safe. I need to know he’s okay.”

    She wants to elaborate but she’s suddenly gripped with a contraction, and she winces.

    No. It was too early.

    “Vulgaris—” her voice is cut off with a sudden sharp intake and she closes her eyes as the wave of it moves through her. No, it was still winter. She was still sick. She groans as the next contraction hits her and she falls to her knees, forgetting her requests to protect those dear to her, forgetting everything except the pain moving through her bruised and beaten body. She glances up, sweat matting her forelock.

    “Our baby,” she winces. “She’s coming.”

    Her wings turn serpentine and protective as she focuses on steadying her breath, drawing in air deep into her lungs. This isn’t how she wanted it to be. This isn’t the serene perfection of how she brought Adna into the world. This was painful and ugly and although she pulled on the tendrils of her gift to make it as easy as she could, she was too weak to do much. So she did what she could to shield their daughter from it, keeping it as calm as she could despite how her heart hammered in her throat.

    It was too cold. She was too weak. They weren’t safe.

    Her eyes are wide when she finds Vulgaris and she is glad he is here. That he can protect them. But she can’t focus on him for long. Everything within her floods toward the task at hand and she brings her fears to heel, locking up her emotions. Her face washes clean of the tension, her breathing steadies, and the rhythms become steadier. She had to be calm for their daughter. She couldn’t afford anything else.

    She isn’t sure how much time passes, but soon, she can feel their child slip from her.

    A soft cry leaves her as she turns around, caring for their daughter, everything falling away in this moment. It doesn’t matter that it’s too early. It doesn’t matter that she’s sick. The only thing that matters is their precious baby girl. Leliana heaves herself upward and then standing over their daughter. She immediately gets to work cleaning her, smoothing the fluff of her fur. “She’s beautiful, Vulgaris,” she breathes, looking up from the tangle of legs and scales. “She’s so perfect.”

    And none of the rest mattered.

    it's our dearest ally, it's our closest friend
    it's our darkest blackout, it's our final end



    @[vulgaris]
    [Image: avatar-1975.gif]
    the heaviness in my heart belongs to gravity
    Reply
    #10
    VulgariS
    take me, take me back to your bed. i love you so much that it hurts my head.
    say, i don't mind you under my skin. oh, let the bad parts in, the bad parts in.
    Life used to revolve around hunger and anguish, the constant cycle of taking life and snapping teeth. Every night brought sleep without rest. But Leliana washes away the dried blood on his hands and kisses the scars of his face with as much love as she has to give. Her softness finds every jagged piece of him and cherishes them as much as the gilded exterior he offers. He never thought anyone would ever want to stay at his side once all the crooked secrets came spilling out of him. But here she is, and he’s more in love than ever. He sighs into her mane at the thought of it.

    He listens when she speaks and nods quietly when she professes her faith in his choices. Somehow, he’ll find a way to bring them all together once more. Vulgaris listens closely when she tells him that she’d like Chaol to join them in their new home. He’s careful to memorize the name for when he goes to find Adna, to make sure he’s invited to the Pampas. “I’ll find him when I go get Adna. Don’t worry, Leli,” he mumbles against her skin as he nuzzles his face against hers.

    Before, he might have bristled at the mention of Dovev, but he surrenders to her wishes. He supposes that seeking him out is the least he could do in exchange for trying to protect Leliana in Pangea. Vulgaris sighs and the sound is tired, but he nods again. “Alright. I’ll find them both for you, once you’re safe.

    He lifts his head abruptly when her breathing changes and she chokes out his name, gilded in fear and panic. She’s already so weak, he thinks as he watches her body begin contractions. Vulgaris glances around them from time to time, keeping an eye out as he watches over her. He lowers his head to gently kiss her forehead each time she groans in pain. With Adna, everything has been so beautiful and serene. Her birth had been joyous and celebrated, but now he’s terrified for this baby. They’re far from home and the winter winds are not kind.

    But then Sabbath enters this world, all legs and gentle cries as she blinks her wide eyes. A little nub that will someday be a horn grows from her forehead, he notices with some surprise. The newborn girl sneezes and rolls onto her belly as she stares up at them, trying to focus her eyes enough to stare at her parent. Vulgaris lowers his head and gently touches his lips to her face once Leliana finishes cleaning her. He supposes it’s his turn to name their child. God, he thought he had more time to think about this.

    She looks like you,” he says as their newest daughter begins trying to wobble onto her little hooves. She’s much smaller than Adna had been but her scales shimmer just the same. It takes her a while but she manages to stand up before too long. Her doe eyes blink softly as she begins to shiver and step between her parents, huddling against each of them for warmth. “Sabbath,” he finally says as he meets Leliana’s eyes again. “I want to name her Sabbath.
    @[leliana]
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