"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
12-26-2017, 11:23 AM (This post was last modified: 12-26-2017, 11:24 AM by Nyxa.)
N y x a
She would feel differently about many things, if she understood the half of them.
Nyxa has yet to peel the glamour of life from her eyes; even now, surrounded by the black-dark and crowded by the pressure of his gift nudging her between the shoulderblades, she still cannot seem to gather enough sense to see how thin of a line she’s currently walking. She only lowers her ears at first, mutters an irritated “Ow,” as he re-shapes himself out of the waves, and ends with a simple “That hurt.”
The little nymph flirts with death and chooses to chastise its methods. Adorable.
I have many homes he grumbles, the expression of pained frustration missed by the younger girl who’s turned a curious eye to investigate the myriad of sea squid gathering around them. One flits especially close to her face and she studies it with the hint of a smile, her vocals working to hum along with the jerk, jerk, jerk of its propelling nature. In that moment (the one before she turns her eyes to him with disbelief) there is everything indicative of their differences and nothing to link them together aside from the sea.
Nyxa is happy to lose herself to the waves, to spin her songs and collect her seaglass where the waters are warmest and bright. Maugrim is lord of the water; he cares for little aside from his own interests.
Much more beautiful than anything on land the green-and-pearl stallion says - so confident and assured. But Nyxa turns to him, aghast at this news (and at finding him so close!) with one thought to strike his statement dead where it stands. “Hod is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on,” the wingless mare knows, “the most beautiful and the most landlocked being there is.”
Suddenly she feels sick. Her hooves churn the wet silt into a hazy film that rises as Nyxa circles slowly away from the ethereal beast. Her eyes no longer deign to rest upon his features, nor do her ears long for some pearl of wisdom from his lips. Maugrim was wrong, dead wrong, and she feels betrayed into thinking he could be anything as grand as the sea god himself. “Just like the other earth-dwellers.” The girl ponders, her narrow chest fluttering with equal measures of pain and longing. She shouldn’t be here - it was all gone to hell now and that prick of concern she’d ignored earlier was back with a vengeance. “Never.” She responds curtly, “It’s been interesting, though.”
A headache grows from the pressure between her eyes and she blinks away frightened tears, hopeful that her emotions and growing panic will be hidden by the cadence of her voice as she warbles, “The hour grows late … perhaps we should do this another time?” Nyxa isn’t certain this will work (trusting imbecile) but she manages to gather her wings again, the desire to be far away helping to speed along the process. A testing flap disturbs the deep and lazy squid and for a moment, her hooves lift free of the sand.
His dark eyes, as bottomless and deep as the ocean that surrounds them, snap to hers as she makes it known that he had hurt her with his attempts to salvage the one part of her he found beautiful, and his ears flick to nothingness beneath his ivory and seaweed-strewn mane. The calmness he finds at the bottom of their trench (no - his trench, now) begins to ebb away, and his curiosity of the water filly is waning as familiar rage begins to boil beneath his salt-soaked skin. She has turned to look away at the translucent and vibrant squid as they float by, and when she turns to face him he is there to greet her with the same expression of indifference, yet now his eyes are somehow hungry. There is something there, within his body language, that had not been there before.
The fright in her stare fuels him, stirs something within his chest that had been absent until this very moment - she is startled by him now, no longer enamoured by his prowess or abilities, and though naive and young, her wide eyes give him insight to her swirling thoughts - she has made a mistake.
Had they been on land, she would have felt the warmth of his breath on her neck, his heartbeat thrumming wildly through his chest as he realizes he no longer can hold her here without force - he had hoped it wouldn’t have come to this, but the sweet little fool simply is giving him no choice.
Maugrim can feel the water rising to her withers, pulling around him ever so slightly to create the beautiful wings he so desperately craves, and with a glazed look he watches, his tongue running across his lips at their formation. His brows rise with amusement as she tests them with a few graceful flaps, their current washing over his entire body as he continues to let his power keep him glued to the ocean’s floor.
“The hour grows late … perhaps we should do this another time?”
“Another time?” he says incredulously as his eyes slide to meet hers, wondering if she can feel the tightening of the water around her barrel as he brings her back down into the murky bottom - wondering if it sickens her to realize what she has done, what she has ruined. The trance between them is broken, the idea that she could share the same love for the sea as him now shattered. Perhaps she could learn, he thinks. Perhaps she could learn to be grateful for what he is and what he can show her.
He stares at her for a long moment. She is too young for him to be interested in sex or any other sort of physical relief from his rage, and though murder is an obvious option, she is far too pretty for him to allow to waste away. He thinks about the jelly-fish woman, with glowing tentacles that he had brought beneath the waves. This water-winged child will join his collectibles, he decides, beneath the waves of what others believe are calm and trusting waters. “But there is so much for me to still show you, my dear water lily. That’s what you wanted, right?” A frown finds his terrible face, his eyes glimmering with satisfaction as he bends the water to tighten its grip, fastening around her barrel and legs, slowly applying pressure to her throat, constricting like a snake around her. He watches her ravenously, wondering how long it will take for the girl to succumb to the darkness of unconsciousness.
“The ocean is a big place...we must get started immediately.”
m a u g r i m.
@[Nyxa] <3
so he figures making her go unconscious will make it easier to transport her to where he wants her. if that's not okay let me know and i will change it! he's bringing everyone to ischia that he captures, so if you want to reply to close out this thread, we can start another one there? <333
