"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
The air is heavy and laden with desire – and the solitude she is accustomed to is rife with laughter, wicked and shrewd, while dense and dimly lit woodland echoes with delight and with exquisite suffering. Her gaze is cast away from the plethora of bodies, shifting, moving in erotic satisfaction, but she is not enraptured with the sight, nor the scent permeating the darkness. Her lover had found eroticism in drawing out the suffering of a sister she had brought to him, carefully bound with a ribbon and bow of dying, decaying vine and brush, and she is restless – seeking to cause her own havoc.
She is quiet, moving seamlessly with little else but her feminine, shapely silhouette to give her presence away. Her cheek brushes once, and then twice over a lone birch, pale and stark in contrast to the dry and brittle bark of the pine and hickory surrounding her, and her haphazardly ivory forelock is brushed away from the gleaming silver of her roving eye, searching the darkness, illicitly drawn to what might lurk within.
There is movement within the thicket – subtle though it is, and she is drawn toward it, while the thrumming of the festivities seep through the rousing fog enveloping her. A shiver of delight traverses the length of her spine, with the dismal abyss of one eye is left soullessly peering out into the obscurity of evenfall. The Nightmother had been aptly named by the one her bitter, callous heart yearned for most – she is stealth and danger personified; her shallow breath caught within her throat.
Her dark, tousled tresses lay prone across the slender curve of her neck, while her long and tangled tail lashes to and fro across each hock, while the muscle that lines her shoulders moves smoothly beneath her indigo flesh with each forward stride – she is carnivorous to the very core; a predator sheathed in the skin of prey, seeking the next morsel for her ravenous hunger to feast upon.
”Show yourself,” she croons softly to the distant outline of another – her eyes alight with mischief. ”come now, don’t be shy ..”
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
Cutting through Sylva has always been the fastest way to the northern kingdoms, but Ivar has always avoided it.
Tonight, knowing that the population will likely stay near the heart of the kingdom, he has chosen to risk it. The scaled stallion is weary – two days and a night spent without rest – and he is eager to return home. The thought of sinking into the darkness of his pool sustains him, distracts him even, and he starts at the sound of movement in the woods nearby.
Frozen, Ivar takes in the dark forest, and he’s found the source of the noise only moments before she speaks.
He knows that voice – it would be impossible to forget. That voice had threatened Loess, threatened Heda (threatened him, as well, but that is less consequential). It was the voice of the wraith’s sharp-toothed companion, and Ivar finds her outline in the darkness. Their first meeting, he had evaluated her as one would a threat. She’d been a strong one; not insurmountable, but certainly a challenge. Now, in the darkness and the autumn, he finds her much the same, a hunger in her eye, a predator’s lack of hesitance in the way she moves through the woods.
It has been too long since he’d been with Heda, Ivar realizes.
“I’d rather not,” says the kelpie, but he steps forward anyway.
“Don’t you have better things to do than stalk the woods tonight?” he asks with a tilt of his pale head, his dark eyes lazily roving the sleek blue mare’s figure. “Things like…I dunno, torturing something? Crushing babies? Whatever it is you all do in Sylva these days?” There is a soft taunt in his voice, but he doesn’t move from the relaxed stance he’s taken, half-leaning against a thick birch.
”You,” she breathes, a tinge of amusement lacing the single syllable as he emerges from the shadow from whence he came. Her mismatched gaze traces his broad, muscular frame, roving over the thick and defined muscle beneath his pied flesh, along the columned ridge of his long and graceful neck where the flawlessly layered surface of his impenetrable scales lay gleaming beneath the pale moonlight. ”what a pleasant surprise.”
She is drawn closer, not only by his allure (he is handsome swathed in darkness, without his trembling Queen nestled against the masculine ridge of his shoulder) – but also by her intrigue for the way his own gaze bores into hers, deeply seeking meaning, purpose. The dried leaves rumble and break beneath her weight as each limb carries her closer to him, while the sinew and bone beneath her indigo hide slowly shifts methodically with each forward stride. He does not shy from her as many do, despite the given flinch of his throat when she seamlessly moves closer to him – a predator and its prey, but which held the upper hand?
She knew not of his capabilities – but he is akin to her; there is a hunger in his eyes that tells of a beast lurking beneath the surface. She had sensed it then, when he had guarded a precious Queen too fragile and too delicate to withstand the truth of her failure. There was nary a sign of affection as he boldly stood forth to shield her from the perceived threat; she was a possession – something to be kept; a porcelain figurine to be preserved, protected – and she can see it now, hidden within the mischievous glint of his dark and voracious eyes.
Boldly, her lips brush across his cheek, the warmth of her breath caressing the crook of his neck as a wicked smile is drawn across her dark mouth, where sharp teeth lay.
”Torture is not my thing, sweet Ivar,” she croons, the dark gray of her eye meeting with the bronze of his own. ”I do not need cruelty to be feared. Crushing babies -” she pauses then, remembering the dark, pitchless colt, with his sac and afterbirth still clinging to his hide, while his mother lay still and lifeless, covered in her own blood and the drying sheen of sweat of her exertion. ”that would be too easy. I prefer to kill those who can see it coming.”
Slowly, her teeth brush across his neck, raking over each individual scale crossing her lips.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
The difference between this meeting and their first are striking, and Ivar remains quietly pensive as the roan mare slips closer. She speaks of a pleasant surprise and he almost smiles, but she won’t see it with the way she is sliding past his, her soft lips on his cheek.
There is more to the world than prey and not prey, Ivar is finding, though the categories always seem to broaden in the autumn.
Ivar is tired, the dull haze of exhaustion blurring most of his senses. Her voice is a pleasant croons that slides easily against his ears, and the rake of her teeth across his scaled neck elicits a satisfied groan. Already sated and weary, the need to seduce her is far from the kelpie’s mind. He’d have been content to pass her by, but the soft give of her neck beneath his roving muscle is just as pleasant.
With a quiet sigh, he answers her question truthfully: “No.”
His technique is the penultimate bait-and-switch, exquisite pleasure in exchange for every drop of blood in their body. They never knew what was coming; that is how he likes it. But that is in the water, not here in the woods with solid earth beneath his hooves.
The desire to see her jump – startled, but not afraid – is rather novel. The light of pain in Karaugh’s eyes had been intoxicating; perhaps he is too tired to want the theatrics in Thana. Taking her to the water would require too much effort, he reasons. There is no harm in seeing where this accidental encounter will lead. “Don’t you have something to do at your little festival?” He asks, his breath ghosting back and forth across her ribs. “Everyone knows you all probably have something terrible planned.”
The word Evil has been more frequent in Beqanna of late, and the uptick is almost certainly to do with Sylva. Ivar doesn’t know how forward the kingdom is with the rest of the rulers – had they threatened to kill them as well? – but he doesn’t particularly mind. There are few others that Ivar would bother to keep safe, and Heda is at the top of the list.
She’s probably already asleep, the scaled stallion reasons as he slides his muzzle down the length of Thana’s back leg. He could bite it, he knows, grab her in an instant and hobble her with tattered muscle. It would probably be the wiser choice, but it would take longer, and the satisfaction might not be exactly what he’s looking for. Better to take what he does now.
”A shame; I thought we were more similar, you and I,” she muses with a soft hum, as a soft groan emerges from the depth of his throat – a sound she is decidedly delighted by; far more pleasant than what she had remembered of him. His scales are foreign to her, clicking strangely against her teeth as her lips caress the column of his neck, but the scent of him is intoxicating, and she is drawn closer to him as her shoulder presses against his own.
”I prefer to see the life leave their eyes – to see their essence slip away, while I bathe in their blood,” she muses brazenly against his skin, feeling his pulse thrum under her lips, sensing his rhythmic heartbeat as the quiet predator within her yearns to be set free, to take him between her teeth and to taste the metallic delight beneath his plated flesh. She does not know that her teeth cannot penetrate the scaled armor draped over the length of his body; she can only know the trill of excitement churning her heart into a frenzied rhythm at the thought of it.
She held no qualm over the thought of sharing the truth of her own sordid, sinful desire with him – he, too, is a beast of prey, she can feel it. She does not need to know what he is to feel the electricity of the monster sheathed within his flesh. Perhaps, with the truth heavy on his mind, he might see that for her, weakness is merely a flaw that must be hunted. It must be pursued, devoured, and as she had yearned for an untimely end to Heda and her endless frailty, she also longed for an end to all weakness. It was nothing personal.
His breath across her rib cage elicits a soft moan along the shadow of his hip, where her lips have traveled to, and where her muzzle has come to a rest, while the darkness of her blackened eye searches the silhouette of his neck in the darkness. A shiver traverses the length of her spine as he caresses the back of her leg – quivering, the sheer knowledge of danger surging adrenaline through her veins, rousing her enthrallment. ”There is nothing terrible planned, I assure you,” she murmurs with a wry smile, ”only sex, and debauchery.”
She glides along the length of his body then, rounding his rump and pressing her sharp incisors into his hide – raking her teeth along the scaled line of his spine, ensnaring a knotted lock of his mane between her teeth as she tugs, seeking his attention. Seeking to rouse the beast within, if only for a moment, the scent of her arousal permeating the stillness of the air while her warm breath weaves beneath his dark and tousled locks.
”I am .. selective of those I take as a lover, Ivar,” she utters thoughtfully, wanting to feel his teeth. Wanting to feel the ferocity of what lay hidden beneath the prim and rigid falsehood of his indifference. Her dark, dismal gray eye searches his own imploringly – a sinful smile drawn upon the blackness of her face. ”I came into the forest in search of something more – for someone .. different, to pique my interest. And then I found you.”
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
“Mhmm,” he murmurs as she speaks, a wordless confirmation that he is listening, even if he is not looking. Her teeth clicking across his skin send a shiver down his spine, an odd sensation to match her unexpected confession. There is something wrong with her admission, Ivar thinks; it is not acceptable to kill. He knows this, even if he has never been able to fathom the logic behind it. There is a reason he has far more sexual conquests than victims; he can control it when he must.
“The more I know about you, the more disturbing you become.”The words are said as he tastes the skin above her ribs; he gives no indication that he has reacted any way at all to what Thana has told him.
The killing is not something Ivar likes; it is only something he does.
To find enjoyment would be to feel something, and Ivar has never shared proximity with much emotion. There is an urge, animalistic and masculine, to lunge after her as she tugs at his mane. He complies. Following instinct is natural, and while there is not a feeling of happiness, there is a definite primal satisfaction in the sensation of her underneath him. His breath is hot in her ear, and his forelegs pin her firmly against him. Soft and sleek with the lay of her hair, and pleasantly rough against it, Ivar runs his muzzle along her neck, then down to her shoulder. There he bites down, the black and blue haired hide no defense against his sharp teeth. It is not deep, but it is enough to trickle down her side and plop – disappointingly – into the leaves below. There is no artistic spiraling of blood in the water, only dull gravity.
The whole time, he is mindful of her pleasure, the catch of her breath and the beat of her heart as his only guides.
Yet for the first time, he does not command the mare below to not feel the pain of his claiming bite against her neck. He always has before; it makes their eyes roll closed in pleasure (and sometimes in death) all the more quickly. This time he holds back, waits until the very moment before she reaches peak pleasure. Her heartbeat is a hummingbird flutter as he finishes, but he withdraws an instant before she crosses the same line. Incomplete. It could have been a miscommunication – or perhaps simply selfishness on his part.
He can still taste Azazelle between his teeth as he smears Thana’s crimson blood down her roan shoulder. That particular sensation is far less satisfactory than the successful planting of his seed, and all four hooves return to the earth, he runs his dark muzzle along the curve of her belly. Maybe, he thinks to himself. She is not kelpie, but she is also not prey. Ivar is far from selective of his women; he is a creature of opportunity. Still, they are always incompatible. That most basic instinct, the need to procreate: he is unable to fulfill it. The scaled creature has reached maturity, but has yet to sire a child.
Maybe, he thinks again, this time pressing the thought into Thana’s mind with the hypnotic command to: Wonder if there will be a child. He might as well have someone else bear the load of his insecurities, even if the nature of her concerns might be different than his own.
“We’re different there, too,” he says as he nips harmlessly at the edge of her hip. “I’m not selective at all. ” The last word is accentuated by a sharper nip just to the left of the base of her tail. That, coupled with the unwavering stare he now gives her, is the first hint that perhaps he is aware of what he had done. That he might know he has taken her to the very edge and left her unsatisfied. “I’m sure your king is looking for you by now.” he says, the satisfied twist to his smile an almost certain confirmation.
He is satisfied, physically at least. Now, as the twilight deepens into dusk, he can return home. Ivar will stop before he reaches the heart of Loess, he will find a bubbling spring to sink himself into. When the hot water has washed all traces of the roan wolf-shifter and the grey-eyed grullo from his scaley hide, Ivar will emerge, settling into an unsuspecting lover’s embrace, and drift to sleep perfectly content.
kelpie mimicry | dragon scales | tactile hypnosis minimal grullo tobiano king of loess
”Good,” she coos to him as her lips brush along the ridge of his layered scales, observing the way the pale moonlight causes which to individually reflect with the slow rise and fall of his rhythmic breath. ”that only serves to delight me, Ivar.” She muses, her voice laced with amusement thought it does not reach her eyes (if he were looking, he might find the sinful, insidious darkness looming like a hazy fog, lustful but not for the sexual gratification he is seeking). ”Unsettling you is far more satisfactory than laying claim to your favor.”
The warmth of his breath along her sensitive skin does elicit a delightful moan, but it is not him she is thinking of. Her mind is elsewhere for the moment, remembering the way Gryffen had drawn her closer to him beneath the pale light of dawn, intoxicated by her as she had become enamored by him. Sin of the skin had been nothing to her until him, and even as Ivar presses his weight along the feminine curve of her hip and the slope of her spine, she is not thinking of him, nor the fullness of him (a gasp is drawn from her lungs, forceful and leaving her breathless as Ivar urges his sharp teeth through her supple flesh).
Her skin is painted with her own blood, seeping from the wound left by sharp, treacherous teeth, and while his hips cling closer to her with each sweeping, thrusting motion. While she is gasping and writhing beneath him, she is rife with arousal at the sheer thought of being closer to knowing the depth of his own depravity more so than she is brought closer to an end by his carnal desire. Her breath is caught within her throat each time he is sheathed inside of her; her heartbeat thrumming quicker as his seed is spent and buried within her – but it is over before it has begun, and she is left tired, frustrated, and still wanting.
But not for him.
His lips brush her own blood across her shoulder, and down to the curve of her barrel, and that is when her quickened heartbeat is suddenly stifled. It is halted by the abrupt thought of child, of bearing the sordid product of such sin. Seized by the thought of carrying his seed and the product of her own insatiable curiosity within her, and a grimace of disgust emerges where dissatisfaction and amusement once lay. The thought is shaken away (where had it come from?) and she is recoiling from his touch, the darkness of her stare boring into his own while suspicion is laced within the shadow of her silver eye.
The thought had not come from her – it had come from him; but how?
”You should be more selective. Your previous conquests have done nothing to improve your virility.” She murmurs with finality, her heartbeat having slowed to a mellow rhythm. Though her desire is not yet sated, she is content to have seen some small piece of the beast lay beneath his façade. As her shoulder pulsates with a lingering twinge of pain, and while her mind rampantly wonders if he can see inside of her mind or if he can merely plant the seed of a thought where there had been none before, she is reminded that evil can exist in many forms.
”I have had better,” she breathes across his shoulder once she has pivoted, pressing the curve of her hip along his shoulder and into the ridge of his own hipbone, where slickened sweat and seed lay drying across her indigo flesh. ”Poor Heda, no wonder she is so terribly wound up. But I have learned so much about you, Ivar.” She coos against his scaled hide. ”Invaluable information, and perhaps, in time, it will be a better lover to me than you.”
She does not look back to him, for he is parting from her as well as her legs carry her into the darkness, while the brittle bark of clustered hickory and pine bear her blood while she weaves effortlessly through the terrain. She descends into the darkness while shedding her indigo flesh, becoming the prowling wolf blanketed in blackness while her low and sullen howl permeates the shadow once more. All the while, the thought of an unborn seed implanted within her womb, try as she might, is never far from her mind.
