leaves all sinking, fever dreaming; ANY

[magnus]

magnus

howling ghosts, they reappear
in mountains that are stacked with fear

For a moment there is nothing but the ragged sound of his breathing, hoarse as it finds its way up his throat and through gritted teeth. There is nothing but the sound of him as he wrestles with his demons, his gold-flecked eyes shut tight, his mind whirling with everything that he had seen, everything that he had witnessed again, his demons clarified in the dreams. They dance within him, and his body burns with their existence, with the way that they howl through the back of his mind—powerful and real and alive.

He can feel her touch, but it is a distant, alien sensation.

Still—

Still.

He groans in his throat, the blood dripping down his already substantially scarred knees.

Blind with anguish, weak with pain, he turns to her, first mindlessly pressing his forehead against her, finding the pressure to be grounding. She is warm, she is heat, and he is suddenly starving—his heart broken up and shattered, laid bare beneath the open air. Before he knows it, his lips are on her, followed by teeth that grazes. They race up her neck and to her jaw, dragging the spotted mare to him in blind need.

Something to be real.

Something to hold.

For a moment, he loses himself in her. He tastes nothing but the salt of her on his tongue, the feel of her against him, and his heart thuds painfully in his chest. She is Joelle. She is Minette. She is Ellyse. She is all of those he has loved. All of those he has lost. Then she is just Kagerus, the mare of dreams and memory, and he opens his eyes, gold-flecked gaze finding hers, burning with everything that lights him on fire. The groan turns to a throaty growl, his eyes over bright. She is alive and beautiful and whole.

He wants to drown in this.

He wants to drown in her.

But need’s sharp edge turns on him and he breaks away, pushing off her to take a stumbling few steps away, breathing heavily with his head turned. For a moment, he says nothing, can do nothing but stand there and gather himself. When he does speak again, there are shards of glass in his throat, his whiskey voice nearly hoarse with the dregs of his need, with the burning of his shame.

“I am so sorry,” he shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have done that.” 

but you're a king and I'm a lionheart

[Kagerus]

Kagerus

{ and in my dreams I've kissed your lips a thousand times }

The static flows around us, subtle and nuanced - the last breath of a dream that leaves us warm despite our shuddering skin. In the drift between wakefulness and sleep, I lose track of which truly belongs to us; for as a groan tears from Magnus' lips, something in the air changes, the static becoming charged. The reality becoming nightmarish.

There's not a single moment wherein I entertain the thought of his advances towards me. As his blind anguish materializes in his mouth going over my body with a keen sense of ownership and need, it's as if my muscles have turned to stone, and inside them, my bones to dust. His heart hammers in his chest and mine does too, both with need of someone who isn't here (though his are gone gone, whereas mine is a day's trip away). We are well versed in the bodily exchange of sex and passion, and indeed I could reach out and take control and show him just how passionate we truly could be, in the dreamscape.

My eyes dull over, tongue like ash in the dying embers of my mouth. He tries to meet them but he can't see in his crazed desire, sees only that which I presented to him before - a strong, confident queen, crowned by antlers and ruled by none but herself, one who remembers things long past and one who can make them almost real again. A magician perhaps, a seductress by accident, something to hold on to.

He growls, and my heart drops. My fingers tingle as they reach to do harm in the strange half-awakened dream, pulling strings of self defense as I fear the further onslaught of his body against mine.

But then he's pulling away.
Stepping back.
Looking away.

I am so sorry. His voice is glass but my skin is steel. His apology falls on deaf ears. I shouldn't have done that.

A myriad of responses course through my mind, shifting the hue of my tears as they gather in my eyes. I flinch, the barely repressed action of attempting to gore the stallion where he stands with the sharp prongs of my antlers; I gag, vomit and anger and sadness and shame threatening to spill from my gut. My eyes are still fixed stubbornly ahead: vacant.

"I have a wife." My lips tug downward.
"We have six children." My voice wavers.
My head snaps to him, emotions still utterly muddled, but one thing clear: "You shouldn't have done that."

Go to the mountain, Kag. Panthera's voice, coming from afar as she senses my turmoil and balances herself not far from where we stand. Do what you know you must, before I do what I feel I must.

I hesitate. Wouldn't it be beautiful, to watch this man - so changed from whom I'd first taken him to be - be torn apart by the leopard?

Kagerus. Now.

Wordless, I take off in a full gallop, coating my body in the cool waters of the river in my haste to be away, to be to the mountain. Somewhere behind me, my leopard follows.

@[magnus]