"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
There is silence amongst the blackness of his cave save for the sound of his hooves dragging against the smooth, damp stone and the way the vibrations cause the thin bones of past corpses to shiver and jolt delicately in the darkness. The riverlord stirs amid the ivory bones (nearly turned to dust with time and age) and the flesh of rotting carcasses. Her scent is stale yet ever-present, reminding him of blood and racing heartbeats and white-rimmed eyes. The stallion snorts, his nose wrinkling disdainfully as he remembers her (the memory is bitter, and the notion that he is able to recall such an emotion sends him into disgust).
She will return - he knows she will - and he will be waiting.
Until then, however, he will remain busy.
The water-mage had never truly understood loneliness (why it was something that others constantly tried to avoid or how it could make one feel so utterly hopeless), but there is a sense of the word floating somewhere in the recesses of his one-track mind, bumping against his skull and reminding him that he has indeed been alone for quite some time. It’s constantly there, thrumming like a weakening pulse as it throbs, forcing him to think thoughts he never had before and to trek out into the open forest with the slightest of hopes that perhaps someone would be at the still, black water of his lake.
The frigid air of autumn reminds him of the past year, where he had spent his company with a nameless soul from a distant island. The memory plays gently in his head (like a lullaby, and the stallion nearly smiles at the thought of the drowning) and for a moment there is a smoothing of his distraught as his hardened face softens. Dark evergreen legs - the color of moss, of algae - bring him to the precipice of the stagnant lake, staring into its reflection like a mirror with thoughts of his grip around throats and the small, delicate bubbles that rise from their nostrils as they twist in turmoil just beneath the surface.
Without much thought, he searches for something deep in the water. Appearing bottomless (but Maugrim knew better), small treasures and trinkets adorn the murky floor; though the drowned god searches for one thing. Expertly he plucks the smooth, emerald shell from its protective hiding place, pulling it from the depths with a mere thought. The water spirals gently around the bauble, spinning it upwards through the lakewater until it breaches the surface with a tiny, minuscule sound. The stallion swirls the shell in watery fingers, his nearly-black eyes reflecting the soft glow of jade from the magical trinket. It soothes him - to methodically twirl it with expertise, to think of nothing but its meaning to him and the beautiful, shining color that seems to be the only light in the dark, dismal forest.
The Oracle had seen him coming days before the thought to leave his cave enters his simple, carnal mind. She had plenty of time to abandon her hovel beside the blackened lake before he could find her, but she carries on as if this day would be no different than any other. With a feeling of mild expectation, she walks to the water's edge to drink. Pressing her lips to the cloudy water, just this side of poison, she hears him. With a snort and a step backward, Celest retreats to the treeline where she lingers, just out of view, until he appears just as she knew he would.
It seemed to be all she did these days, may as well linger where something interesting could happen.
Her violet mane hangs in long, rough fingers across her shoulders, her forelock falls well below the line of her gemstone eyes. The product of a starry-eyed girl's tryst with a god, and well forgotten by any family she could lay claim to. She watches him with dull interest, her weight pressed back into one hip. She had already seen the day of her death after all, and it wasn't today.
"That's a pretty thing," she says to the monster, as if she hadn't seen him remove it from the skull of a fallen queen. "Wonder who you had to kill to get that," she muses. No hint of a smile threatens to disrupt the cool set of her features, but there is no accusation in her voice either.
Celest hadn't been there, of course, she hadn't been anywhere near there on the day of Krone's murder. But that didn't mean she hadn't seen it in every gory, skin-splitting detail. When the vision came to her, on the day on Krone's kidnapping, she hadn't had the option to look away.
Not that it had bothered her too much. She had lived in these woods too long to truly feel others pain. She wouldn't be here if that sort of thing bothered her anymore - it had been years, and five or six monarchs ago when she had been a captive.
09-19-2018, 07:08 PM (This post was last modified: 09-23-2018, 09:36 AM by Maugrim.)
it was a blood-soaked feast that never ceased
She comes from seemingly nowhere (he knows that’s not entirely true; everyone comes from somewhere, even a god like him) and the sudden sound of her voice as well as the announcement of her presence brings a snarl to his pale lips, their iridescent color rippling in the darkness. He does not lose focus on the emerald shell, for he is not that surprised by an onlooker and is neither charmed by what she might have to say. For a moment it appears as if he might ignore her (he is uninterested at first, his dark eyes solely fixated on the twirling jade gem), but her last words cause his abysmal gaze to shift to her with a sinister click.
She now has his undivided attention.
The Ischian shell still spins in his grasp, expertly wielded by his craft even though his gaze no longer focuses on its soft, green glow. You’re a pretty thing, he murmurs silently to himself, though looks and beauty never truly fueled him in the way other things do. She’s pretty in the sense she is collectible, just like everything else is to him - a trinket to be played with, an item to be sculpted and molded to whatever he wished them to be. The reason? Merely because he could.
Wonder who you had to kill to get that. He has already started walking towards her the moment the last words left her lips, a curious and terrible grin spreading across the cracked dryness of his mouth. “Do you, dearie?”Do you wonder? Her voice is confident and full of charm, making the drowned god believe that there is more to the teal and violet mare than meets the eye. She alludes to much more, despite her few words.
The stallion draws the moisture into his skin as he leaves the muddied shoreline of his lake to draw closer to her, keeping tendrils of his two-toned mane and forelock damp against the silver-pearl and deep green of his neck and face. The shell follows, still entrapped in a casing of murky lake water, a snake like tube of it continuing to rise from the lake itself. “It doesn’t matter who,” he mentions flippantly as he stalks towards her, dark eyes roving each expanse of her beautifully patterned skin, wondering if how much force it would take to pierce the glowing shell between her skull, “not when they are only bones and dust, now.”
Maugrim halts before her, a breadth away as the sound of his dripping mane and tail become the only sound in the silent woods around them.
“I wonder,” he begins, parroting her earlier words, “what trinket I could get if I kill you.” Behind him, the tendril of water spiraling from the lake hovers just over his shoulder like a viper, poised to strike with the glowing shell as its head.
Her words cause a snarl to ripple across his maw, and she wonders if she should have appreciated the eerie simplicity of the monster and his plaything a moment longer. But what's done is done, and she steps forward as he simmers in what appears to be irritation.
There is a surge of energy within her biology as his hardened gaze strikes her; her insides shifting, the magic in her veins awakening. Then he is drawing himself from the stagnant waters, and as the space between them diminishes she can feel the dark light thrumming just below her skin. But she does not let the magic show, not yet at least.
He coos to her, his sickly sweet words fueling the building energy in her belly, and she takes each one silently. He doesn't want a response and she lets him speak without interruption mostly out of curiosity - How do clever monsters fill the empty air with words? - until of course, he is questioning her. Then she knows she must give in
She wouldn't want to make him angry just yet.
"I'm not special," she replies with cloyingly sweet, mock modesty as her gaze is drawn to his weapon hovering threateningly in front of her. "...But I think I'd make a better trinket alive than dead."
Celest's eyes flash back to clash with his, as the set of her features loose their theatrical softness. "Is that what you like the girls to say to you before you kill them?" She asks, embolden by her boredom, or the reckless desire for anything interesting to happen. But as her last word falls Celest lets her magic materialize, rippling across her skin in iridescent, purple waves. The gloom is illuminated by violet light as a thin beam shoots through the air. Straight and true it leaves her skin, firing towards his prize at the speed of light, aiming to knock the gem from its watery pedestal.
There is an audible tsk in the cavity of his mouth at her proclamation, knowing fully well that even if it is true, he would certainly find something special about her. It might take some searching and some time, but ultimately, he always succeeded. Her violet eyes trail the spinning weapon beside his own head, reveling in the satisfaction of it seemingly wooing her, a delightfully sinister smile spread across his pearl-colored lips. He wonders for an idle moment why she would be better to him alive than dead, a sparkle in his black irises giving him a knowing look - she must be very special indeed, despite her modesty.
The change in her demeanor is sudden and delicious as her vibrant eyes snap to meet his - nearly challenging him in the way they flash with defiance and confidence. It brings a wild smile to his pale mouth, the dryness of his lips cracking with the movement. “Only to the special ones,” he admits to her with a sinister rise of his brows, amusement and curiosity coating his otherwise ominous expression. He’s about to step closer, infatuated by her unique look and emboldened stance before him, but in that moment a ripple of violet light waves across her body, clinging to her.
He’s mesmerized by it for a moment. It takes him by surprise and he holds his breath as it passes towards him, leaving her and shooting through the air like a breath from her lungs. Much to his surprise, it doesn’t slice through his chest or pierce his body, but she instead uses it to zap the emerald shell from his possession. It falls to the ground in a tinkling of sound, lying now on the damp, dark floor dully. His eyes do not fall to his trinket - not yet - and instead he immediately strides towards her, finding her choice to not harm him physically to be simply idiotic.
Yet at the same time, it was simply fascinating.
“Not special, dearie?” He closes in on her, easily pulling another spire of water from the lake behind them, though its target is not the Ischian shell. Forcefully he places the black water like a finger beneath her chin, tilting her face towards him so that his hungry eyes could swallow her up, holding her jaw tightly so that he can run his calloused lips across her cheeks with a shuddering exhale.
“I beg to differ.”
m a u g r i m.
@[Celest] Maugrim has reached full creep status :|
The thread of water tilts her face upward, towards him, and she does not resist. The black amethyst of her eye, glinting like two violet stars in the gloom, do not leave him. Whatever shock he may have felt has apparently faded, and he places himself well within her personal space. His breath, hot and unpleasant, crosses her cheek and still, she does not squirm.
"Oh," she sighs, wanting and sultry, "I'm melting under your compliments."
Her voice drips with sarcasm, but her gaze remains locked on his as he holds her face in his liquid grasp. Adrenaline washes over her deliciously, singeing her heart in a way she hasn't felt in years. But even so, she knows what the beast she plays with is capable of, and she isn't about the let him get the better of her if she can help it.
A thrum of light reverberates across her skin once again (a reminder, a warning) and she shudders in his grasp. The tingling power of it had always made her feel better than any love could, she assumes, because she had never had the chance to test her theory. The water which steadies her face is tinted a sickly yellow-purple as the light shines through it, illuminating the floating sickness and debris it holds.
Why she warns him instead of putting a spear of light through his chest she can't be sure, the adrenaline high beyond the point of fully thinking things out. She does remember the last time she killed a man it didn't go as planned, or maybe it's partially because she's... having fun.
But either way, she reminds herself, If he stays this close there would be little he could do to avoid a blast traveling at the speed of light.
She does not shy away from the emptiness of his black eyes; she meets his gaze head on, defiant and proud. There is almost a laugh that escapes his mouth but he refrains somehow, the only semblance of it being the sinister curl of his pale lips as they turn upwards. She is rigid; unafraid - much like him, he muses, as the soullessness of his eyes rake across the brilliant and vibrant color of her eyes and face, pressing the teal-green of her cheek into the hardness of his mouth in a kiss that is not at all in lust - more like possession.
The violet light vibrates across her once again (like a viper posed in warning, rattling its tail, ready to strike) and it lights up the darkness of his eyes with a haunting glow. His face is thoughtful, calculating, foreboding for all of a few tense moments as if he is making some sort of decision, and then the algae-green and pearl stallion snorts sharply.
She is too delectable to be thrown away; she is a trinket in and of herself, something to entertain his bored mind. His water releases her with a gentle shove - nearly playful - and it slithers back into the deep with a gurgle, but not before grabbing the emerald shell from the forest floor and returning it to its home amongst the muck of the lake-bottom.
The drowned god takes a single step away from her (far enough to allow her to relax, perhaps, but still close enough to make it known that he does not expect her to try to go anywhere any time soon), the murkiness of the lakewater reflecting in his gaze. “Why are you here?” It’s posed as a question, though it hardly sounds like one as it rattles from his throat.
![[Image: celest_by_cowgirlconrad-dcolc1l.png]](https://orig00.deviantart.net/bc93/f/2018/277/3/d/celest_by_cowgirlconrad-dcolc1l.png)
