• Logout
  • 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


    I wanna be there when it's set in stone; daemron, birthing
    #1

    she'll lie and steal and cheat and beg you from her knees
    make you thinks she means it this time

    The days grow long and her stomach continues to grow.

    She grows heavy with child, heavy with anticipation, heavy with worry. It is an odd feeling for someone who has always sought to live life as light and free as possible. She cannot run now, and she grows anxious with it, sleeping for longer and spending hours staring out into the horizon, wondering at what will come with the next chapter of her life. She loves Daemron. She knows that she does. But that does not always quell the fear that rises within her like smoke, insidious and speaking to a larger danger.

    The fear morphs this morning though, the land touched with fog and ash. She can feel the changes in her body, the way that it begins to hurt in new ways, the movement beginning to pulse in her.

    It is time.

    She wishes she was more serene. She wishes that she could greet this with a calmness of a mother, but she feels panic grip her and it takes all of her strength to swallow it back.

    She is not ready, she thinks.

    It is not the right time.

    But it is too late to change any of that.

    She calls for Daemron and her voice is touched with that fear, the pain that now begins to move through her, but the call is cut short with a groan that rises in her throat. The next hours pass in a blur. It is not an easy birth, and she struggles through it, biting back anger and pain and panic and closing her eyes as she fights through the waves of it. Relief sweeps through her when the first child finally hits the ground, but it is quickly followed by further panic when her body does not stop, the fullness not yet emptied.

    She looks to Daemron, wild in her eyes, before the next wave hits her.

    She struggles more on the second birth, bringing that little girl into the world, and she cries out when it is over, when Wonder finally slips free. Pyxis takes a shuddering breath, extending her neck and laying her cheek against the ground. Her body is damp with exhaustion, muscles weak, and there is a selfish part of her that almost gives into the darkness of sleep that curls around the edges of her mind.

    But even she is not that selfish and she digs deep for the strength to rise. She trembles as she moves to her child—no, her children—and begins to clean them. They are beautiful, she thinks. Red as flame and wild and her heart beats faster in her chest as she looks at them both curled on the ground.

    “Daemron,” she whispers, her voice husky and thick with emotion. “We’re a family now.”

    If only she could determine whether it was terror or joy that floods her.

    she'll tear a hole in you, the one you can't repair
    but I still love her, I don't really care



    @[Lydia] @[jenger]
    #2
    Winter faded, and as the snow melted and gave way to spring, Daemron grew restless. Long months had passed and Pyxis’ belly had continued to swell to a great size, giving rise to a certain suspicion which the chestnut thought best to keep to himself. He could sense Pyxis’ friable nerves; her gaze was often clouded, and at times there was an undercurrent of tension that rippled almost visibly between them. They loved one another, and yet their love weighed upon her independence – a fact Daemron wrestled against whenever he had to leave her side. No matter how short he kept his excursions to the Tephran borders, a part of him still feared she would be gone when he returned.

    Throughout the cold season, he had sent out wolves – yet the wolves in this area were wild and unfamiliar to him, and the reach of his influence had its limitations. More often than not, he would eventually lose contact with them, and with Red gone he’d also lost his middle man. He had seen neither hide nor hair of the maned wolf since sending her after Malis at the contagion’s outbreak. Her absence, combined with his inability to provide Pyxis with news of her family, contributed to his own worries and frustrations as the arrival of their offspring drew nearer.

    When the time came, Daemron wasn’t far. A muscle jumps in his jaw at the sound of her call, laced as it was with urgency, and the wet earth churns underfoot as he races to her side. The next hours are painstaking. He loathes every contraction that wracks her body. He hates that he is unable to spare her from this hurt, and he detests the panic in her eyes that carries her away (the way it takes her far from him).

    But he is there through it all, his solid presence an anchor to her storm – and when the first child breaks free and the waves still come, he holds strong for her. Though he had suspected twins, his veins surge with a flood of concern as she struggles to bring the second into the world. Yet all Daemron can do is wait with bated breath as he presses murmurs of reassurance against the sweat of Pyxis’ skin. And with a sudden and final cry, it is finished.

    He looks to their children then – a son and a daughter, fire-bright and breathing as one. A pang sings through his chest: hadn’t he once drawn breath like that with his own brother and sister? But Pyxis is stirring, and Daemron shakes the feeling in order to move alongside her as she stands, in case she needs to lean against him. But she is strong enough, even without him, and he cannot help but feel a strange mixture of both pride and fear as he watches her go and tend to their children.

    She whispers his name, saying they are a family. That sentence make his heart pound. (Will they always be?) He steps forward, his muzzle trailing along her withers so that his lips might come to rest at the nape of her neck. “We are,” he affirms, for his own sake as much as hers. A sudden possessiveness overcomes him as he looks at Pyxis, and at the twins. “You’re incredible,” he says. “They’re incredible.” And they were – two counterparts entwined – and while he gazes upon their children, he is overcome with warring sensations of satisfaction and trepidation, vigilance and wonder.

    Gently reaching past Pyxis, Daemron huffs a breath above their small forms to inhale their scent. He leans down and touches the boy’s winged shoulder, the girl’s slender side. “I had a feeling there would be two of you,” he ventures finally, a smile finding its way through his serious expression. Then the stallion turns the grey light of his eyes upon Pyxis, looking back at her curiously. “What will we name them?”
    daemron
    lost to the hunt as I was to you

    @[laura] & @[jenger]
    #3

    because the very thing you're afraid of, it keeps you clean but unclear
    it's the dirt that you're made of and thats nothing to fear

    Even in birth, he feels the wildness blossom in his chest.

    It is a wild, feral thing, a snarling in his veins, something that simmers in his blood and reminds him of the wide open spaces, of gale force winds, of the mountain crests that he may stand upon one day. It rests there, a brewing combination of his mother’s independence and his father’s ferocity, and he grips it close to him, holding it in his belly, letting it become a truth of who he is and what he will become.

    His light grey eyes open and the first thing he notices is the light, the warmth of Tephra still not like the warmth of his mother. His nose wrinkles and his jaw works, his lips opening to gasp for air the floods his lungs. He is a dark wine red, the color impossibly rich, made darker still by the fluid that dampens his coat. At his shoulders rest the wings, soft down and curled protectively—useless, for now at least.

    He hunts for his sister before he even knows what he’s doing, nose reaching for her, finding the curves and the angles of her face and scooting closer so that he can curl around and near her. He makes a soft noise in his throat, a purr of contentment, when he finds her, when he feels her against him, his wild lips curling slightly in the corners. But even this cannot last forever, not when his stomach begins to growl.

    Brigade nudges her neck, signaling her, and then stumbles to his feet, legs shaking and muscles trembling. He falls, once, and his face contorts with displeasure, fighting to get to his feet immediately again. This time, he is successful and although he wobbles, he manages to find his center of gravity quickly enough.

    He swings his head upward, the broken white of his blaze like virgin snow against the rest of him. He takes in the two watching over them both, his parents, and something else grows inside of him—something fierce and possessive. Family. This was his family. His light eyes spark as Pyxis ushers them both to her sides, his nose trailing his path until he founds the source of it all and latches on.

    Everything else goes quiet as his world clicks into place, his family complete.

    Brigade
    i will follow the feeling and sing fever to the form
    #4
    Wonder

    If he is the wild, then she is the gentle that tempers him.

    She blinks in the light that settles against her delicate face, marvels at the air and the breeze and the way her damp mane tries to lift from the crest of her neck. Sensation is so different in this place, entirely new and entirely wonderful. She pulls in air through her nose, those little pink nostrils flared wide and searching. There are no names for the smells that find her, no words she can apply to the sharp odor of volcanic ash clinging to everything. To sulfur and brimstone and the way they make her nose wrinkle and sneeze.

    But there is something sweeter beneath that smell, something fresh and green and covered in dew, and though she has no appetite for it, she finds herself dropping that delicate pink nose against the ground with such quiet curiosity. She would’ve explored it longer, snuffling softly at the grass beneath her and the dirt below that, but a nose touches her face and she is suddenly too busy smiling up at the boy who had always been there.

    She is so pleased when he curls around her, his body large enough to conceal hers in the bend of his stomach as she burrows closer into him, pushing her face against the soft affections he so readily offers. It is so familiar to lay like this, to feel the beat of his heart pounding through his skin, that she nearly falls asleep. It is safe here, so safe, and her chestnut head sags a little, coming to rest against the hard slope of his shoulder.

    But another nose touches her side, not her brothers because his is still nuzzled to the damp hairs on her soft, white cheek. She makes a little sound, a little huff, lifts her head to find a much larger version of themselves watching with lips curled so fondly. His voice is familiar, a sound she can remember as if from a dream. But the words are meaningless, shapeless, and so her attention drifts from him when Brigade nudges her neck and clambors to his feet. She is slower to rise, watching her brother with eyes like green oceans, tropic and swirling, too bright to belong to anything but gemstones.

    It looks difficult, and her knees give an empathetic jolt when he tumbles to the ground, but then she’s climbing to her feet, too, stumbling once, twice, three times until she is braced wide-legged and little sides heaving. She has to stand there for a moment, let her lungs remember themselves, let her body learn her legs and the weight of gravity settled across her back. But then she is stumbling gracelessly forward, nudging in beside Brigade to reach for the teat on the far side. It would be easier to move around their mother, move to the other side where she doesn’t have to reach so far. But she finds she does not want to leave her brothers side, gives up after a few awkward suckles with milk beaded on her whiskers and her chin, and leans quietly into him.

    i am brambles but i am tangled in your love

    #5

    she'll lie and steal and cheat and beg you from her knees
    make you thinks she means it this time

    Exhaustion claims her but she cannot deny what else floods through her body.

    It is alien and all-encompassing and she almost struggles against it, almost struggles against the sticky fingers that crawl under her skin and pull at her. The love that permeates her, flooding through her senses and dragging her under and reminding her of the permanence of this situation. This was not just a tryst or a momentary distraction. This was not something she could simply slip out of come morning. This was a family, and these were children, and this was an anchor—this was the port to which she was moored.

    She gets dizzy with it for a moment, blinking against the fear that battles with the contented love that spreads in her veins, and she looks for him, nearly desperate to find sturdy ground in his grey eyes. When she does find them, when she sees the joy that lights up his features, she feels herself steady, the frayed edges of her nerves beginning to calm. “A family,” she repeats to herself, doing her best to not think of what that meant as a child—at what it meant to watch her father tear her mother open again and again.

    “We’re going to do this right,” she says, almost to herself, a steely determination as she meets his gaze more openly. She watches as he reaches for them, taking them in, and she doesn't notice how her smile softens in the corners, her eyes going soft at the sight of him standing over the twins.

    “You had a feeling, did you?” she says with a touch of amusement, letting the moment wash over her, the feel of the children latching on both painful and grounding. “Couldn’t be bothered to warn me?” But even in the jest there is humor, the fear having fled from her for the moment so that she can enjoy the time with him, with their children. “I don’t know,” she says, her voice thoughtful as he looks at them, his wings so fragile, her spots of white so delicate. “Is it horrible that I haven’t spent much time thinking of it?”

    For a moment she is quiet, watching them nurse, closing her eyes as the barest hints of her exhaustion touch the corner of her mind. “Come stand by me,” she murmurs, longing for the warmth of him, the sturdy strength of him. When he reaches her, she leans heavily into his side, eyes remaining closed as she takes a deep breath, barrel expanding, before she sighs, releasing the air, murmuring as she settles.

    “Brigade,” she says sleepily, lips curving. “I think we should call him Brigade.”

    she'll tear a hole in you, the one you can't repair
    but I still love her, I don't really care



    @[Daemron]
    #6
    When their eyes meet, he watches her carefully as her expression fluctuates and turns from trepidation to resolve. ‘We’re going to do this right.’ Briefly, he is reminded of his own childhood (festering lies and insurmountable rifts) and his jaw tightens to think of his first pack, now disbanded. What if that happened again? Yet the gleam of determination he sees within the ocean of her gaze now serves to bolster his own – and, pushing aside any further misgivings, Daemron dips his willowed head in a soundless nod of solidarity.

    They could do this.
    Together, they would do right by their children.
    By their family.

    Their son finds his feet first, wine red and brimming with intensity, his face struck through by a blaze not unlike his own. Daemron jerks forward reflexively when he falls, but the boy is quick to regain his footing, and the stallion’s chest swells in response. The slip of a girl stirs in her brother’s wake, and he turns the faint glow of his grey gaze upon her next. There is a quietness about her, and yet when she looks up at him (a bright and green-eyed treasure) he feels as though his ribs might collapse in his heart’s absence – for with only a look, their daughter completely whisks it away.

    They go to Pyxis then, finding nourishment side by side. A wolfish grin flashes about his mouth at their mother’s reproachful teasing. “Well, I wasn’t sure – and I didn’t want to worry you if I was wrong.” He considers the twins for a moment, their small tails flicking as they nursed. “It does run in the family,” he murmurs. She tells him she hadn’t been thinking of names, and a sound like a low hum comes from his throat. “I haven’t, either,” he admits, reassuring her, “It’s not horrible. We’ve had a lot on our minds.”

    Keeping a watchful eye on their children, he nearly loses track of himself – absorbed by their daughter’s slight features as she pulls away, milk-mouthed and pressed to her counterpart’s side. Yet Daemron is swift to answer Pyxis’ quiet invitation as soon as it leaves her lips, and when she leans into him at last, he feels his lungs expand and release with a heavy breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, in perfect rhythm with her own. There is a steadfast light in his gaze as he holds her tired weight, tilting to brush his lips across her cheek even as she whispers a name.

    The sound of it causes him to smile into the softness of her skin. “Brigade, then.” His mouth rests lightly against her in a tender caress. “And Wonder,” he finishes, “Our little Wonder.” Hopeful of Pyxis’ approval, he draws his head back just enough to weigh her reaction and instead catches a glimpse of her exhaustion. Seeing her like this – spent but happy – a wildfire of emotion flares within his blood; he burns with fierce affection for her. “Rest, love,” he murmurs, holding strong for her (as he always would). “I’ve got you now.”
    daemron
    lost to the hunt as I was to you

    @[laura] & @[jenger]
    #7

    because the very thing you're afraid of, it keeps you clean but unclear
    it's the dirt that you're made of and thats nothing to fear

    Their parents are important—he knows that, recognizes it, breathes it deep into his wild lungs—but they pale in comparison to the soft, delicate beauty that is his sister. She embeds in his heart, the thorns of her rooted into the very fiber of it and it’s the first thing that he truly, deeply, wholly knows. He doesn’t know the dangers that lurk outside of their door, the potential ways that the world  could cut them to the quick.

    All he knows is that something protective rises in him as a result and he wants to hold her close, wants to tuck her head into his neck so that he can shield her from all of it, keep her from ever having to face it.

    Instead, the two of them nurse side by side, her thin body bumping into the soft down of his wings and he grins even as the milk fills his belly. He sways and then checks her with his hip, pulling back from his mother only when he feels as though her may burst, his stomach swollen with the milk. His face splits open with a grin and he closes his eyes, ears flopping every so slightly as he gives a contented sigh.

    “Mmm,” his voice is rumbly and he nudges his sister before stumbling back to his mother. Curious, he peers up, light grey eyes wide as he studies her face before turning his head and studying his dad. Content he huffs and then nudges his sister once more, slipping to the ground when his limbs become suddenly heavy. He takes a deep breath, thin barrel expanding and then collapsing as his lids close and sleep comes.

    Brigade
    i will follow the feeling and sing fever to the form
    #8
    Wonder

    She is perhaps too soft and tempered, so content with those little touches her brother shares through their hips and their shoulders and the soft down of wings she is so sure she does not have. It is more pleasing than the milk that runs down her chin, and she turns from it too soon, so sweetly distracted by a boy so bright that rubies would be jealous of him.

    She might be jealous, too, if she were capable of such things. Her chestnut is duller in comparison, copper worn flat instead of bright, an almost earthy tone where it collides with white legs and underbelly. She cannot see how it rings her face, too, her head almost entirely white but for dark ears and a mask of copper across the arch of her delicate nose. It does not make her beautiful, it is too unusual for that, but it does make her unique.

    There is a feeling in her stomach when she follows her brother away from the teats at mothers belly, an ache she did not quite manage to soothe as it seems her brother did. But she doesn’t understand it, doesn’t understand that she should take more until she is swollen and sleepy and so satisfied. She is too content to place her heels in his shadow, press a damp, pink nose to the curve of his shoulder.

    She nearly trips over him where he lands in the grass, so eager to stay as close as they have always been in that immortal forever they have always shared. They are a tangle of legs and limbs, her cheek on his back and her nose pressed to his neck where she can breathe him in and know her dreams will be full of him.

    Sleep has nearly taken her when she flinches awake again, blinks slowly, flashes of faded teal amidst a face of red and white. She is looking for mom again, bleating softly at the woman who has always been there, needing the heat of her skin and the hum of her fathers voice. Only then does she let go of that little ache in her belly, curled so safely against the warmth of her parents, and dream for the very first time.

    i am brambles but i am tangled in your love

    #9

    she'll lie and steal and cheat and beg you from her knees
    make you thinks she means it this time

    If she was by anyone but him, she doesn’t think she would be able to do this. She doesn’t think that she would be able to stay, to feel roots beginning to spread into the ground, beginning to sink below the earth. She would have taken flight by now, exhausted or not. She would have found herself flying, feet barely touching the soil, skimming over it all as she fled—as she has always fled. But she cannot run from him, cannot run from these children who have so quickly become a part of her, and she breathes deeply.

    “‘It does run in the family,’” she parrots, teasing even as fatigue settles into her bones. She reaches out to nip him, although the effort is half-hearted at best. “I was as big as a whale and you couldn’t be sure.” She rolls her deep blue eyes but settles cozily into his side, barrel expanding and falling as her breathing begins to get a little deeper, a little more rhythmic. “Next time, you can carry the twins,” she murmurs.

    Her smile widens a little as her lashes begin to flutter down, brushing against the edges of her cheekbones. “Wonder,” her voice wraps around the word lovingly, tasting it and finding it beautiful. “She is our little wonder.”  The children curl up at her feet and she smiles down at them before leaning more heavily against Daemron, her nerves soothed by his reassurance. “You should make sure there are some wolves to watch over them,” she whispers sleepily, already finding the pack as natural as he.

    “Just in case.”

    A sigh tinged by some sorrow, an echo of the ache in her bones.

    "Red. Red should be here to watch over them."

    Sleep begins to claim her, tying into her body and lengthening her breathes. For several moments, there is nothing but silence amongst the family, nothing but the sound of their breaths and the bodies as they shuffle and settle next to one another. When it grows quiet once more, she presses her cheek into his neck. “I love you,” the words, still so rare, as precious as gemstones, are passed from her lips into his flesh and then she exhales slowly, letting sleep claim her and trusting the wolf to watch out for all of them.

    she'll tear a hole in you, the one you can't repair
    but I still love her, I don't really care



    i thought this would be a good place to tie this thread up. i was thinking we could do a pyxis / daemron thread and a brigade / wonder thread or any combination (ex: if dad and daughter want to go on an adventure). <3

    @[Lydia] & @[jenger]




    Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)