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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


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    to see where it is that you’re taking my heart; vulgaris
    #1
    Leliana

    baby, when I'm in your arms, I can make honest sense of love and war's alarms

    It feels like she has been gone for ages.

    The truth is that time has become muddled for her. Her timelines loop and collide together, all of the events pressing into her skull, changing the course of her future again and again and again. 

    This is what she knows:

    She answered the call of the fae to help find a cure for the disease that now spreads through the branching veins of the rest of Beqanna. She partnered with two horses who started as strangers and now, in their own way, feel like family. Her body now bears the mark of her journey, of her time during it.

    As she left the mountain, she felt the tattoo etch into her skin, the cedar tree growing up her spine and branching out, delicate and barely noticeable against the mahogany of her skin. The ink of it is dark and subtle, the lines beautiful, a reminder of her sacrifice, of the way the ice has changed her.

    This is what she knows:

    She was in Island Resort, doing her best to help Tiphon and support his mission. She was in Island Resort and Dovev was there. Heartfire was there. More show up. It was chaos and her heart shattered in her breast. It took her apart bit by bit—but it also knit her back together because the strange pink mare used some strange magic that chased the disease from her, all but banishing it from her lungs and her bones.

    She retains the cough, but she feels better than she has in months—in years.

    This is what she knows:

    She is home and her hazel eyes are wide, searching for her family, for her loved ones. Her heart pounds in her chest, her wings once again tucked into her side, serpentine and lovely. She does not stop until she finds them, until she can crush herself against Vulgaris, burying her head into the strong curve of his neck. She trembles, hiding her face and the raw emotions that wash across it, chasing after one another.

    Relief.

    Love.

    Peace.

    She only pulls away when she trusts herself to be steady, turning her once again calm face to her daughters and gathering them to her. Adna is growing faster and faster these days, womanhood beginning to sneak into the lines of her face, but Leliana presses a kiss into her regardless. She brushes her lips against Sabbath’s forehead, breathing in her beautiful daughter’s scent.

    “I’m home,” she sighs, and it is clear that health is once more flooding into her. She is beginning to fill out again, curves taking the place of the angles, her coat taking on its familiar sheen, her eyes bright. 

    “I’m home,” she repeats, almost to herself, before she finds Vulgaris’ eyes, “and I am healed.”

    but there's something primal underneath and it drives this nothingness I seek



    @[vulgaris]
    [Image: avatar-1975.gif]
    the heaviness in my heart belongs to gravity
    #2
    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 has waited patient hours, agonizing days that blossomed into weeks beneath a forlorn moon. Vulgaris has kept their children close and told them stories to keep them calm at night, when they would normally nestle between both their parents. Sabbath huddled tight against Adna when their father taught them all about the grandfather who came before him, about the warrior queen he befriended when he was young. Then he told them the tale of the deep sea witch he found near the river just days ago. Afterward, though, he worried they might tell their mother all the worst details of their bedtime stories. Oops.

    He watches the girls as they chatter, betting each other as they try to guess when Leliana will come home to them. Sabbath laughs at their game, tossing her head back as the giggle lights up her face. Her tiny horn has grown a bit more respectable by now but it still lacks the length or sharpness of a mature one. Still, it glitters in the sun just as their scales do and her little pointed teeth have become to come in. The tiny pearl points peek from her gums when she smiles up at Vulgaris.

    He lifts his great head when he notices someone approaching. When he sees her face, the smile eases across his face like the first sunrise of summer. Vulgaris moves forward to meet her halfway, curling his head over her neck and pulling her close as he breathes her in. She is the cleansing of his heart, the salvation of his soul. His lips kiss up and down the length of her neck greedy, like he’s never been able to kiss her before. When he’s satisfied, for now, he lifts his head once more so she can kiss their girls.

    Sabbath fidgets uneasily, waiting her turn as patiently as she can while she cranes her head up expectantly for her mother’s attention. The tiny girl hurries to nuzzle her nose against her mother’s face when she leans in to kiss her, possibly more eager than her father. “I missed you every day,” she says in a soft, desolate little mumble while Vulgaris laughs softly. The smaller serpent child hurries to her mother’s side, resuming her rightful place attached to her mother’s hip.

    You’re as beautiful as the day I met you,” he says softly against her cheek. “There’s a surprise for you here somewhere. Who knows where he’s gone off to now.

    He turns, searching Pampas for his prisoner with mischievous smile that is all teeth and secrets. But Sabbath leans up, eager to be the one to tell her.

    Daddy got you a skeleton man!” she says with a proud, beaming grin. Vulgaris coughs in surprise when their younger daughter gives up the ghost so quickly, casting a sideways glance at Leliana and Adna nervously. Oops again.
    @[leliana] @[adna]
    #3
    Adna

    It has been too long since she has seen her mother.

    Too long since she has been able to press into Leliana’s chest and listen to her whisper sweet stories as sleep begins to claim. She had watched as her mother took to the skies that day, red dragon wings unfurling from her sides and carrying her higher and higher until the clouds had taken her—and although she loves her father, worships her father, she cannot deny the ache in her breast in the absence.

    It was much the same when her mother had woken her and they had left Loess so quickly, when they had found themselves in the common lands and then Tephra, when the days had stretched into weeks and her mother had pressed assurances into her about her father’s reappearance soon—about his love for them.

    Their reunion had been joyous but too quick.

    She couldn’t help but wonder if they would ever be a full family ever again.

    But she sees the familiar combination of red and mahogany and her heart leaps in her chest. She leans over and nudges her growing sister. “Mom’s home!” Her voice is gleeful as she pushes her forward, planning to right past her father to get to Leliana first, but she checks herself just in time. She slides to a stop, face luminescent and glowing with joy, heart thrumming in her chest at the sight of her parents wrapped together, the love so clear in the way that they cling to one another.

    All is well.

    When her parents finally break apart, she moves forward with Sabbath, letting their mother fuss over them. She closes her eyes, breathing in her mother’s familiar scent and committing it to memory.

    “We’re all together again!”

    Her fanged mouth spreads apart, sun glistening where it hits her gleaming scales. Something like a secret curls in her chest when her father mentions the surprise, smile turning a little satisfactory. They still don’t know that the prisoner is no stranger to her, that they are lifelong friends, and she has made a promise to herself that she won’t spoil the secret now. He had asked her, after all—and secrets are fun.

    When Sabbath rushes in and spoils it regardless, she rolls her eyes.

    “It’s a surprise,” she admonishes, but she can’t hide the glee that spreads across her features.

    howl at the half moon, radio queen. she's all smoke. she's all nicotine.

    #4
    Leliana

    baby, when I'm in your arms, I can make honest sense of love and war's alarms

    The moment is almost too much—almost more than she can bear.

    It rises in her throat. Splinters along her bones. She feels the warmth of it in her chest and she wants to soak it in for all it’s worth—wants to let it light her nerves on fire. Vulgaris meets her halfway, dragging her against him, and she cries out softly, something like joy, something like relief breaking on her tongue.

    “My heart,” she whispers from where her lips rest against him, where they trail up his scaled neck, finding all of the strength in the angles of him. He tastes like home, like reaching port after a storm at sea, and it would be difficult to peel from him were it not for the equal gravity pulling her to her daughters.

    They have both grown since they last time she saw them and the regret for what she’s missed twists her heart, but she doesn’t let it rise to meet her eyes. When Sabbath murmurs that she had missed her, Leliana’s smile grows soft and she reaches over to press her lips into her child’s cheek. “I missed you more, my beautiful darling. I missed you terribly.” She pulls back so that she can look at the three of them, standing straighter than before, eyes clear. “But I have such wonderful stories to tell you all.”

    Her voice drops mischievously as she looks at the girls.

    “Your mother went to the very edge of the world—to the coldest place you can imagine.”

    She twists the story deftly in her hands, taking the harsh elements of it and softening it for their young ears. “It was where the snow glittered in the sun, like your scales, and buried the world beneath its weight.” She pulls up, looking at Vulgaris, and perhaps he can see something else in her eyes—perhaps he can see the pain of the story. Where the ice sunk into her bones so that she thought she may never warm again. Where the cold froze the branch in her mouth, cracking her flesh and ripping her lips open.

    But the flash of it is gone as quickly as it comes.

    “I will tell you everything, my hearts. I promise.”

    Surprise and then confusion curl her crimson lips down in the corner as she looks to Vulgaris, noting the nervousness in his eyes, replacing the suspiciously mischievous smile that had been there but a moment prior. “A surprise?” She glances around. “A skeleton man?” Her voice is slow, cautious.

    “I don’t understand.”

    Because the only one she knew who fit that description was Dovev—

    and why would he be here of all places?

    but there's something primal underneath and it drives this nothingness I seek



    @[vulgaris]
    [Image: avatar-1975.gif]
    the heaviness in my heart belongs to gravity
    #5
    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.
    Vulgaris has known the cold and kept himself far from its reach whenever possible, braving only the snow that found its way to Loess and the common lands. Sabbath, meanwhile, has only seen the weakest reach of winter and a light powder coating of snow and frost. He wonders if she could even comprehend a place where the world becomes a frozen wasteland, but he imagines she can’t. She only blinks up at her mother in wonder and hangs on her every word as though she reads directly from some bible. Sabbath’s little jaw hangs open until Leliana finds Vulgaris’s eyes, and then she searches her sister’s face for how to respond.

    He knows the lines of fear and anguish in her face, memorized them after he crushed her heart to a fine dust between his fingers. He moves forward to touch his lips to hers as though he could kiss the pain from her bones and drink the sorrow into himself somehow. Whatever desolate storm had extinguished hope from her then is gone now, and there is only the thriving warmth of their family. But he keeps quiet and tries to convey it in the way he lips at the corner of her jaw instead, careful not to alarm their girls.

    Sabbath wilts briefly, ears turned back in shame when she realizes she wasn’t supposed to tell just yet. Her sweet sage eyes find the knowing smile of her sister’s lips, however, and she tries to resume her previous delight. Vulgaris sighs and shrugs his shoulders with a defeated laugh before nuzzling the younger girl’s face. No sense in hiding it now, he supposes.

    Devevev is visiting us for a whole year!” she says as she watches her mother’s face eagerly. She had practiced the name when her father first taught it to her and yet the letters remained jumbled in her mind. Still, she tried her best and she continues to smile with all her tiny pointed teeth so proudly.

    You asked me to find Dovev. I told him you wanted to know he was safe and he refused, so now he is our guest for one year, or until he apologizes to you,” he says with a short chuckle. As much as he delighted in the idea of making her former lover their prisoner, he would have rather just delivered a message. It seemed like the only reasonable alternative when he declined to even see her. Leliana’s happiness, after all, takes priority over anything he might prefer. “I told you I would do anything for you.

    And then he leans his shoulder against Adna, ignorant of her own secrets. How funny, that one of his daughters can’t keep his secrets while the other is excellent at keeping secrets from him.
    @[leliana] @[adna]
    #6
    Leliana

    baby, when I'm in your arms, I can make honest sense of love and war's alarms

    Leliana’s heart melts as her youngest daughter’s face falls, disappointment clear in all of her features. “Oh, darling,” she cries, gathering Sabbath to her chest, embracing her. “Secrets are for adults. Not for beautiful babies and children.” Her voice is quiet and soft, hushed as she whispers it into the fluff of her mane and the soft down of her neck, peppering her with kisses. “You never need to apologize for telling us what is on your mind, on what makes you excited.” She glances up, hazel eyes catching something glinting and secretive in Adna’s features, and her gaze narrows suspiciously. “Your older sister could learn to share the truth a little more readily,” she punctuates it with a final kiss on Sabbath’s nose. 

    “Don’t you agree, Adna?” 

    Her oldest daughter merely rolls her eyes, giving her mother her most angelic smile, eliciting a laugh from Leliana. Whatever Adna was keeping from her, she was sure to find out eventually. Perhaps she wasn't comfortable sharing in front of their father, or perhaps it simply wasn’t time. Leliana reaches out, pressing a kiss to Adna’s cheek and her daughter, although older now, leans into it, accepting the display of affection and holding it close. She has, after all, spent so long hungering for this exact thing now.

    Content and filled with love with her family, Leliana perks her ears, listening as Sabbath explains more. When her own stunted version of Dovev’s name hits the air, her heart squeezes in her chest painfully, her head swinging upward so that she can study Vulgaris’ face, a confused frown pinching her features. 

    Dovev, here.

    Dovev who refused to let her know that she was safe.

    Now imprisoned.

    She struggles to remain calm, to not show how difficult it is to draw in air around the pain, around the confusion. “Oh, Vulgaris,” his name is sweet on her tongue regardless of the ache in her heart and she steps forward, pressing her forehead into his neck. “If Dovev didn’t want to see me than that’s his right.” It’s his right to ignore her, to push her out of his life, to focus on everything else within it. 

    She pulls back, doing her best to keep the pain from her soft eyes.

    “He has children,” a fact that cuts her to her quick—but, as she looks around at her family, her beautiful family, she finds that she can’t begrudge him that. “He shouldn't be here. He should be with them.”

    She leans forward, pressing a kiss into the most sensitive flesh by his lips.

    “I love you,” she breathes, heart simultaneously wrenching in her chest as it softens for him. 

    “You are so good to me, but we should send him home—to the ones he wants to be with.”

    but there's something primal underneath and it drives this nothingness I seek



    @[vulgaris]
    [Image: avatar-1975.gif]
    the heaviness in my heart belongs to gravity
    #7
    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 the way Leliana cradles their youngest child and it makes a smile creep across his face without even realizing it. They’ve come so far from the day Sabbath was born, shivering and crying in the snow while he worried over them both. But then he follows her gaze to Adna, eyeing her curiously when her mother suggests she also share the truth. It never occurred to Vulgaris that either of his daughters would keep secrets from him and so he’s a bit surprised at the idea that their elder child may not reveal some things to him. He frowns briefly, now worried that they might not be as close as he had believed.

    But Sabbath is giggling from the kiss placed so delicately on her nose and Leliana doesn’t seem concerned, so perhaps he shouldn’t be either. Instead he focuses on her reaction at the butchery of Dovev’s name and tilts his head curiously as her reaction. Somewhere, in the dark recesses of his mind, Shiya’s words still echo and decry that someone so beautiful could ever be faithful in her love for him. The smile on his face becomes forced as his happiness wanes. Maybe him being here would reignite something. Maybe no one could ever truly love a monster.

    But Sabbath and Adna are always watching, always taking cues from him. The smaller child observes how her mother presses into his neck and he inhales slowly, pushes all the dark and bitter down until he can deal with it later.

    I want Adna and Sabbath to know that no one has the right to dismiss them. We have to demand the things we want,” he explains as he leans down to kiss each of his daughter’s foreheads. “You have to be strong and say what you feel.

    Sabbath stares up at them, memorizing his words with awe in her eyes as she listens. She doesn’t understand why her mother seems upset but she doesn’t say anything. Maybe it wasn’t meant for her to comprehend, she supposes. She searches Adna’s expression for some clue as to how she should feel, as she often tries to take a cue from her sister.

    He can go home once he faces you and apologizes. I gave him options,” he explains with a shrug before carefully pressing his lips to the crest of her neck.
    @[leliana]
    #8
    Leliana

    baby, when I'm in your arms, I can make honest sense of love and war's alarms

    Something creeps into the happiness of the moment, something darker and sadder and she cannot shake it. She feels the very edges of it and does her best to ignore it, to turn her face to the sun and pretend that there is not an undercurrent to the interaction with Vulgaris—something that shadows his face and colors the time together. It grips her heart, squeezing it painfully, and she grits her teeth at the gasp that rises in her throat, holding back the ache that spreads in her veins, the telltale signs of what is to come.

    Her hazel eyes bruise as she looks to Vulgaris before she dips her head, almost ashamed at his rebuke. “Of course,” she says quietly. “I’m sorry. You’re right.” She never wanted her daughters to feel as though they cannot stand strong, as though they cannot expect an apology and although she still feels that Dovev owes her nothing, shame burns her belly—a fear that her weakness will one day affect her daughters.

    She does her best to shake it off though, does her best to pretend his words did not sting and looks down to her daughters, giving them both a warm smile. Adna looks to her curiously, studying her expression a little too closely for her liking and so she presses the hurt back. She murmurs at his explanation and his shrug, nodding quietly and leaning into his kiss, still hungry for his touch, for his acceptance.

    Adna tilts her head, looking between the pair of them, eyes narrowing for a moment and Leliana steps forward, washing her face clean. “I promised you both stories, didn’t I?” Her crimson lips curve into a smile and she looks back over her shoulder to Vulgaris, eyes softening as she looks at him. “Maybe you all can tell me what you’ve been up to first and then I will tell you all about my adventures before we go to sleep tonight.” She gathers both daughters close, pressing a kiss to each forehead.

    “How does that sound, my hearts?”

    but there's something primal underneath and it drives this nothingness I seek



    @[vulgaris]
    [Image: avatar-1975.gif]
    the heaviness in my heart belongs to gravity




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