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Beauty is a beast // Casimira - Printable Version

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Beauty is a beast // Casimira - Santana - 09-29-2019

His body stretched along the humid clay bank, tail slipping back and forth in the snowmelt current. He fell against the slick earth, rolling onto his back and stretching out his forelimbs to claw at the sky in a cat-like manner. The pale rainbowed stallion lounged beside the river in all his draconic glory.

It was wonderful to bask in the newly warm sunlight after the long winter cold. It hadn't been a good winter. The opaline stallion had been forced to come to terms with some surprising facets of his life, and it hadn't been pretty. It was a shame, since beauty was his one true love in life. All things lovely, and bonus points if they were shiny. That's what got him in trouble, wasn't it? Wandering eyes and a restless heart. And then it all came crashing down. 

Now he was making a point to leave the rest of the world behind. Just him and the river and the kind sun warming his glittering hide. Delicate tendrils of smoke drifted aimlessly from slitted nostrils while the languid beast dozed. 

@[Casimira]

RE: Beauty is a beast // Casimira - Casimira - 10-04-2019

CASIMIRA

dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah

The river was not a place she frequented, but she had followed the path of it south under the cover of night. She had always enjoyed the illusion of peace that nightfall brought. The land grew quiet, as though the velvet sky above could wrap them in a hushed protection. When the stars glittered it was easy to forget that the world was far from perfect. It was easy to forget that her own universe had been spun on its axis, and she was still struggling to right herself.

Being killed and being reborn did not feel like a fresh start. It felt like a broken, incomplete story. Like the cruelest of interruptions that drug her back to the beginning.

It’s been not quite three years since she was reborn, but she still has never been back to Tephra. Partially because she is afraid. She is afraid that it still bears scars from the war. She is afraid that the smell of smoke from the volcano will welcome back memories that she is doing her best to suppress – memories that she only faces in her nightmares. And, irrationally, she is afraid that the dragon-stallion she had fought would still be there, waiting for her. The logical part of her mind cannot convince herself that that is unlikely. Surely, he had witnessed the star-studded mare shattering her into diamond-scaled dust. She was dead as far as nearly everyone was concerned, and who’s to say he would even recognize her in her equine form?

She has avoided her dragon form since that day. Between the war, and the fight with the xenomorphs, being a vibrantly white dragon with sharp blue eyes was just as good as putting a target on her back. She had not set out to make enemies in her life, and somehow she had.

And so now, as she begins to wind her way back up the riverbank in the warmth of the sun, it is under the unassuming guise of a horse. Still strikingly white – still watching the world with crystal blue eyes. But, she did not garner as much attention as she would have.

She almost doesn’t see him until it’s too late, even though he is not exactly hiding. He is close enough to the edge of the bank that she could have slipped past unnoticed, as she steps herself carefully in the dappled light of the trees that grow here. She wasn’t much for conversation regardless, but a sideways glance allows her eyes to focus on the draconic wings draped lazily across his sides. Immediately she can feel her heart freeze, before resuming at a quick, nervous pace. When she sees the delicate plumes of smoke that twist through the air on an exhale, she begins to back away before he can see her.

The sound of a dry, brittle stick snapping beneath the weight of her hooves may as well have been a grenade going off as far as she is concerned, and she cannot control the way the sudden adrenaline and fear causes a ridge of reptilian-spines to grow along her back, chased by an armor of scales all across her body. It is all she can do to keep from shifting entirely, the ice-blue of her eyes trapped on his resting form, unblinking.



@[Santana]

RE: Beauty is a beast // Casimira - Santana - 10-04-2019

The pale dragon is almost asleep when a sharp sound brings him back to awareness. One eye slits open curiously, but he remains otherwise still at the edge of the water. Perhaps he was inconveniencing some skittish deer by laying in its preferred drinking spot. 

It seems likely, until his blue eye focused on the blindingly white figure who seemed frozen in the landscape. The blue eye is joined by the orange one, blinking open to see her better. Fear is rolling off her skin in waves, which baffles him until the crystal stallion remembers the shape he has taken for his nap. That could definitely do it. 

The white mare looks as though she's considering bolting at the first sign of threat from him, and so he does not bother even standing before he lets the change overtake him. In his relaxed mood, it's as easy as breathing to shift from scaled beast back into his birth form. Once scales have fallen away and bone and sinew have snapped back into the smaller equine figure, he shakes his head and looks back to the white mare, hoping she stuck around through the shift.

"Hallo," he greeted, still laying on the bank with wings outstretched. "Sorry, didn't mean to give you a fright. Are you alright?" He asked with mild concern. Her scent was surely still inundated with her fear, but he was catching other notes as well now. Ones that piqued his curiosity as nothing else had. 

Looking more closely, he could see that her brightness was not simply due to her coloration. A ridge of scaled armor covers her top line, reflecting the bright sunlight like shards of ice. She is fearful, of him it seems like, yet she is at least part dragon herself. It does not make sense, not in the way this reaction would coming from a weaker kind of being. 

He is no idiot, however, and stays on the ground, waiting for her to come to him if she chooses to. It's easier to wait than to chase, as he's learned over the years. And so he subsides into silence, blinking softly up the bank at her, waiting while the breeze plays with his milk white mane. 

@[Casimira]

RE: Beauty is a beast // Casimira - Casimira - 10-13-2019

CASIMIRA

dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah

She is still standing there, rigid and unmoving, when he begins to shift. She has never seen it happen, it is something that she has only felt. She does not come from a family of dragons – she was an anomaly, and she had to navigate this strange part of herself on her own.

The way he does it seems so effortless, as though he melts from a dragon back into a horse. She doesn’t know if it is so easy for her. Her shifting was always triggered by fear and anger; it was a rapid and almost explosive change, one that left her mind black and void of anything but a predatory drive. Her dragon, it seems, is not like his. It feels like an entirely separate part of her, one that is disconnected from her heart and her soul; one that does things that she would never knowingly do.

He asks her if she is alright, and she can feel her cheeks flush hot with shame. “I’m fine,” she lies to him, the way she does to everyone when they ask her that. She hates when she wears her fear so plainly on her face; she hates when the scales armor her skin without her asking them to, because she hates anything that is beyond her control.

And maybe she hates it just a little bit more when she faces someone that can control what she cannot.

He doesn’t move, and she doesn’t either. She does not move closer, nor does she back away. The spines and scales do not recede, but some of the tension eases from her taut muscles. She watches him with her ice blue eyes, and her fear is replaced by curiosity. “How do you do it?” She asks, skipping over introductions. “How do you make it look so easy? Being a dragon.” She tacks on the last part as a half-way explanation of what she is asking, but she does not reveal much else. Maybe he already knew that she was like him. Maybe he didn’t know all the way, but she is sure the spines and the scales and the way the pupils of her eyes sometimes narrow into reptilian slits are a give away that they are at least, a little bit, some of the same.



@[Santana]

RE: Beauty is a beast // Casimira - Santana - 10-13-2019

He doesn't mind the warm earth beneath him, or the now satiny length of his tail floating in the river. It had started out as a beautiful day and he saw no merit in making a big to do of the current development. Instead he smiled softly, watching her watch him. She wasn't a deer, no, but seemed skittish enough to pass for one anyway. 

In a low and slow voice, he gently disagreed with her. "You're not. You wouldn't be scaling if you felt fine." She knows this, he can see it on her face. But denial wasn't going to be a productive means for her. It hadn't done him any good when he'd tried it. 

He felt a little bit that every dragon went through it for a while. The fear of losing control and creating terror in yourself and those around you. His own adolescence had certainly been filled with bursts of rage and a lot of smoke. If she was a real shifter, it was entirely possible that she was still struggling with her own inner battle with the beast. 

Emotions chase after one another as she stands there, as easily read as his own thoughts. Finally she settles on something like curiosity, and he tilts his head to consider the question. "Time, mostly," he answers after a moment. It was as brief an answer as he could make. It clearly wasn't enough, however. "What I mean is, I had to learn how to shift on my own terms, not his. It takes practice. And a few charred trees. But it's not impossible." 

He remembered one of the few lessons he'd had on the matter when he was still figuring things out. How his father had talked him through each body part in a lesson of control. Feeling himself manipulate each piece of himself had been a big boost of confidence, and had taught him that his emotions didn't have to decide things for him. 

He blinked at her, more certain than before that he was right about the white mare's nature. "Try it. Make your scales disappear, even though you still don't trust me. Then make something else emerge. Because you want it to, not because you're nervous. Your eyes, maybe. Or your teeth." 

This impromptu lesson had him invested now. He didn't know many of his own kind, though their existence was no secret. As useless as he'd been feeling lately, helping another of his kind seemed like purpose. Even if he never saw her again, he hoped she'd grow more confident on her own. To be a dragon was to own the world, if you wanted to.

His own eyes shifted subtly, blue and orange irises glowing from within as he observed her heat signature. Dragons ran much warmer than horses, he'd be able to see how well she succeeded with his task if she decided to try it. 

"I'm Tana, by the way." He added belatedly, realizing he didn't know what to call her. Every word felt like a gamble, like any wrong step would cause her to flee into the woods never to be seen again. And he wouldn't know what to say if she did. 

@[Casimira]

RE: Beauty is a beast // Casimira - Casimira - 10-20-2019

CASIMIRA

dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah

Sometimes she wonders if she would have better control of the monster inside of her if she hadn’t died.

The day the star-dappled woman had killed her she had been so close to being an adult; so close to what she felt like was the beginning of a tentative control, a control that she had hoped to continue to strengthen. When she had been reborn it had felt like starting over, but with a new apprehension because she fully understood the magnitude of the strength that hummed beneath the seemingly placid surface. It ached to be unleashed, and there were nights – countless ones – where she debated stealing away to furthest depths of the forest and the tallest peaks of the mountains to just let it go. She was afraid, though, of being unable to change back, of being trapped in her dragon form and losing the sense of who she was.

And the longer she lingered in the hearts of the land, the most she found reasons that she wanted to stay.

He tells her that it takes time, which though she already knew, it was still almost disappointing. A part of her wished there was a quick fix, some magic spell that would give her the mastery and control that she so desired, instantly. She knew that was foolish and unrealistic, and she knew that she needed to accept that this was a part of her and work at it.

But sometimes she wishes she could have been just like her twin brother and been normal.

He asks her to try and make her scales disappear, and she visibly hesitates, looking at him with doubt in her pale blue eyes. He was still laying there, and while he didn’t appear to be a threat, her only interaction with another dragon had been the one that attacked her in Tephra.

Sucking in a deep breath in an effort to focus herself, the spines slowly recede, and the scales follow, leaving behind the porcelain-smooth of her white skin. Then, she closes her eyes for a few heartbeats, and when she reopens them they had adopted their draconic shape and the pupils reduced to reptilian slits.

She can feel that her previously racing pulse had begun to steady, and though some of her fear was beginning to dissipate, she is still cautious of the unknown stallion. “Casimira,” she answers him softly, studying his face for a moment and wondering is there was something about the mismatched colors of his eyes that seemed familiar. She refocuses, and with a rueful laugh she shakes her head, sending a shimmer of white forelock cascading in front of her eyes. “This probably seems ridiculous to you, that I’m afraid of something that is apart of me.” She is sure he has so many other ways he’d rather spend his day than with some stupid young girl that couldn’t do something so basic, and something that seemed so easy to him.



@[Santana]

RE: Beauty is a beast // Casimira - Santana - 10-21-2019

He knows nothing of her or her past. That the body she's in now isn't the one she'd started with. All he knows is what he sees: a white mare with fire in her blood that will burn her alive if she let's it. It's a terrible way to go. 

He wasn't sure at first if she would take up his challenge. It comes as a pleasant surprise when she follows through perfectly, scales melting away and sharp edged eyes replacing her doe-like ones. A satisfied grin stretches across his lips, exposing still sharp teeth to the air for anyone to see. "Well done, Casimira. Little things like that will build into greater mastery." 

Her eyes focus on him, searching for something he couldn't guess at. The moment passed however, leaving him with his own taste of curiosity. Dragons existed across the land, but most of them knew each other before long. Has she heard of him? Of his family, certainly. 

Castile was no meek lizard to sulk in the shadows, waiting for opportunity to land in his path. Not like his son. The ambition that flowed so swiftly in the blood of his kin struggled to emerge in the ice white offspring. But he was reminded that there were others in the world who may know his blood. Whether that was a good thing or not remained to be seen. 

He considered her as she spoke again, knowing exactly what she meant. What they were was a danger to anyone who dared to be near them. And when the beast was not contained, it made life even riskier. Why else did he linger in the dark woods most days? Certainly not for the company. His head shook, a little morose. "Not ridiculous at all. But not practical either." He shrugged, tone matter of fact. "You can't just stop being what you are. And you shouldn't want to. You are stronger than just about any other horse you will ever meet. What you just did shows me that you're just as strong mentally as you have the potential to be physically. It seems like you're selling yourself as a three legged donkey when in reality you are so much more. You're a fuckin' dragoness." 

He rose to his feet mid-speech, shaking fragments of grass from his side as his did. There was risk in every choice made, and he'd learned that early in life. Had scarred his own mother in a fit of anger when he'd been little more than a child, and burned and clawed any number of trees to the ground when his temper got the best of him in adulthood. It really came down to channeling the fire inside to places least likely to cause harm. 

Now in his upright stance, Tana could look into the eyes of the snow white girl. He fixed her with his own mismatched gaze before striking at the core of her fear. "Shift. All the way." He challenged, in a voice barring any disagreement. A little taste of nerves might help things along. 

"Do it, and feel what you're doing. We're the only ones here, and I'll shift after you. You'll not hurt me that way, and I can manage if you lose control." He had a feeling that his dragon would be larger than hers, easily able to regain control of the situation if things went badly. But he didn't think they would. Not with the ease she had shown in her smaller change earlier. 

@[Casimira]

RE: Beauty is a beast // Casimira - Casimira - 11-03-2019

CASIMIRA

dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah

She feels like she is a failure. She feels like she was given something that does not belong to her, like she is an imposter possessing a gift that was never meant to be hers. And she feels like she is being scrutinized, like he is placing her beneath a magnifying glass and searching for all of her weaknesses, all of her flaws. Of course she could be wrong, but her mind is a cruel,  unforgiving place, and right now it’s doing everything in its power to convince her that she is worthless. She is so sure that he is wondering why she was gifted with something so powerful when she cannot even control it, when it was clearly wasted on someone like her.

“But maybe this wasn’t supposed to be me,” and though worry still lingers in her eyes it is sharpened by their draconic shape, the harsh angle seeming to mask it. “I’m the only dragon in my entire family. Maybe there’s a reason I struggle so much to control it, because it wasn’t meant to be mine.” Her mother, her twin, and even her siblings created by all kinds of different magic – and still she is the only dragon.

When he all but demands that she shift entirely, something in her demeanor changes.

Casimira was, by almost all accounts, a good-natured girl. She had been raised by a kind mother, and in the company of an impish, but caring twin brother.

But she is not a pushover.

Though she was afraid of her dragon-form, because she cared so deeply for those around her and did not want to bring them harm, she was not so entirely powerless and cowardly to cave to the demands of a man she has only just met. There is a defiant tip of her head as her jaw clenches, her gaze firmly holding his now that he has risen. He was taller than her, and older, especially since she appeared younger than her true age thanks to her rebirth. But that did not stop her from holding her ground, from her slender ears going back and responding tautly, “I don’t want to. I just met you, and I don’t trust you.” She pauses, unsure if she should divulge a further look into why she is the way that she is. Loosening her defensive stance only slightly, she offers slowly, “The last time I was a dragon in the company of another dragon, we fought. And later, I died.” She swallows hard, images of the Tephra-Loess war suddenly bright and blinding in her mind. She remembers being pushed to the ground by Castile, and how she had then turned her sights on Ophanim. But all she remembers of Starsin is her glowing body hurtling at her at a speed that seemed almost supernatural, before everything went black.



@[Santana]

RE: Beauty is a beast // Casimira - Santana - 11-05-2019

Santana listened to her concerns, her doubts. And he felt a twinge of pity at it. It was a lot to ask, to bear so much power and to use it well. But to ignore it entirely? It had never been an option for the opal coated stallion. Not that it would have let him. Magic like that had a way of bursting out if it wasn't given a measure of freedom. And it often had far more disastrous consequences when the explosion came. 

He kept quiet, letting her react to his pushing, curious what she would do. And it was as well as he could have hoped. Better, even, as her defiance granted him a further insight into the reluctant girl's past. She had died? It was unusual, to see a dead girl walking. Not something he'd ever had to deal with before. There was more to that story, he was sure, but it could be handled later. There were things more to the point that occupied his mind now. 

With a look of mild concern, his eyes followed the line of her back, where armor had so recently lain. "Ahh, see there. You've got fire in you after all." He smiled faintly. He'd had to offend her to bring it out, but there was a spark behind he fear, sure enough. 

The pale stallion took another step closer. His ever present wings folded tightly to his barrel. They were his giveaway, the one piece of his appearance that he couldn't shift away. Normal had been a hypothetical concept since the day he'd been born, and a small nudge at the back of his mind envied Casimira for the way she could go through life without anyone knowing she was more than she appeared. Had she not come upon him in his reptilian form, he'd never have seen anything but a beautiful young mare in the girl who looked at him so angrily now. 

Then something in her expression changes, and he can see that whatever haunts her hasn't released her mind anymore than it's released her body. A sudden shame filled him. The muscular line of his neck dropped in sudden submition to the mistake he knew he'd made. 

"Look..." He started, coughing a bit before continuing. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed when you're so obviously uncomfortable with it. Just. It doesn't make sense to me, cutting off what makes you unique. You said it doesn't run in your family? Maybe that's because you're the first of them strong enough to handle it." That seemed logical to him. Power to create and destroy. It defined their world. She'd seen that first hand, apparently, but that didn't mean what she held was no longer good. He figured it meant she should learn to use it better, so the next time trouble came, she would come out on top. Fire was a tool. Better to bend it to your will than let it burn you first. 

@[Casimira]

RE: Beauty is a beast // Casimira - Casimira - 11-07-2019

CASIMIRA

dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah

Her jaw clenches again when he mentions how she has fire, and she has to bite back the scorching retort that she is aching to unleash from her tongue. She doesn’t know if she is simply looking for reasons to feel insulted at this point, or if she truly has ground to stand on. She just knows that he had rubbed her the wrong way, perhaps because he had accidentally dove directly into her biggest insecurity. He had asked her to do the thing that she is most afraid to do, and she almost wondered if there was an ulterior motive. As far as she knew, there was no loyalty amongst dragons; it certainly wasn’t shown to her in the war, at least. 

She tilts her chin upwards again, and she takes a step forward. “Just because I am afraid doesn’t mean I am weak,” there is still a sharpness to her tone, but it has dulled for the most part. She still watches him with a cool guardedness, and she only flinches inwardly when he steps towards her. In the back of her mind she wonders how fast she can shift if he suddenly decided to attack her the way Castile had, and she tries to quiet the erratic pulse that was jumping in her veins.

He clears his throat, and she is prepared to once again be irritated by what she is sure is going to be a brush-off response to what she had confessed to him. But something in him seemed to have changed. He apologizes, and the surprise that flashes across her face is evident. In its wake her defenses slowly lower, and the reptilian shape of her eyes returned to their soft, round shape. “It’s okay,” she says in acceptance of his apology, searching his face for a moment, still a little uncertain that this wasn’t some kind of trap. “I don’t think being able to shift into a dragon completely defines me. And all it’s ever done is cause me problems, anyway.” She pauses for a moment, blinking her dark, long lashes in thought before she asks him curiously, “If it was taken from you, if you suddenly could never shift into a dragon again, is that how you would feel? Like you lost the only thing about you that made you unique?”



@[Santana]