"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
10-02-2015, 02:55 AM (This post was last modified: 10-06-2015, 02:40 PM by Kushiel.)
Kushiel rarely strayed far from the burning tree. He didn’t see why anyone would. It was perfect, like the Chamber its self. It was a statement, a warning, and just a little bit magical. He inhaled smoke and ash, and thought, not for the first time, that it was better than fresh air.
Kushiel liked fire. Fire was reckless. It didn’t care who it hurt, and it was never personal. It burned because it was hungry, and that was all the reason it needed. He reveled in it’s heat and closed his cloudy, contented, satiated eyes.
The large gray stallion leaned against the trunk and growled low in his throat, like a petted cat or a rumbling tiger. If he wasn’t careful he would just declare this tree his lover and be done with it.
After all, they burned for each other.
Kushiel snorted loudly as he eyes flew open. He had inhaled too much smoke. He took a single step away from the tree and looked up at its branches. After the Gate’s raid something had shifted in him, ever so slightly. The flames he’d used to burn the tree had been all consuming. They had burned for so long that he felt himself become flame. He wasn’t sure what would happen, if he did it again.
A part of him really wanted to try.
Yet, some of the craving had gone as well. It was like all the desire to destroy himself had burned up, and the creature that emerged still needed the flame, but he was more like the lantern, rather than the moth. Perhaps, he had just inhaled too much smoke and he was beginning to hallucinate. That was very possible, it had happened before.
Kushiel snorted again. He needed to get a hobby. Preferably something more productive than self examination. Nothing good ever came from introspection. He was of the opinion that the unexamined soul was the peaceful soul. Better to let sleeping dogs lie.
I was looking for a breath of life another taste of divine rush
Everything about her past screams that SHE SHOULDN’T LIKE THE FIRE. That dream, the burning, the way her minature, stiff legs melted and twisted together over the open flames. That pain that was so real, the screeching that no one could hear. A dream, a dream, a dream, adreamadreamadream. Maybe if she tries to forget it, it will never have happened. Her mind only has room for so much: Straia, bunnies, stupidface Gryffen (she does not like him, even though they are on the same team. He is so snide, so mean, thinks his shit doesn’t stink. Oh how she’d love to - you see? obsessive), Straia, and now - the fire that keeps on burning. Fire isn’t supposed to do that. This is magical fire. This is… almost as good as Straia.
Don’t ask her why, but she’s fascinated by it. Shaytan could stare at its dancing, twisting, crackling little branches with glassy eyes for a very long time.
But even self-styled sentinels need a bathroom break.
Shaytan and Kushiel must keep just missing each other, because when the large, spotted mare returns, she sees the gray stallion rubbings obscenely (in her mind) up against it. Assaulting the tree. Getting intimate. NO. No no no! That is not ok! She sputters and squeaks and almost begins to froth at the mouth in reaction to the perceived slight against both her and the tree. “No!” she manages to finally say, bolting forward towards Kushiel’s rear end (if he hasn’t already turned at the sound of her labored breathing), just to try and move him away from the tree.
She doesn’t know what it’s like to be the flame. She has no special traits or anything that makes her stand out, aside from the occasional rodent blood splashed across her lips. She is just Shaytan. And she needs to keep the flames safe. Just like she needs Straia.
Kushiel had been enjoying his day. The sun was out, the grass was green, the tree was on fire. Really, who could ask for more? Besides, it was spring. Foals were everywhere, and you couldn’t help but smile at them. Even if one or two of those foals were Gryffen’s creepy babies with big red eyes. Hey, kids were still cute, right? Even if they had a demonic tint to them? Anyways, Kushiel had been minding his own business (and maybe a little of Gryffen’s business as well) and thought he hadn’t been bothering anyone.
Keyword, thought.
He heard the sound of labored panting behind him and turned around with some unease. Oh god, was one of Gryffen’s conquests going into labor? That really wasn’t what he needed. But, now he saw that it wasn’t a laboring mare. Or at least, it was a mare, Shaytan to be specific, and she certainly did look belabored, but she didn’t seem to be with child. Perhaps she carried the baby weight really well? Kushiel looked at her closely, then spoke carefully.
“Do you need me to call someone? Another mare perhaps?” Yes, he was trying to pawn the job off on someone else, no he was not ashamed. Kushiel knew his own limitations, and delivering a child was exactly on the wrong side of that line. Still, the mare didn’t seem to react well to his helpful suggestion. She charged him, and the big stallion scrambled out of the way, undignified and confused.
“Hey!” He shouted at her, his flaming mane puffing a little higher at the perceived threat.
“Easy girl!” He dodged her with more grace than he knew he possessed and shouted again, not very soothing to say the least.
“I said easy!” The irony of shouting soothing words was not lost on Kushiel, he just didn’t have a ready alternative. For a diplomat, he rarely said the right thing, and he was completely unprepared to deal with this situation. Finally, when he thought she was calm enough, or at least when they had enough distance between them that he didn’t feel she was an immediately threat, Kushiel huffed in annoyance and growled at her.
“Can I help you with something?” He didn’t know a lot about Shaytan, but she did seem a little…off. He got the feeling she was the kid all the other kids had given a wide berth. He didn’t hold that against her, after all, he had been that kid as well. He just didn’t appreciate her rather special attentions.
I was looking for a breath of life another taste of divine rush
Wow, Kushiel isn’t the brightest bulb in the packet if he thinks that Shaytan is going into labor. He’s probably never seen a birth (not that Shaytan remembers Sayaa’s and the dead one’s either). Shaytan half laughs, half snorts at his question and it comes out off rather… deranged? Loopy. This is the second time she’s found someone - or someone interrupted her - while she was with the tree. And Shaytan did not like that. She had nothing to call her own, nothing to draw Straia’s eyes, and so the one thing she clings to now is this tree. Her child is all but forgotten and even the thirst for bunny blood takes a back seat. Her dreams are filled with flickering flames, fire the does not consume or burn until it does, and turns into a raven, and then she always welcomes the dream death.
But Kushiel’s flames are not like the tree’s flames. They are normal. They have heat and they can singe her skin, but it doesn’t stop the rampaging spotted bull. Not until he has some distance from her, and even more from the sacred fire.
Her single-mindedness is remarkable. It is, perhaps, the only potentially positive remarkable thing about Shaytan. That and her devotion, which is a form of obsession, stubbornness, and determination of its own.
She gives him a narrowed, sideways look, as if he is hiding something. Whether his words have any effect or not is unclear, but she calms once he is a decent ways away. “Yes.” she says, simply. “This is mine. My space. You stay over there.” Like a child, she has irrationally claimed the space as her own. And woe betide anyone who came into it without bringing her a present - without something that would satisfy her.
Three guesses as to what that might be, and the first two don’t count.
Kushiel had a rough week. He’d just gotten back from the Deserts after tangling with their god forsaken magician, been roughed up by their rotten hound, been interrogated by do-gooder Shahrizai and assisted in the delivery of a foal.
He was not in a good mood.
For all his faults, Kushiel was almost always in a good mood. He enjoyed life. He enjoyed standing beneath his kingdom’s tree, he enjoyed leering at his queen, he enjoyed baiting the other kingdoms. He did not like being threatened by a god damn bunny killer. During her initial charge, he’d been so flabbergasted, so taken aback that he had actually ran. He scooted away from her like one of those unfortunate rabbits. That thought nettled him, it hurt his pride. His confusion, and the fact that he had to deal with a certifiable lunatic, pushed him over the threshold of sarcastic and grumpy and into the world of flat out pissed.
Kushiel bared his teeth. In what was perhaps the first show of real aggression he’d ever mustered, he stalked towards the captain, danger and fire glinting in his eyes. With each step his flames rose a little higher until he was an inferno, until his mane was ablaze with fire every bit as bright, and far more deadly, than the tree's. His fire would burn. He’d just have to apologize for it later.
What was the saying? Better to ask for forgiveness than permission?
Screw that, Kushiel wasn’t going to ask for forgiveness. This was self defense. This was defense of his delicate, squishy pride that he kept hidden beneath layers and layers of bullshit and lies. He got closer and closer to Shaytan, as close and she would let him, and damned the consequences.
“Look, girly," He said, his voice low and deadly.
"I’m going to count to three, and then I’m going to light your ass up so bright they’ll assume a second sun has risen.” He was, perhaps, being a little dramatic. Anyone who expected anything less from Kushiel was a fool who didn’t learn from past experiences. He wasn’t going to be chased away by some silly woman who couldn’t be reasoned with. He wasn’t going to intimidated by a bunny killer.
No, he wasn’t built for manual labor. But, who said anything about labor? This was going to be fun.
I was looking for a breath of life another taste of divine rush
Oh of course, take your problems out on the crazy one. No wonder Kushiel doesn’t have a girlfriend. A fire-wielder against poor, loopy Shaytan. Real mature of you, Kushiel. Great role model for the kids. Poor Kushiel and his fire powers, god forbid there be some recompense for his actions.
After all, her intention is only to protect the tree from his sexual assault. What’s wrong with that?
Shay has little in the world - almost no respect (look at what Kushiel says, they laugh at her for her bunny addiction), no lover (even though she would do anything for Straia), and she’s really bad with kids. All the spotted mare has is her affinity for this tree and he couldn’t even give her that. Typical bully stallion; he isn’t as bad as Gryffen, but she can feel her lips start to curl with disdain for his blatant abuse of his power. Even if that abuse is what makes him fit in with the other members of this kingdom, would Straia really like it if he turned the flames on the crazy, harmless one?
She thinks not, and she’ll hedge her bets on it. Which may get her burned, in the end, but so be it.
She puts on her best defiant voice and wildest crazy eyes and scoots closer to the flames that won’t burn her. Maybe if he did actually light her ass on fire, the otherworldly flames would put it out? She doesn’t know, it’s just a stab in the dark. “No,” she spits back at him, like some child full of bravado. “I’m not afraid of you.” Which is true. She isn’t.
Perhaps she should be - but after all, Shaytan is also almost certainly certifiably crazy. She doesn't know any better
11-02-2015, 09:55 PM (This post was last modified: 11-02-2015, 09:58 PM by Kushiel.)
Kushiel groaned dramatically, like a kid denied a lollypop, or like a grown man denied his way. Both scenarios elicited the same amount of ire and rage. Life was hard, he didn’t know why it had to be this way. But still, he needed to take a moment and think about this rationally. Did he really want to light the captain on fire? Was that really in the spirit of diplomacy? This was a question he asked himself very, very rarely. While he was, technically, a diplomat, the last act of diplomacy he had done was burn the Gate’s tree to the ground.
It hadn’t take an awful lot of tact to accomplish that.
This situation may warrant a more finessing hand. Kushiel groaned again, and extinguished a bit of the flame. He took a deep, shaky breath.
“Good, because I’m not afraid for you either.” He gave the mare a glower, just for good measure, just to show her that while he was extinguishing the flames, he wasn’t giving up. He was just trying a new approach, a diplomatic one. He narrowed his eyes a little, and when he thought she was listening to him he continued.
“Look, Shaytan, I think we got off on the wrong foot.” He tried to plaster a friendly smile on his face. He probably only accomplished a look akin to chewing glass. He did, however, nobly press on. He had an idea, a master plan even, he was going to try to relate to crazy on its own level.
“You see, I’m not hurting the tree. I’m helping the tree. It likes the fire, I give it more, and it makes me happy. This is called a symbiotic relationship.” Kushiel nodded eagerly, feeling like he was on to something. Perhaps, he was just about to get his head bashed in by this crazy bull of a mare, but there was still the possibility that she would be won over by his logic, charm and good looks.
“If you want, we could have a symbiotic relationship. We could both stand near the tree, and you could agree not to charge me, and I could agree not to light you on fire. I bet Straia would like that, if she could see her subjects getting along so well.” Invoking Straia’s name may have been playing dirty, but he also wasn’t wrong. Surely, there had to be some award for playing nice. It was, after all, really, really difficult to do in this den of monsters. Kushiel waited, not exactly on baited breath, but with a good deal of anticipation for Shaytan’s response. They would have to work this out eventually, after all, or else they were doomed to constantly butt heads (very literally) over the tree.
I was looking for a breath of life another taste of divine rush
While I wouldn’t call Shaytan gullible or stupid, when an illogical idea is presented rather logically, she is liable to believe it to be good. Especially if they invoke Straia’s name. Kushiel hit the nail on the head with that one. Good job, Kushiel!
They stand there, glowering at each other until he douses his flames, issuing a sort of apology. Well, yes, they sort of did. They’ve never really interacted with each other. Shaytan saw him at the burning of the Tree, and then here he was again, with his flames and assaulting the tree. She supposes he’s right. They don’t know each other. And there is more to Shaytan than her bunny killing predilection. Shay bites the inside of her cheek and then looks away, her version of acquiescing and acknowledging that yes, they did and she is sort of sorry.
He continues, and Shay doesn’t know if she buys what he’s saying. The tree actually likes the flames? Her face scrunches up as she tries to process the idea. Ok, sure, fire is fire. But the tree’s fire is special fire. She sputters out, “It likes it?” and then her lips press into a flat line and she fixes Kushiel with a skeptical stare. “I’m not sure I believe that. Shaytan visibly hemms and haws and it isn’t until the stallion invokes Straia that she sighs and harumphs a little. “I guess you’re right. That is what Straia would want.” She gives him a little suspicious sideways glance. Suddenly, she blurts out, “But I’m going to lay down, instead.”
And on that, the spotted mare won’t budge an inch.
Kushiel saw that he was having some small measure of success with Shaytan. At least she wasn’t attacking him any longer. That was better than nothing. Besides, the gray stallion was hardly in the mood to do any more attacking of his own. He was tried. His head hurt. He did stuff last week. He deserved a break. Still, he heard the skepticism in her voice and tried to keep a wince off his face. Fine, maybe he’d gone a little too far with saying the tree liked the fire. Still, he certainly hadn’t done it any harm, and Kushiel liked its fire. It was safe to say that at worse, the tree was ambivalent. Still, Kushiel didn’t want to push his luck. He only nodded, keeping his mouth shut for once in his whole life.
When Shaytan acquiesced he mustered up a grin, and tried not to sag in relief. Well what did you know? Diplomacy did sometimes work. The stallion felt the flicker of his good move return, and he felt bold enough to step a little closer to the tree, to share it with her as they had decided. About then was when she decided to lie down. The gray stallion jumped a little in surprise, then looked at her prone form with curiosity.
Was he really so unintimidating? Did women and children really feel no need to fear his presence? The big stallion scowled. He needed to work on that. He didn’t even bother to keep the sarcasm from his voice.
“Well by all means, take a load off!” He all but crowed it, feeling a little put out. Not only was he not a threat, but apparently, he was boring. Was she going to sleep or just proving a point? He muttered incoherently under his breath. She was, perhaps, the strangest women he had ever met, and he’d met his mother. Really, that was saying something. Unable to stand it any longer, he looked down at the spotted girl.
“So, Shaytan. Seriously, what’s your deal? Do the bunnies taste good or did you have a messed up childhood?” He knew a thing or two about messed up childhoods. His mother was a mindreader who asked about his love life. The accidental things things he had divulged were enough to permanently scare them both. Still, he had not turned to the murder of fluffy animals. He looked down at Shaytan curiously, to check to see if she was still awake, and it see if perhaps a visual helped him better understand her. It did not.
I was looking for a breath of life another taste of divine rush
I think that Kushiel probably misunderstands Shaytan. He is not boring and he is not un-intimidating. She just wants to lay down, so she does. More often than not, Shay is a simple creature and the easiest explanation for her actions is usually the right one. Don’t quote me on that, though. I’m sure she still has some surprises up her polka-dotted sleeves. For now, she wants to lie down - so she simply lies down, perfectly content to warm her backside by the eternal fire. Shaytan probably would have been happy to let the conversation die down, but no - Kushiel continues.
If she were completely self aware about how others perceived her, she would be surprised that her fellow Chamberlings didn’t ask that question sooner, or more frequently. One ear flickers towards him and she snorts, because they have it all wrong. While, yes, Belgarath was an abysmal father and she didn’t have any friends growing up (they all thought she was weird - and hell, can you blame them?), she woudln’t necessarily call it ‘messed up.’ “I don’t eat the bunnies. I just drink their blood. Sometimes.” She pauses and puts her thinking face on. “I don’t think so. It was… fine.” In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t traumatizing like the toybox or this last very realistic nightmare. Belgarath was a piece of cake, and Navarro, in all his creepiness, was just a blip on her radar now.
And that's that. She doesn't want to say any more on the matter. Not with his judgey tone of voice ringing in her ears.
Shaytan
so many lives so many pairs of eyes
[do you want to end this here and maybe pick up a new thread later? ]
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