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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


    [private]  just let me hold you like a hostage;
    #1

    and let me crawl inside your veins. I'll build a wall, give you a ball and chain.

    She has been incredibly subdued as of late. It was out of character for her, even if she was prone to occasional moments of kindness; those that she truly loved were no strangers to it. She was not always all sharp edges and even sharper words, but she was beginning to find that cordiality does not fit as well as sin does. In the unexpected peace that had befallen her life, she found that it gave her far too much time trapped inside her own mind, and as usual, she hated what she found.

    There, in the quiet of the dawn, the cold fingers of every recent transgression slowly began to creep, prodding at her tranquility, forcing her to recognize it. She thinks of the countless children that bear such a striking resemblance to the one that claimed to love her – the one who she had saved without even a second thought on the battlefield of Tephra, and almost bitterly she wonders if Ophanim would even do the same for her. Certainly he would – just as he likely would for every harlot he decided to make his for a night, too. He was far kinder than her. It couldn’t even be argued that they balanced each other out – her ferocity outweighed his amiability, several times over. He deserved better, and it was no wonder he always found it.

    She thinks then of the autumn-blaze of the Sylvan forest, and how Vadar had fooled her into caring just long enough to get what he wanted from her. Karma, is what they called that, but it didn’t change the way it bred humiliation and hurt in the deepest corners of her heart. If she had to guess anyone that would one day force her own medicine down her throat, he would have been nowhere near the top of the list.

    Along the banks of the river is where she stands, the constellation of stars across her sides glowing vibrantly in the dark as she stares intently at the rushing water. She can see the faintest glow on the horizon, but she is paying little attention to the coming day. Instead, she is engrossed in her own thoughts, examining and turning each one, until the negativity has stoked the ember into a slow-burning, loathing flame.

    starsin

    it’s not like me to be so mean. you’re all I wanted.
    ( just let me hold you Like a hostage. )



    SAMANTHA, this one is 4 u.
    Reply
    #2


    bethlehem
    sometimes i wonder, will god ever forgive us for what we've done to each other?
    then i look around and realize, god left this place a long time ago.



    It is not that he feels the most at home here.
    It’s just that the roar of the river speaks to the storm in his soul. 

    He chooses to linger here because it drowns out the noise in his head. There is nothing useful in it, nothing in it that tells him where to go or who to be. So, he chooses to go nowhere and be no one, immersed so completely in the sound of the river and the way its spray reaches greedy for his flesh. He watches it, imagines his own blood charging reckless through the network of his veins. He has considered submerging himself in the rapids more than once.

    But the stars have fallen. They catch his eye through the shadows shifting as dawn gathers, puckered, along the sharp edge of the horizon. He turns his great head in their direction, skirts through the underbrush, until he delivers himself to her side. 

    For a moment, he merely studies her. There is no sense of wonder, there is no longer anything child-like about him. The years have dulled his senses and sharpened his edges and he looks at her without awe, just a thousand-yard stare. How vibrantly she glows in the half-dark and he shifts his weight and then his focus, too. He looks her in the face, his head tilted at an odd angle. 

    “Were you born this way or did the stars lean down to kiss you?” he asks without pretense. He cannot help the way his gaze flits back to the stars and lingers there, bathing in their glow. 
    Reply
    #3

    and let me crawl inside your veins. I'll build a wall, give you a ball and chain.

    His thoughts invade her own, and she tears her blue eyes away from the water to find the rich brown of his.

    If he caught her off guard it doesn’t show, with a practiced simper unfurling across her lips as her slender body angles towards his. It never takes much to distract herself from her true worries and insecurities, and maybe it’s because she is always looking for such an escape. She is not particular, and almost immediately she decides that he is a suitable enough diversion to keep from feeling everything she was feeling.

    She would rather lose herself in her relatively harmless games than be forced to look inside herself and face her flaws and misery.

    The stars were always the first thing they noticed, and she doesn’t mind. She can hardly blame them, for it was difficult to ignore the glowing dapples spread out in the shape of Scorpius, or the way the handle of the ladle followed the arch of her neck before scooping into her slender shoulder. She would get their attention one way or another, but it was helpful to have something that did the hard work for her. “Born this way. Some of us are just lucky, I guess,” and she says it in a way that is so innocent that it becomes abundantly clear that she is anything but.

    She slips towards him, not quite eliminating the space between them entirely, but drawing close enough that she can smell the scent of pine and mountains and the wild on his skin. He is handsome — in a rugged and feral sort of way, and everything about him is so completely opposite from Ophanim (a comparison that she was always subconsciously makes; no one ever measures up, but it doesn’t stop her from entertaining herself anyway). She regards him curiously with her navy colored eyes, artfully combing through his thoughts. He looks at her, but it is a studious stare, not an admiring one,  and she cannot help but ask with a laugh and a coquettish tip of her shapely head, “Are you always so difficult to impress?”

    starsin

    it’s not like me to be so mean. you’re all I wanted.
    ( just let me hold you Like a hostage. )

    Reply
    #4


    bethlehem
    sometimes i wonder, will god ever forgive us for what we've done to each other?
    then i look around and realize, god left this place a long time ago.



    Such a strange concept, he thinks, luck.
    She thinks herself lucky to be draped in stars.
    Because she is beautiful in a way that hitches the breath in his throat.
    He thinks himself lucky to be so undeniably plain.
    Because he is better off on his own.

    But he smirks. A small, lilting thing and he shakes his head as if he’s swallowing a secret. She moves to eradicate a large swath of the space that separates them and he does not flinch. The muscles do not tremble, the hide does not quiver. He just goes on watching her. Perhaps there is still a flicker of amusement in the dark eyes, despite the absence of the slanted smirk he’d worn only moments before.

    He is self-assured, though some have preferred the word ‘arrogant’. He notches up his chin and he breathes her in, too. It is an unfamiliar thing, reminiscent of no place he’s ever been before.

    She laughs then and his expression softens. His dark ears flit briefly to and fro as the sound of it sinks into the marrow of his bones. He draws in a steady breath, holds it a beat, considers her question. He exhales and then shakes his head. “I don’t think you’re trying to impress me,” he muses. Perhaps it goes without saying, but he says it anyway.

    He reaches for her then, briefly touches the slope of her shoulder before he draws away again. He does not immediately know what possessed him to touch her, thinks maybe it was his want to know if she feels as cold as the night sky appears. He comes away without an answer, the touch so brief that it barely registered at all.

    “And anyway, how do you know I’m not impressed?” he asks, tilts his own head a fraction.
    Reply
    #5

    and let me crawl inside your veins. I'll build a wall, give you a ball and chain.

    She likes the little bit of arrogance that she senses in him. She doesn’t feel put off by it, perhaps because it’s the same kind of confidence that could be found in her. It could be too much for some, but those weren’t the kinds that she kept around for long. She had a habit of being a bit too audacious and forward, and even though she tried, she couldn’t always tame herself down to make her better suited for another’s taste. There were few in this land that truly, genuinely liked her – all the parts of her, even the jagged edges and her stubborn core.

    Because of this, she doesn’t expect him to like her, either. Likely, he will think she is pretty, and maybe a small part of him will wonder what it is she is trying to gain from their interaction, but Starsin never comes into these things expecting to walk away with a friendship. And the way things had been going in that department, recently, she would rather light herself on fire than have another friend. The last thing she needed was another friend turned romance turned chaotic mess.

    “Why wouldn’t I want to impress you?” Her voice is too sweet, and thick like honey on her tongue. Everything about her behavior was clearly an act, and not even a well disguised one, but there was something that she found so delightful in pretending to be some darling, doe-eyed sweetheart. But her smile betrays everything, as does the almost insidious glimmer in her dark blue eyes. He touches her, and even though it’s only brief it sends a shock-wave along the ridge of her spine. She steps closer, her body arcing a semi-circle around him, with her glowing dapples gliding inches from his nose before she swings her hip away, and faces him instead. “Your mind. It tells me a lot. It’s okay though, I’ll just try harder.” She says it with a careless roll of her shoulder, as if it’s every day she tries to win over a stranger at the river. “My name is Starsin, by the way.”

    starsin

    it’s not like me to be so mean. you’re all I wanted.
    ( just let me hold you Like a hostage. )

    Reply
    #6


    bethlehem
    sometimes i wonder, will god ever forgive us for what we've done to each other?
    then i look around and realize, god left this place a long time ago.



    Perhaps there is some thrill in it.
    It is so clearly a game that he cannot help the way a smirk ties up one corner of his mouth.
    He could go, he thinks, pluck himself out of her gravity and take his leave.
    But she is beautiful and coy and not at all who she wants him to believe she is.
    So, he stays.

    He stays because something wicked twists in the pit of his gut when she speaks all saccharine. And, for the moment, he is not in the mood to ignore it. He will feed into it instead, he will let it absolutely devour him. And that wicked thing curls and rears its ugly head when she bends herself around him and he reaches out to touch her, reaches out to skim his dirty mouth across the surface of those stars. Then she is gone again and that wicked thing festers.

    I’m nobody,” he says after a moment, a delayed answer to her question. Why wouldn’t she want to impress him? Because he has opinion has never counted for much of anything and he sees no reason for that to change now.

    And then she answers his question and the smirk deepens. He does not retreat, does not attempt to safeguard his thoughts against whatever power she has over them. “Do your worst, Starsin,” he murmurs, a challenge. He could leave it there, he thinks, but sees no use in being overtly rude. “Bethlehem,” he offers after a thick beat of silence, “you can call me Beth, if you’d prefer.
    Reply
    #7

    and let me crawl inside your veins. I'll build a wall, give you a ball and chain.

    For her, the game was always more fun with willing participants.

    She preferred the thrill in knowing they could each push as far as they wanted, that they could each play their best moves and know it was all for show. There had been a time when the pre-game had been the true excitement; the effort that it took to even get them to play was an art all in itself. More often than not, however, that seemed to lead to anger. A little anger was interesting – an exciting plot twist,  a little spice to keep her burning and wanting more – but when it turned into a Vadar-situation, it lost some of its appeal. A little fighting was fun, but trying to kill her with a rock-monster was taking it too far.

    He touches the star-like dapples that lay in concise patterns across her steel-gray skin, and she cannot hide the pleased smile that curls at the edge of her lips. She watches him, with an inquisitive tilt of her head, as though she is trying to decide what to think of him. “I’m sure you’re a somebody to someone,” she says with a click of her tongue and a false sort of pity. She was teasing, but she isn’t so sure he will appreciate her sense of humor.

    “Do my worst? I don’t think you want that,” it is spoken with a laugh and a shake of her head, tossing her black forelock from her eyes. There wasn’t much that was good about her, and there were days it could be argued she was one of the least-liked individuals in this land. She was not the cruelest, and certainly not the most powerful, but she left a bitter taste in the mouths of most. She isn’t entirely sure she cares.

    “Tell me, Beth,” her navy blue eyes capture his, the words slow and sweet in their execution as that calculating smile thickens, “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

    starsin

    it’s not like me to be so mean. you’re all I wanted.
    ( just let me hold you Like a hostage. )

    Reply




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