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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


    love from the west; ivar
    #1
    living for the past
    because the future's gone. praying in the dark that you won't go home. i should've said it better, i should've set fire to a letter. but i could run to your apartment, hope i get it started better than before; and i could write it in a poem, pretend i used to know you better than before.
    In those foreign, empty lands outside of Beqanna, his face occasionally found her. The haze of Wishbone’s drowsiness had been plagued with the sharp outline of his jawline, the scents of stone and salt, the taste of his scale and sweat. She often woke warm and flustered; her desire for him would drive her to the closest signs of life and spend the next few hours with some average man who did not please her in the half the ways Ivar used to. Wishbone wouldn’t dare speak of any feelings those sleep-soaked memories would dredge up, but each rude awakening would leave a hollow ache in her chest.

    In the autumnal lands of Beqanna, pieces have shifted to hide the familiar from her. Wishbone catches mere flashes of what used to be: scents of sulfur and pine and stone, winding trails that seem to be the same but suddenly veer off, people that she might’ve once encountered briefly from before. His face does not appear among those she recognizes, but she catches a whisper of his name alongside the title of a once-Kraken kingdom. The sound of that name (a name she has only heard in her mind for two years) awakens restlessness from its nap of fatigue, for she had worn it out during the thrill of her exploration.

    Just as Tephra had called to her on her journey to Nerine, the volcano calls to her on her journey to Ischia. She winds between the lava-streams and tropical greenery with ease, although the fixation of her birth-home to the mainland is frustratingly inaccurate. Wishbone longs to dive into the straits of eastern seawater to reach the volcano, but instead, she finds herself merely crossing the border in order to get elsewhere (in order to get to him).

    The drive to see his startling face with her own eyes is the only thing that keeps her on track. Wishbone’s nose never stops searching for the warmth and stars of her father’s scent as she walks, but the slender lap of the sea against her heels reaches her before Warrick ever does. The tide is high, sunset-tinged waves reaching past the pebbled shore to the hardy beach grass. She dives feverishly into the water and her muscles sigh with relief at the familiar routine of pushing her mahogany body toward the next shoreline.

    Her movements are smooth and relaxed, rhythmic in their action and practiced with the weight of years of experience. Wishbone reaches the shore as though she were a fish and she pulls herself onto Ischia’s shore as though she were a siren. Long, dark tendrils of mane plaster themselves against the smooth muscle of her neck. A blue sea-stone lies among the entanglement — a gift from a friend who is still a queen — alongside the magenta and teal feather of a lilac-breasted roller from her travels. She is still decorated in the patchwork of scars against her knees, thin slices along her hips and heels and shoulders, and the pair of barely-noticeable pinpricks above the pulse of her jugular.

    The flare of the dying sun casts nameless, wild colors upon the mahogany of her slender curves as she moves further up the beach. The drip of seawater from Wishbone’s body leaves a trail of damp sand behind her. If the murmurs from the common lands are true, he will be here shortly. She knows of Ivar’s possession, though it had never tempted her in the way it tempted the young, sweet girls of his harem. Wishbone waits on the shoreline, letting the high tide sweep against her heels as her eyes watch the faint tendrils of smoke curl from the tip of the volcano in the far distance.
    credit to eliza of adoxography.

    @[Ivar]
    #2
    Ivar does not dream. Perhaps it is a result of biology or even simply a lack of imagination. Whatever the reason, he does not doubt for a moment that Wishbone is standing on the beach ahead of him.  A thick screen of scrub had hidden her from sight and the wind which blew his mane forward with gentle gusts had her scent from him.

    Yet there she stands, dark-haired and dripping, like some siren from a fairy's tale.

    The thud of his hooves as he moves forward is softened by the sand, which has been turned keep amber by the light of the setting sun. It shines in captivating shades along the bay mare as well, something Ivar is acutely aware of as he draws up closer to her. The kelpie's golden eyes flick across every bit of the mare as though he might catalog each part of her to memory if he does so quickly enough.

    Wishbone's disappearance had been sudden and unexpected for the piebald kelpie. One day he had something in his grasp, and the next day it was gone. His seduction of the current Nerenian Queen has been entertaining but not yet successful, and while the spotted mare is delightful she is no Wishbone. Isobell's return has been brief, and while Ivar has kept himself rather occupied this fall (Ischia needs to be populated, after all), he had found himself thinking of the missing mare more often than he'd have liked.

    Though he has already started reaching out to her, the sapphire kelpie suddenly hesitates, cautious despite the haze of lust that has been growing since the moment her recognized her. "You haven't been in Nerine lately," he tells her, but there is little indication in his voice or expression to make clear if this is a statement or an accusation. He doesn't mean it as the second, of course, but he is unwilling to admit that he might have traveled to the north several times to look for her.

    There were rumors she might have settled in Loess with a striped stallion, but Ivar knows that stallion's mate to be a navy-winged pegasus. He had checked the story, obviously, but had obviously found no indication of where she might have gone. Further effort than that is beyond the kelpie, of course, so he is genuinely delighted to find Wishbone on the beach, even if that is less than obvious.

    @[Wishbone]
    #3
    living for the past
    because the future's gone. praying in the dark that you won't go home. i should've said it better, i should've set fire to a letter. but i could run to your apartment, hope i get it started better than before; and i could write it in a poem, pretend i used to know you better than before.
    When she’d first decided to abandon everything she’d ever known in favor of the ridiculously unfamiliar, Wishbone hadn’t really thought of the consequences much past Nerine. The drive to ensure the Leviathans were in good care during her absence wasn’t something Warrick or Scorch had to teach her about leadership; it was written into the formula of her affection for Nerine and its inhabitants. That relationship — the one between Wishbone and Nerine — was a drastically different one from her relationships with anyone else — with Wolfbane, with Ivar, with Khaedrik, with Caw, with Virgo. She put Nerine first in her thoughts and in her planning.

    She left a note for Nerine (bones still damp from the soil of their graves, hanging from the trees and clanking together like wind chimes in a summer breeze, spelling “Breckin” as the answer to only one question among many) but nothing for any of the others.

    It was only after Wishbone had been well on her way, winding along a narrow trail, that she thought of what she might say to them. The words lasted in her mind, dancing through her dreams and even into her nightmares, but the swell of adventure swept away the urgency to deliver them. And now, when she has the ability to say them, they have lost their importance. New words are needed for her rearrival, fresh off the boat of exploration (not words to explain her disappearance, like they might’ve been before; not words to apologize for her disappearance, as some might do).

    Wishbone senses his presence behind her, the way his eyes scan her body with that burning lust, but she doesn’t turn toward him. Her amber eyes watch the way the ash rises from the mouth of the volcano to haze the sunset-sky before fading into nothing. Finally, the sound of his voice brings her around; legs dancing in the water and hips swaying in a manner that should be purely for movement but instead creates a look (especially with the sunset-lighting) something more dangerous.

    There’s a hint of a daredevil smirk on her sable lips. “No, I haven’t.” Wishbone doesn’t know how long Ivar has held Ischia as his own, but his words are proof enough that he has been to Nerine more than once in the time of her absence. Her amber eyes wander over the strength of his face, admiring the patchwork of blue and gold and cream that adorns his striking features.

    Faint scents of other mares drift on the early evening breeze toward her, coming from straight off his shoulders. She frowns at the scents of them (sweet, giggling little mares) and steps closer. Before he might’ve had the chance to touch her first, her damp body is wrapping around him — shoulder against shoulder against hip against flank. Her lips dance along the curve of his spine as Wishbone comes alongside Ivar and when they are standing shoulder to shoulder, looking at the sea again, she makes sure to place a firm nip on the swell of his chest.

    Ivar smells of her now and she tosses her unkept forelock out of her eyes before simply stating, “That’s much better.”
    credit to eliza of adoxography.

    @[Ivar]
    #4
    @[Wishbone] has been infected by the plague (rolled a 5).
    She will show symptoms (rolled a 3).
    She will not express a trait (rolled a 5).
    #5
    From time to time, Ivar has wondered if there is a world where he is not perpetually second fiddle to the northern kingdom of Nerine. It certainly isn’t this one – not when he is repeatedly less of a priority than the cold grey land. All his time along the coast had never revealed what was so alluring to the women there. Was it the wind? The cold? It certainly couldn’t be the bitter grey ocean, which even Ivar cannot love. His dislike of the place is irrational, but the kelpie has never been given much to logic, and ration has no place in a world full only of instinct.

    That instinct gives rise to his bright grin, satisfaction brought on in the way she twines around him. He’d not guessed her intent at all, at least not until she speaks. At that he laughs, burying the sound against the wet curtain of Wishbone’s mane. “Of course it is,” he says, tasting only salt and sun as his pale mouth roves across her mahogany neck. The ocean has a habit of doing that, of wiping away anything that might have happened in the past, of rinsing away the reminder that there might be something more to life than swimming.

    He can feel the pressure of her shoulder against his, sleek and smooth against his fire-scarred scales. It’s a stark reminder of how fragile she is, something that he’d almost forgotten. The realization doesn’t dim his lust (a gentle touch onher shoulders roves across her crest, where a tangle of things rests in her dark mane. A feather and a seastone of bright blue. Where had he seen someone thus decorated before?

    “Will you tell me where you went?” he asks, draping his neck across to press his cheek and ear against her throat, to listen and feel for the flutter of her heartbeat. “Or how long we have?” That last is a question she’s heard before, in those times she’d had to fit him into her crowded schedule, casting him aside when duty and queendom called. (His dislike for Nerine had grown a bit larger then, though he’ll never admit it.)

    The water around them is shallow, barely reaching the kelpie’s knees. It’s easier for Wishbone, he knows, this inefficient walking, but he cannot help but glance once at the sea. There is the faintest crescent of a moon just beginning to rise, its curved rim no thicker than a feather edge. He blinks and it is almost gone behind a puff of seaspray, so he glances back at the wild-eyed mare and feels his smile begin to appear once again.

    @[Wishbone]
    #6
    living for the past
    because the future's gone. praying in the dark that you won't go home. i should've said it better, i should've set fire to a letter. but i could run to your apartment, hope i get it started better than before; and i could write it in a poem, pretend i used to know you better than before.
    Wishbone won’t deny that Nerine is a rugged place only few can love. Her heart fell for the northern kingdom easily, but it might’ve only been due to her birth-home being its own extreme landscape. Her first year was spent among lava streams and sulfur, while the following years were spent with harsh rock and stormy gray seas. She’s always known of Ivar’s dislike of the kingdom, whether he announced it to her or not. Wishbone cannot help but laugh whenever she thinks of the irony of it; the handsome bachelor who woos all the ladies tossing his head at the thought of the brave windswept kingdom all the aforementioned ladies call home.

    Yet Ivar had traveled to visit her; to leave his warm, clear oceans and swim along the shore to reach her bitter gray shores. So she travels to him; dragging herself away from the reunion of her Nerinian home to reach his Caribbean beachfront.

    His touch ignites a fire upon her skin, one that seems to whisper a primal song against their sea-soaked knees. Wishbone’s smile glows from the last pieces of the dying sun at his whisper and at the way his head nestles against her throat (a blue-gold-white dipped ear pressing against the pinprick scar from his teeth in her youth). “I feel like there is no more world to discover,” she admits aloud. It’s quite honestly terrifying to think about for the wanderlust mare: a world in which each corner has been explored to its furthest point and she is forced to settle in a place that is too familiar.

    Wishbone could expand upon all that she’d seen in her travels, but she merely leans into Ivar’s embrace instead. There are too many stories, and she doesn’t want to waste his night by telling them. A shiver trickles down her spine at his last question (a flashback to her days as Khaleesi, when his mouth on her neck and his forelegs around her shoulders brought her relief from both lust and responsibility) and Wishbone steps back to find his gaze with her own amber eyes. The shadow of the nighttime has found the curves of Ivar’s face in an appealing way — just as the glow of the slender moon illuminates the angles of her high cheekbones and the way her spine melts into her hips and her hips melt into the smooth slope of her legs.

    “I might still return to Nerine.” Her commitment to the kingdom, and to the Leviathans who dwell within it, would make her father proud. “It seems like you have a large enough harem to care for already. I don’t want to… distract you.” A teasing smirk crosses Wishbone’s daring face and she laughs into the nighttime like the sound of a wild northern wave crashing against the face of a stone outcropping. “But I’m here now, Ivar.” She drags his name out with that unique accent of hers (the ’a’ held perhaps a touch longer than the rest of the letters, caressed in the fire and honey of her voice) as she always does. “Unless you want me to leave.” Wishbone knows that isn’t the case, but she dares him to tell her so.
    credit to eliza of adoxography.

    @[Ivar]
    #7
    There is no more world to discover, she fears. Ivar once thought the same thing, having traveled from one end of Beqanna to the other. Then, of course, he had discovered the sea. That same path is not open to her, he knows, but there is far more wonder below the surface than anything he has ever seen on land. There are mountain ranges that dwarf even Hyaline's mighty peaks, water so thick with salt it creates pools on the ocean floor, coral in colors that flowers can only hope to imitate.

    He is distracted from these thoughts by her mention of Nerine. Unbidden, a displeased growl rumbles in his chest, but her teasing soothes his irritation as quickly as it had risen, and he bumps the bridge of his nose against her cheek with soft laugh.

    "They can manage without me, I think." he says. Manage for a while, the kelpie thinks; he's picked more pliant women this time around, soft-eyed and besotted, unlikely to pose a challenge.

    Wishbone is the very opposite, taunting and teasing and dancing about like a firefly just out of reach. Determined, he pulls her closer, feeling the beat of her heart against his chest as his lips trace her opposite shoulder. "Stay." He tells her quietly. "Let me remind you what you have been missing."

    He nips her sleek skin at the last world, and her responding gasp is just as he remembered. This time, the growl that emanates from his throat is far more intense, and he herds her toward the sea with intent. Her consideration of a return to Nerine isn't acceptable to the golden-eyed kelpie, and while he's ever certain that he can convince her otherwise, there is no harm in secondary assurances. Wishbone has always struck him as the sort to want her children raised in a family, after all.

    @[Wishbone] i am tagging you even though we are closing this one <3




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