"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
09-08-2021, 06:47 PM (This post was last modified: 09-08-2021, 06:50 PM by Aela.)
YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS
She nearly smiles at him - one of made of something more than just false promises and potential godhood - as they laugh together.
Aela is used to being praised, is used to feeling wandering eyes on her as they travel her perfect lines. It is perhaps why, with Skandar, when he does it, she feels something completely different when he does it. Her body is just another tool to be utilized; another means to an end. But when he looks at her (and she can certainly feel it), Skandar doesn't make her feel like a weapon.
He makes her feel something else entirely, a feeling worthy of the gods that they are.
The healing waters of Tephra do nothing for him, but illuminate his skin. The stars dance there, possibly revealing a future that Reave could see, but when she looks into the molten eyes of him, Aela doesn't need the power of foresight to understand what this is. This is destiny, burning deep within her and lighting all her senses aflame.
For a moment, he is perfection.
But then the familiar sound of his skin pulling apart reaches her delicate ears, and the palomino turns the cheek nearest to him. His shifting is becoming better, she realizes. The cracking and shuttering of him lasts merely the blink of an eye and when Aela turns to look at him, there is the Pampas Prince standing before her. Striding boldly towards her just as the real Obscene would have done and she can't help the appraising look that she gives the dark brute. She is looking for differences, imperfections, any minute mistake but even the voice that speaks to her doesn't sound like Skandar.
If she were to close her eyes and lean into the statuesque shape next to her (the red of his desire almost ignites her), Aela might convince herself that this really was Obscene.
There are many thoughts in her mind (and many memories), and while Aela had found the dark stallion appealing (she would accept nothing less), the reasons she had wanted Obscene are not the same reasons that she wants Skandar. She had thought that once that would do whatever it took so that he might touch her, but Aela finds now that isn't true. If there had been a reason for it - if they had to convince the rest of the Flower Court after disposing of the real Pampas Prince - she might have allowed it.
"Perfect," she compliments him, tipping her slender head so that it might reach behind his onyx ear, allowing herself to come only so close. "For Loess." Aela tells him instead, pulling slowly away from him, and then glanced sidelong over to the shapeshifter, wanting someone else entirely.
The way her eyes trace his new form is studious and careful; she is looking for imperfections or improvements in his version of Obscene, though it is easy to match the indifferent expression that Skandar also wears similarly to the dark stallion. Aela would easily see and recognize anything that may be amiss with his new skin Skandar realizes bitterly - would she be able to tell a mimic apart from the real thing? His thoughts continue to roil, twisted and burning, wondering if someone were to wear his face if she would be able to notice, or does their lack of intimacy leave them vulnerable?
His mind is not hers but his emotions can be easily plucked from his thoughts if she wishes, aggrieved and tumultuous.
Perfect. He calms for a moment, the scarlet of his eyes meeting hers with a sweeping motion, allowing the compliment to sink into the darkness of his skin. Focusing with a quiet concentration, Skandar copies the shining black scales that often creep along Obscene’s skin - smooth and glittering in their layered formation. Beyond perfection, he retorts silently with a quirk of his dark brows. Of course, he is - she would not allow him to be anything less and would not accept him if it were otherwise.
The closeness of her breath on his armored skin fogs the shine of Obscene’s scales, the sensation causing them to retreat and disappear, flickering into the obsidian of his skin. She pulls away (too soon) and he cannot help but follow, his head drifting towards her as her electric gaze watches him expectantly. He pauses but it is for no more than a second (perhaps it is the waters that embolden him, that allow him to dare to push any boundary that they may have skirted around before) and in the single-step he takes to draw closer to her, the black and gold of Obscene is stripped away in a wave of fluttering skin, returning the pieces of his flesh into that mystical, starry pattern.
It is in this form that his mouth attempts to find her throat - the same part of her delicate pulse that he had scarred with terrible fangs. There would no monstrosity or violence in his touch but instead, a sort of heat that leaves his own lips burning. He caresses her lightly, almost with regret for the impulsivity that caused him to bite into her throat, his chest tightening as her heartbeat quickens beneath his lips. He can feel his own pulse match the fervent beat of her own, tracing her golden skin for a moment more before even allowing his burning orange gaze to glance at her reaction, prepared for whatever it may be.
“Aela,” he breathes onto her perfect skin, memorizing the warmth of her beneath his touch. There is a weight to his voice - so much more to be said beneath it, so much more that he should say - but he cannot find the words. So silence befalls him, much to his dismay.
skandar
i want to be the bullet that brings you to your knees
She pulls away, and thinks that will be the end of it.
It always is with them.
The one line that they, ironically, give themselves.
But then Skandar who is Obscene is suddenly himself again, and Aela turns her elegant head at the familiar sound of his shifting skin. The stars are back, and where they had once been the onyx sea of dark skin, suddenly destiny marks Skandar again. She reaches out and traces one constellation gleaming on his neck, finding herself unsatisfied with touching only that one piece of heaven.
As it always is with Aela, she wants more.
His fervent touch causes the Seneschal to lift her head, and without words, Aela reveals her vulnerability by exposing her throat to the wolf that Skandar could become. He could bite down again. He could perhaps even make friends with Gale by tearing her throat out and leaving her lovely body behind as a peace offering. But he follows the gentle curve of her skin and Aela wonders if he knows how many truths he could discover with this one action.
When his dark blue and orange face turns to look at her, Aela tilts her fine one towards him so that she might trap him in the intensity of her gaze.
"Do you know that I dreamed of burning Tephra for you?" she murmurs, and steps closer to him, allowing the images of that vivid dream to sear into his mind. The volcano looms in the hazy distance, illuminated only by the faint red-orange glow of magma exploding from its summit and pouring down the sides. It wasn't only Tephra that blazed during her search; there are fiery dream memories of the Pampas and Sylva burning in an attempt to reveal where Skandar had gone the last time he had disappeared.
The pictures gradually fade, leaving only the rising heat flickering behind Aela's brilliantly blue eyes.
09-28-2021, 03:46 PM (This post was last modified: 09-28-2021, 03:49 PM by Skandar.)
The lightness of her mouth tracing the delicate patterns of stars across the deep indigo and violet leaves his skin to flutter beneath it, as if he cannot decide if he should stay his natural self or if she would ask him to become another, bringing the endless dreams of her mind into reality. He remembers her perfect throat, exposed as it is now, with gleaming and beautiful ruby drops welling into the holes he had created, running in slow-moving rivulets down the curve of her chest and the slenderness of her legs. The stallion swallows hard, the muscles in his jawline flexing beneath the tension that forms in the clenching of his teeth.
However, his impulsiveness begins to wither away, much more enthralled with the scent of her burning gold skin than the idea to pierce it once again. The reminder of that moment brings more than the red of rage to his eyes; there is something more selfish in his gaze, less chaotic. She holds him here in a near standoff and though she is the one that is vulnerable, Skandar does not doubt her position of control she has over him. He’d become anything for her, he realizes. Even another man, if she had wished it.
But she hadn’t.
The images of the volcano infiltrate his mind simultaneously as her words permeate the humid air, her voice a near-whisper in their closeness. A deep inhale shudders in his chest, his orange and violet nostrils fluttering. Without thinking, his skin flays and flickers, releasing the bright orange glow of lava within the sinister cracks of their movement. His mouth - half stars and half burning magma - press against her throat in a kiss, the magical waters of the falls healing any searing of her skin the moment his lips leave her.
“It should not stay a dream,” he murmurs back almost wickedly despite the methodical pace of his voice. “We can do anything.” He pauses, hovering the warmth of his lips across her cheek, “You can do anything.”
skandar
i want to be the bullet that brings you to your knees
Skander knew how impossibly handsome he was; he must know, she thinks. They had been alike in that way, knowing how to use the laws of attraction to point things in their favor. Aela has known from their beginning that the galaxy-marked stallion was good looking - almost divinely so - and yet the thrill of the sight of his clenched jaw invokes an entirely new feeling.
Aela has brought men to their knees before, but never a God.
It sparks an intense rush of adrenaline (and desire), and it makes her wonder if Skandar knew what he did to her; if he knew the way that he could topple all her carefully laid plans for them really did mark him as the Dark God's son. But she doesn't care, she decides. Aela lets his burning touch sear her skin and it sizzles where the healing waters and his touch join together. Despite the way that the two magics counteract each other, the slender palomino becomes wholely his (as much as Aela can belong to anyone).
She continues to tilt her head back, exposing her throat more and more to the skinwalker. His touch - though heated - feels electric and it only emboldens the Empath, who continually begins to lose the grasp of her own powers and begins to forget where she begins and he ends (or whether they had ever been separate beings at all). There is only the sensation of fire; of warmth and flame and all the ways that they might rage together.
"I can certainly can," she murmurs into the crook of Skandar's throat when she turns her cheek towards him . Never doubting herself as only Aela can, but she doesn't doubt them, either. "But imagine it," she whispers wickedly back to him. "Of what we might do," says the palomino who continues to transform into something between flame and flesh, of becoming something only that Skandar could be with her. "Of burning the world simply because we wished it," she continues, "of turning everything else to ash because there is nothing brighter than us."
