don't you ever tame your demons; luster

[fenris]

don't you ever tame your demons

fenris

(but always keep them on a leash)

Fenris had never seen much point in staying in Beqanna—even less so when the land had rumbled beneath his hooves and sucked the magic from his bones. For what? She had punished him for the sins of his fathers, and he wasn’t much for the symbolic nature of things. He had done nothing wrong, had done nothing but live a quiet existence on the outskirts of the land, and here he was—bearing the lashes. So he had done what he had assumed every self-respecting gentleman, of which he was not, would do: he left.

Once he had made it down the the mountain and felt the sand drip from his veins, he had sat there for a moment—dumbfounded—before he had metaphorically rolled up his sleeves, sighed, and turned his gaze toward the horizon. If Beqanna felt the need to place chains on him for wars he did not wage and blood he did not spill then he certainly wasn’t going to be kneeling at her feet and groveling for her forgiveness.

Of course, that did not explain why he found himself back here.

It was an unfortunate truth that he had simply not found much outside of Beqanna. There had been the occasional herd, the occasional home, and even the occasional distraction—but certainly nothing that manage to keep his interest. Nothing to anchor him to one spot. So he had rolled on, never staying long enough to put down roots and, eventually, finding himself back upon Beqanna’s shores. Unfortunately.

His mouth was grim as he walked into the forest, his veins dry with lack of magic and his mood darkening with every step. It was beyond him why he had though this was a good idea—why he would ever think this was a good idea—but it was also impossible to think of a reason to leave. There was nowhere else more interesting; he was damned if did, damned if he didn’t. There was no winning answer.

That was, until, he saw her. Blues and blacks and a constellations of white. It was enough to pique his interest, enough to halt his stride. He took a second, evaluating her, before he snorted and then angled his way toward her. There was nothing better to do. “There are things that go bump in the night,” he said, the hint of a smile outweighing the sharpness of his words. “Why would you venture out into them?” As the sky darkened above them, he took a step closer to her, perhaps too close although Fenris had never worried overmuch about things like propriety. “Why put yourself in danger’s path?”

 

[luster]

When night falls and she finds that she is still restless, still awake, still sorting through too many wandering thoughts, it is reflex to slip from the cave and back out into the night. Her parents lift their heads to watch her, their eyes dark and worried and maybe a little suspicious, but she soothes them with a smile, with kisses pressed to their foreheads. “I won’t go far, I promise.” The worry fades from their faces, but the guilt does not fade from her chest. She should not have made them worry like that, should not have returned to them with bruises in her eyes and a wound carved into the soft of her neck.

She is so selfish.

The night is cool on her face and she greets it eagerly, tipping her head up to the stars and closing those dark eyes. The cave has not felt like home since coming back, the rock all wrong, too small and too dry, lacking most of all the dark silhouette she wishes was still curled around her while she slept. Especially now, she wishes for a neck draped across her back to chase away the nightmares, dark lips on her cheek until she can forget why she was ever scared at all. But there is nothing she can do about the wrongness tonight, nothing she can do to forget that strange skeletal face, eerily beautiful in its sharp and brokenness, nothing she can do to forget how it felt with his teeth buried in the meat of her neck.

So she wanders, in and through the forest, through the trees and through the dark with a trail of false stars flickering mindlessly against her skin. Their light turns the blue of her skin silver, pale and watery, illuminating every dip and hollow and soft plane of bone in the hazy dark. They notice before she does, the face that watches her in the dark, not quite black but deep and rich and smooth like damp earth. She doesn’t notice until he is through the trees and splitting the dark between them with the heat of his body.

There are things that go bump in the night, he says, and his eyes are quick to explore her small figure in the dark. His words make her uneasy, prickle her skin and ruffle her fur until she notices his mouth shift with the hint of a smile that does not feel at all cruel. She settles and softens, turning those quiet, dark eyes against that rich chocolate face, waiting. Why would you venture out into them?

She considers him for a moment and that dark brow furrows beneath the tangles and currents of a dark and corn-silk forelock. “Maybe I am foolish.” She offers in a way that sounds entirely thoughtful, entirely helpful. A pause and she tilts that dark and white head at him in a quiet way, tracing the lines of his face all the way back up to eyes that are dark and brown and so much like her own. “Or maybe I am what goes bump in the night.” He takes a step closer and she takes a step back, careful to conceal the flinch that seems almost reflexive at the sudden and unwelcome closeness of this stranger. Why put yourself in dangers path? He asks again, and she can feel a frown shaping against her mouth, soft and uncertain, quiet when she asked in turn, “Have I?” A pause and she ignores the quickening of her pulse, of her heart in her chest, “Are you dangerous?”

so we let our shadows fall away like dust

[fenris]

don't you ever tame your demons

fenris

(but always keep them on a leash)

She is intriguing in a world that feels altogether plain.

His dark, unreadable eyes flicker as they study her, as they take in all of the dark lines of her slender frame, the constellations that splatter across her haunches in hues of cobalt and onyx. He laughs as she admits that she may be foolish and while the sound is dry, it is not cruel; he himself is not overly cruel. Do not mistake me—he is not kind. He is not made of flowers and poetry, does not whisper stars from their oceanic beds, but he does not delight in pain for the sake of it. An instrument, perhaps, but not one used needlessly.

“You do not look foolish,” he breathes, his voice bourbon, smooth with a bit of bite. “But such things are not always easily discernible.” A shrug, elegant for a man of his size, the motion rippling through his shoulder. She doesn't appear to be foolish—but he had met plenty of souls who at first glance seem wise and who later reveal themselves to be anything but. Still, he cannot help but hope she is different.

For a moment, his gaze moves to the stars as they light around her, their silvery aura casting a glow on the duo, providing just enough brightness for him to appraise her. His eyes sharpen beneath the cream of his forelock, finding her own and holding the gaze, scrutinizing her. At her next twist of words, he laughs yet again, although this lacks the rust. This laughter is all amusement, all enjoyment. So she has fire to her.

“Perhaps you are.” His tongue clicks against the back of his teeth. “Perhaps you are.”

When he steps closer, she flinches, just barely, and although he is not prone to altering his behavior to suit the needs of others, he frowns, pauses, and then places his foot down on the damp earth, stilling. His sharp gaze finds the wound on her neck, the newness of it, and the frown deepens, the stallion not bothering to hide his curiosity or the source of it. He returns to her eyes and holds it there for a moment.

“I am,” and he was. Once, he had been able to command elements with a lazy flick of the tail. He had brought sand from the earth to rain hell upon enemies; to chase them with its fury, to pour down their very throat until their bodies were swollen and splitting. He had no qualms about violence when it suited his needs, but still—the frown grew again, deeper between his brow. “But not in the way you appear to know.”

His voice is softer but not coddling as he motions toward her neck.

“I do not make a habit of marking up young women for sport.”

[luster]

His attention wanders across the dark planes of her body and her skin tightens reflexively beneath the weight, uncomfortable but not entirely fearful. Those dark eyes are sharp and clever, but they do not feel cruel, do not feel hungry in their quiet, uncertain depths. She shifts anyway, resettling slightly to one side as though the movement will be enough to unsteady him and force his eyes from where they roam the hollows and lines of long, slender bone. But then her eyes drift, too, from that smooth, elegant face to the strength in the curve of his neck, the power hidden beneath tangles of mane as pale and soft as starlight.

She might’ve drifted further if it weren’t for the sound of his laugh, dry and deep, and when it pulls her eyes back to his face they are soft and round and dark like damp earth. You do not look foolish. He says and she smiles faintly, decides she likes the depth in his voice, the way it is smooth and sharp like mountain air. “What does foolish look like?” There is a light in her eyes, a smile in a voice that is almost, almost teasing when it fills the dark between them.

His eyes shift from her to the stars, her stars, and she follows his gaze with a quiet kind of curiosity that feels warm and light in her chest. He seems lost in them for a moment, and she is lost in him in turn, tracing the lines in his face and the way his expression shifts so imperceptibly from one instant to the next. But it is like he can feel her eyes on his face because his gaze drops to find hers, and it is like fingers hooked beneath her chin an pulling her to him. She flushes, warm beneath the blue, and is only able to drop her bruised eyes from him when he releases her with yet another laugh. But this one feels warmer, easier, and she returns tentatively to those dark, quiet eyes.

His eyes narrow, pulled tighter by the effort of his frowning mouth, and she knows he has seen the wound in her neck, a mix of ruby and onyx and wet, and she flushes with quiet embarrassment. She should have hid it in shadow, an easy illusion, a simple trick to confuse the eyes and push them elsewhere. But instead his eyes linger there for several long moments, plain and appraising, always quiet, until at last they find and settle against the blue of that dark, delicate face. “Maybe I am foolish.” She reminds him quietly and in a voice like silver, turning her face away from him so that it is lost to him in the dark.

I am, he says, and still she will not look at him, will not turn her face to catch and cup the lights bouncing between them, but not in the way you appear to know. It is enough to quiet her, to settle her, and when she lifts her eyes to his face she is surprised by the deep frown she finds waiting for her, surprised that it would affect him at all. Her brow furrows gently to reflect her uncertainty, and it deepens the hollows and lengthens the lines of her face until she is a blend of light and dark and quiet hesitation. I do not make a habit of marking up young women for sport.

This, this coaxes a smile to her lips, softens the corners of her mouth until all previous signs of wariness are gone and forgotten. She laughs, a quiet sound, and it is light and bright like silver bells, like stars thrown together. “You should open with that instead.” She tells him finally, easing across the space between them to touch her nose to his jaw in greeting. Then, pulling back, “My name is Luster.”

A pause, the gentle furrowing of a dark brow, the flash of quiet, bright eyes, and then, “What is it that makes you dangerous?”

so we let our shadows fall away like dust

[fenris]

don't you ever tame your demons

fenris

(but always keep them on a leash)

“Foolish looks an awful lot like trust,” he says with a glint to his eyes, a rebel curve in one corner of his dark mouth. Trust was a dangerous weapon to wield, a spear that caused only self-inflicting harm. It never failed to amuse him to see how easily others put that hilt into the hands of strangers; it was foolish, it was absurd. They flipped the dagger over, gave up control, and then were surprised when they bled out.

But she—she does not seem foolish.

Without prompting, his dark eyes wander to the elegant curve of her neck, the graceful swath of color there, and he is surprised by the sharp pang of anger that flares briefly in his belly. For a moment, a frown crosses like a storm across his features, but it is just as quickly wiped away and replaced with something more neutral, something charming and shallow. She is not his to worry about. She is not his.

He shakes his head, dismissing her. “You are not foolish.” He is not sure how he knows or why he even cares, but it seems important enough of a point that he meets her gaze and holds it, something weighty in the grasp of it, something like gravity. “Perhaps you are just kind.” Now there is something sardonic in how his lips curl, something cynical, as he shrugs. “It is difficult for me to tell the difference sometimes.”

Perhaps there wasn't a difference. He couldn’t tell anymore.

The sound of her laughter breaks his thoughts, the slight tinkling of it, and his ears prick forward to catch it, to wrap around and through it. Her laugh moves as deftly through him as a needle though fabric, but he finds he does not mind the slight sting of it. “I like to bury the lead,” a sharpened statement, the sarcasm flickering in his voice, but that dies when her lips find his jaw, and he inhales quicker than before.

Without thinking, his head turns so his mouth can find her flesh, brushing against the curve of her cheek, the sweet taste of her permeating and settling into his senses. The intimacy of the moment surprises him and his eyes widen only a little before he wipes that clean. “Luster,” there is a husk when he speaks this time, when he sounds out her name. “Does it matter so much just how I am dangerous, Luster?”

He stares at her, suddenly thoughtful before his voice drops.

“It is not aimed at you. Is that not enough?”

[luster]

Foolish looks an awful lot like trust. He says, a quiet glint in his eye to match the curve at the corner of his mouth. For a long moment she says nothing – but she does not have to say anything because her face is open and clear and it is painfully easy to watch the direction in which her thoughts travel. Trust was something that came easily to Luster, something she gave as willingly as she gave those uncertain smiles that often uncurled across pale, tremulous lips. It was something she felt unfurling in her chest even now, even in the deep and dark with this quiet stranger and a wound that still occasionally wept silent red tears down the blue of that delicate neck. At his explanation though, she traps it and tempers it, and when her dark eyes lift to his face they are uncertain and bruised and filled with a shadow that does not suit her.

“I think,” and she pauses, testing the weight of words that feel oddly heavy, oddly embarrassed, “I think you might want to reserve your guesses for when you know me a little better.” But these words are not sharp, not pointed, not thrown at him in offense. Instead they are a warning, gentle and uncertain. I am foolish. She thinks, though her mouth is unmoving, her lips soft and slack and drenched in shadow. Please don’t be disappointed when you realize it. Her eyes slip from his face because suddenly hiding feels easier, because this is the first time anyone has ever expected more from her than she can be, than she is, and she does not like how it feels.

But his words pull her back again, back to that dark face with deep eyes that resist her each time she tries to fall into them. Perhaps you are just kind. It feels like an out but she does not know how to take it. Is she kind? It didn’t feel like kindness when she lied to her parents. But when she finally does answer him, it is not what she intended. “Maybe it is foolish to be kind.” Her voice is soft and sad and pink, the color of the shame, of the blush that warms her skin.

Then his mouth finds her cheek and all that sad shatters with the sharp inhalation of startled breath, a soft oh that escapes her lips unbidden. Her eyes fall against his face again, against his eyes to test their resilience, and she wonders if he felt the sudden heat of a blush burning beneath the blue. Luster. He says, and she shivers a little at the uncertain goosebumps that appear beneath the blue, wonders why her name sounds different from his lips, in his voice. Then, inching closer despite the way her feet remain planted and solid beneath her, “It’s enough, of course.” A promise, an apology, maybe even a blend of both.

But then she looks to his face again, tries to climb inside those eyes where it seems so safe and quiet. “Can I trust you?” These words quiver and quaver before they fall from her lips, vulnerable despite the way she wants to be brave. But her neck hurts, and her heart hurts and she knows that she is perched at the edge of the world, ready to lose her balance and fall forever into the dark. “Please?” Softer now, uncertain, with luminous brown eyes that touch every inch of the dark face that watches her. “I could use a friend, tonight.” She inches closer, the quiet shuffle of hesitant hooves against a soft forest floor. Then, because she cannot help herself, because she wants to see that smile appear again against the dark curve of his mouth, “I’ll let you call me foolish, if it helps.” And she is smiling now, soft and subtle, uncertain as she noses close to his chest in wordless question.

Please?

so we let our shadows fall away like dust

[fenris]

don't you ever tame your demons

fenris

(but always keep them on a leash)

“That’s fair,” he offers, because he doesn’t know her—doesn’t really know this starlight girl who stands next to him in the shadows with bruises in her eyes and blood on her neck. He doesn’t know what makes her foolish, or trusting, or just kind, or if perhaps she is all three. It is not his problem, he reminds himself, but there is an inkling, the slightest pull in his belly, that tells him otherwise. He doesn’t need to worry about her or protect her—least of all from himself. And yet he stands, watches over her, dark eyes sharp, anger slowly simmering in his veins at whatever rough hands had handled her in the past.

He laughs a little, but only because it’s easier than raging. Only because he cannot control the sands that swirl beneath him, only because he cannot summon forth demons from the depths of the earth—he cannot pour his power down the throat of whichever devil let his teeth rip her flesh. A single shiver runs up the length of his broad back, and his dark jaw clenches at the thought. He would get too much pleasure from tearing the man apart. He could imagine drowning him in the sand, blinding him, filling his belly and lungs until they burst. The thoughts brought a cruel twist to his lip, but he quickly quelled the thoughts.

Instead he focuses his eyes on her, watches as she comes to him, as soft and trusting as a lamb. He shakes his handsome, angled head, taking a deep breath and then exhaling slowly, humor finding its way to his dark eyes. “You are foolish for trusting me,” and then deeper, “I am a truly terrible friend.” But that didn’t matter because she was there, and something swells sin him that he cannot name—something that he has no way of categorizing. Wordlessly he gathers her near to him, his neck reaching over her own and pulling her into his broad chest. His mouth wanders over her neck, wondering at the softness of her.

In the quiet, he breathes, “But I can try to be someone worth trusting for you.”

[luster]

He laughs again but this one feels forced, different, and she can feel the uncertain way her brow furrows at him. Her eyes lift and fall against his face, swaying and uncertain, and it is as though she thinks she can peel his secrets from his shadows, pry his thoughts from the dark that pools in the hollows of a face that is so unexpectedly beautiful. She is about to touch her lips to his forehead when the shiver steals down his spine – just one single ripple, but it is enough to catch her eyes and coax worry from the pit of her delicate chest. Her attention returns immediately to his face, openly worried, openly uncertain, but she must see something that helps her understand because her lips do find the curve of his jaw, gentle and tentative, and she whispers, “Are you alright?” The worry is palpable, strange and maybe unjustified, but he seems suddenly uneasy and she cannot help but feel like it was something she had done. Then, even softer, “I’m sorry.”

But then he is pulling her close and she is soft beneath his grip, fluid to fit the curve of the strong, dark chest she is being pressed to. It is what she wanted, what she needed, and so she does not fight the sudden closeness, does not protest the way his mouth is warm and wandering across the soft of an unevenly blue neck. “This only feels a little foolish,” she tells him at last and with a smile, though she presses it unabashedly into the crook of his dark shoulder, “but not the trusting you part, that feels right.” She falls quiet again, soothed by the heat of his skin, by the thrum of his heart and the path his lips take across her neck. With a sigh she melts against him, soft and vulnerable and finally, finally safe.

She doesn’t mean to crumble in his grip, doesn’t mean to fall to pieces against the curve of his chest. But she can ache against him in a way she cannot do with her parents, with her family, in a way she cannot do with the man she is certain has forgotten her. So she unravels against him, a face damp with hurt and confusion, a cheek pressed firm to the point of a steady shoulder. There aren’t words at first, this is not a pain she knows how to convey to him so simply, the loss of such easy faith, the innocence being strangers with the dark. But when she can finally speak, when her lips are soft and grateful and warm where they trace shapes across his chest, she whispers, “Just be you,” a pause, tremulous breath and a tremulous voice, and she wonders why he hasn’t given her a name to claim him by, “you are enough.”

so we let our shadows fall away like dust

[fenris]

don't you ever tame your demons

fenris

(but always keep them on a leash)

She asks if he is okay, if he is alright, and he cannot stop the small laugh that steals away from him, the sound molten and silver in between them. “I’m not the one with a gouged neck,” he reminds her with an insensitive quirk of his lips, hoping humor would mask his internal fury. “I’m okay,” he finally reassures her, shaking his head and mane out. “Although whoever touched you may not be.” There is steel beneath the words, an edge that he hadn’t expected to show her, and he quickly pivots from the conversation. What happened between him and the monster who touched her wasn’t for her to worry about.

“This is incredibly foolish,” he confirms, his voice huskier than it had been before, his heart pounding in his chest. It is foolish to pretend he was something he wasn’t. It is foolish to hold her and let her think he could be her knight in shining armor, when he knows full well that he is nothing but a scoundrel. He is nothing but a loner, a wanderer, a vagabond. He cannot promise her anything else and yet, he holds her against him now, as if he could—as if has any right to make promises about tomorrow to her.

But before he can say anything else, steel himself to walk away, she is coming undone, and he feels the dampness of her cheek against him, the soft tremors that race through her. He closes his eyes, clenches his teeth, and scowls. This was not his strength—this was not where he excelled. She should be with someone wise, or kind, or, hell, even someone who was good. Not someone who has little morals to speak of, no roots whatsoever, and no interest in friendships or relationships of any kind. She deserves so much more.

Still, for reasons unknown to him, he stays.

He holds her as she comes undone, his mouth still tracing the length of her pretty neck, finding the colors of her endlessly fascinating. “No one has ever said that about me before,” he admits, a sentence that he had intended to turn into a jest but comes out surprisingly serious. The truth is that there was no one in his life to even say that—no one who knows him, who cares for him, who anchors him anywhere.

For the first time ever, the thought saddens him, his face falling until he pushes the idea away.

Focusing on her, he finally whispers into her neck, almost inaudibly.

“My name is Fenris, by the way.”