All I ever wanted was the world, babe // Ashhal - Printable Version +- Beqanna (https://beqanna.com/forum) +-- Forum: Explore (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: The Common Lands (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=72) +---- Forum: River (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=82) +---- Thread: All I ever wanted was the world, babe // Ashhal (/showthread.php?tid=28820) Pages:
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All I ever wanted was the world, babe // Ashhal - Sabra - 02-03-2021 My teeth ache. My jaw has been clenched and grinding and now it aches like thunder. I'd woken days ago only to leave mounds of hair curling among the drying weeds. My hair. My flaming, tangled locks, gone. My shrieks of rage had been ear splitting. Agonizing. A wordless, chest-splitting promise of violence. It was anger like I hadn't felt in a long time, and those cussed fairies were to blame. I asked for the simple favor of my hair changing color, and they took it away entirely. It was an insult and a challenge and I am absolutely certain I will return the favor some day. This was some time ago now. Days, maybe. So hard to tell when time loses all meaning. My greatest indication that any time has moved on at all is the mellowing of my wrath into a quietly burning ember of hate in my heart. It's easy to hate when you're cold. The sun is gone, and with it the heat I adore. My wings have been my only heat as I wander, too heartsick to go home yet. The only bright side, I suppose, is that in the dark no one can see me like this. I am sulking, and I think it is near the river that I've made it to. The scene of many of my lowest moments. Staring into the dim, I can almost make out the edge of the bank. It is colder here, with the air moving over the running water, the damp earth beneath my feet. A miserable location for a miserable mare. Rasping murmurs float across the current, drawing my eyes with listless interest. Familiar gleaming eyes reflect their own light, blink, and multiply. There may be a single creature watching, there may be half a dozen. I don't really care. "What do you want," I growl absently, naked tail switching irritably. They are not fairies. Quite the opposite, I think. That does not change the fact that I'm in the mood for a fight and not above starting one if the opportunity arises. @[Ashhal] RE: All I ever wanted was the world, babe // Ashhal - Ashhal - 02-05-2021 I tried to sell my soul last night He returns to the river time and again. It is not a home, but it provides familiarity. And in these fucked up times, familiarity is worth something. Even now, with his memories returned, it’s worth something. More in many ways, because his memories are just as fucked up as the rest of this damned world. Over a century’s worth, battling to reclaim their rightful place inside his head, had taken its toll on him. He is tired and annoyed. And just so damned done with it all. @[Sabra] RE: All I ever wanted was the world, babe // Ashhal - Sabra - 02-08-2021 The voice that answers is not one I expected. Not the hoarse whisper of a shadow-being, like a snake moving over dry leaves. This one is masculine and irritable, and it brings a vicious grin to my lips. "Not a godamn thing, huh?" I singsong back to him mockingly, eyes blazing in the dark. "Well, isn't that a first! How utterly refreshing." I sway in the voice's direction, eyes searching for the speaker. I move a few jolting steps the way I think it came from, slipping a moment on a patch of half-frozen mud. Wings flare out to catch my balance on a snarled curse. The sweet tone is edge with broken glass now, as I think I have come close enough to make out the stranger's profile. "So if you really don't want a goddamn thing, how's about you fuck right off my little patch of river bank and find a nice tall cliff to take a long walk off of, hm?" A perfectly reasonable suggestion, in my book. I was here first, so he can either make my day, or disappear. I have no third alternative in mind. This damned darkness has its uses, I won't argue that. Hiding my horrible naked neck and ass, for one. But it sure does make it difficult to assault someone you can't see, and I'm listing from one side to the other trying to remedy that. Hoping that maybe the cursed stick in my chest will bump into something solid to sink my teeth into. @[Ashhal] RE: All I ever wanted was the world, babe // Ashhal - Ashhal - 02-10-2021 I tried to sell my soul last night Rather than taking the sweeping hint his words had less than subtly provided, she instead turns towards him, eyes searching the darkness for him. His ears flatten against his nape as she mocks him, sarcasm thick across the sickeningly sweet lilt of her words. He glares from the darkness, barely able to make out the outline of her form coming towards. @[Sabra] RE: All I ever wanted was the world, babe // Ashhal - Sabra - 02-10-2021 You ever get what you want, and then realize that it actually wasn't what you wanted after all? I came to a teetering halt as the stallion (now a pale blur on the night) spat his acceptance back at me. The pale pink of my lips peeled away from my teeth, disgusted. "What is it like, to live such a cowardly life that a bony mare speaking venom is all it takes to chase you off?" I 'tsk' from my perch, a bolt of lightning streaking across my shoulder. It was too easy. There's no fun in tearing into someone when they don't fight back, so I jab again until they do. I need conflict to spend the electricity that makes my bones jerk beneath my skin. Like a battery just waiting to be connected to its circuit, I fizz in place, impatient for the right wires to cross. When he continues moving forward, I hold my ground. If he wants to leave so badly, he can go around, he can go the extra three steps. My head tips like a curious bird's. Breathing in light, feathery bursts, I smile at him. "Don't let the rocks hit you on your way down, dearie, we wouldn't want to damage your fragile skin." I chime, no rhyme or reason to the words. No logic, except that I want to instigate something. Anything. I do at last step to the side, one wing snapping out, hoping to clip him as he pushes past. A few discordant notes hum through me, knowing that I'm being a fool and knowing that I stopped caring about that a long time ago. @[Ashhal] RE: All I ever wanted was the world, babe // Ashhal - Ashhal - 02-17-2021 I tried to sell my soul last night He might once, a long time ago, have been so easily goaded into attacking. Might have found offense in the implication that he was so weak he cannot handle one underweight wench. But time and experience had brutally beaten that right out of him. He knows even the most innocuous creatures can be some of the most damaging. He might be an idiot, but he’s not fool enough to fall victim to such a paltry insult. @[Sabra] RE: All I ever wanted was the world, babe // Ashhal - Sabra - 03-01-2021 It was what I'd been waiting for, of course. And really, I hardly did anything to get it. A lazy, self-satisfied smile paints itself across my lips, the pinions of my wings resettling themselves along my side. "I knew it!" I crow, a little jig bouncing erratically through my legs as I jerk out of his grasp. He's pulled off a few of the looser plumes, and I wince lightly at the sensation, but the smile doesn't fade. "Not as dead to the world as I thought, no sir! You might still have a touch of life to you after all. A dash of fight and fire." I cackle, ruffling my wings and spinning on my heel after him. My mood has shifted, from sullen and brittle, to a sharp sort of entertained. That's the problem with getting my attention, you see. I'll hold on to it until I get bored, and there's no saying how long that might take. He's so surly looking, so downright pissed, and well, I'm just adamant about figuring out why. Not that I think I can or really even want to help, but just because it's interesting to see why everyone else is miserable. Like an intrigued bird, I hop a pace closer to him, head cocked one way then another. "And just when we were getting to know each other, you up and leave. Typical." I pout, voice shatteringly light. The motion of my head is astonishingly free, and I'm reminded of what I'd come here to forget. An ugly look flashes across my face before I reconstruct it into something more neutral. @[Ashhal] RE: All I ever wanted was the world, babe // Ashhal - Ashhal - 03-09-2021 I tried to sell my soul last night To his surprise and disgruntlement, she does not attack as he had anticipated. The victorious crowing that escapes her lips pins his ear flat, teeth gritting as he tries his damnedest to ignore her. Unfortunately for him, such a feat proves impossible as she dances after him like a seagull spotting food. @[Sabra] RE: All I ever wanted was the world, babe // Ashhal - Sabra - 03-21-2021 I'm a dervish, feverish, barely contained within the bounds of my own body. Lightning crackles at the seams of my scars and I sigh oddly nostalgic as he grunts at my antics. Such a thick shell! I nod, agreeable for once. "You're not kidding!" I chirp, eyes rolling heavenward. "Too much life, too much too much too much!" The babble is easy on my ears, a pleasant pattern of sounds that I discard. "You know, I remember exactly the last time I felt like I slept well? Which is saying quite a lot, really, my memory is not what it once was! The last time I returned, I felt whole and healthy, like I'd had the best sleep of my life. And then it all went to hell, as usual." I chartered on, hardly breaking stride when he halted and my shoulder glanced off his hip. "Almost skewered you!" I cackled to myself, as I sidestepped his stoney form. "You die and you die and every time I come back, I leave a little piece of myself there. The body does what it can, but magic can only go so far. Can only heal so much, before its all scars and shattered minds. Too much, I say!" It's nonsense, threaded with my truth. There are things that I've left behind, some more intentionally than others. Some I wish I could get back. Who I am without them is not who I ever wanted to be. Doesn't matter now, though. What's done is done, and I'm all that remains. Me and this stick in the mud who's so sure he's the baddest boy on the block. My grin is as haphazard as the rest of me, but it glimmers ever so slightly with the ghost of the girl I used to be. She tried to take on the world once, and lived to regret it. She's gone now. "You're absolutely right, I don't give a flying fruit bat about you. But as long as we're sharing stories, you may as well add to my list of things to forget." Almost an invitation, nearly a dare. I brush up against his side like an affectionate cat while he ponders my proposition. @[Ashhal] RE: All I ever wanted was the world, babe // Ashhal - Ashhal - 04-20-2021 I tried to sell my soul last night He may have been something once, a very long time ago. Now he is as hollow as the man he had always pretended to be. He had never been anything good, of course, but he had been something. Perhaps her lunacy has some truth to it. Every time he’d died, he had left a little piece of himself behind. If that were true, there must be very little of himself left. @[Sabra] |