"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
She practically purrs with pleasure, so glad is she of his easy obedience. He is quite malleable and yet she is not disgusted by it—at least, not yet. Instead she finds herself quite clever for picking him out and wonders at what he will look like when she is done with him. When she has bent in him all of his most vulnerable spots and twisted him unto himself. Will he even realize how crooked he has become? Will he even know just how much she has done to have him fit her so? She doesn’t think that he will.
The endless opportunities that present themselves through him.
It is nearly enough to push away the discomfort that she feels now, that pain that seeps into her bones. The reminder of her weakness is disquieting and it makes her crueler than usual, sharper, and were she not so pleased with him, she would push him right back into the water. But instead she sidles closer to him, leaching off the warmth of him and feeling the heavy weight of his wing as it drapes across her back.
“It wasn’t very smart of you,” she corrects in her silvery voice, but she leans up to press a delicate kiss to the white corner of his mouth. “But I forgive you, if only because you are so very handsome.” Not exactly a lie, she thinks, taking in his stripes and the opal of his hooves and the blue of his eyes. She could have done much worse than him and she decides that she will keep him. “I would not suffer were you not.”
She pauses, pressing a cheek to his shoulder and feeling the way her ivory armor has begun to grow beneath the surface. “Lumineer, tell me a secret,” she whispers, wondering what lies beneath his sweet smile and the charming ease of his eyes. Uncertain if he would be so willingly vulnerable, she pulls back so that she can meet his gaze—and although fatigue pulls at her, she presses her gift one more time.
heard your voice leading me on
through the darkness to the dawn
If only he weren’t such a simple thing, Lumineer.
If only he had any concept of the things that he must protect himself from.
He would have turned away from her and disappeared back into the forest from whence he came, safe from the things that wished to destroy him.
But she is so sweet, he does not know that she is dangerous. She presses such a tender kiss to the corner of his mouth that he almost sways on his feet. It makes his head swim and he is foolish enough to think himself lucky. Lucky that he has ended up here with her, his wing draped across her back, hoping to lend her some warmth. He wishes he were capable of summoning heat from nothing, but he is not and this is the most he can offer.
She does not seem displeased. She calls him handsome and color pools in his cheeks. He has never thought of himself in that way, not really. He’s never had any reason to. He is a simple boy, a wolf when he wants to be, laced with gold and tiger stripes. There is nothing remarkable about him, but it flushes him with heat to think that she thinks there is.
He swallows thickly and coughs out a bashful laugh, his heart clenching and spasming in the cavern of his chest. He is not worthy of this attention, he knows, but he does not want to tell her this. He does not want to discourage her.
He does not know what to say in the wake of such praise, so he doesn’t say anything at all. He just lets his insides glow with it. Until she asks for a secret and the spark dims. He narrows his eyes in concentration but finds he does not have any secrets. He has always been such an honest boy, never had any reason to keep secrets.
But she meets his gaze and his disappointment in himself deepens. There is nothing to tell. He frowns, a plaintive, apologetic expression. “I do not have any secrets,” he tells her. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to keep them.”
He is different from her other conquests, if she could even call them that. Pteron was just a passing fancy. An opportunity that had presented itself when she had needed it to. He had been difficult to bend to her will, but in the end, he had—and while she had appreciated the way he had looked at her, she had known it was never more than that. He would eat the poison from the palm of her hand and she would leave.
Crowns was different. He was her in equal in many ways. Her superior in others. His magic was a dark and twisted thing and she had to be as careful in his presence as others had to be in hers. That he allowed her to practice on him at all was a kindness and while she dreamt of the frothing at his mouth when she could plant the poison there once more, she knew that it would only be as much or when he allowed.
And the others were just annoyances at best.
But Lumineer was sweet. He was innocent. He was hers in a way that the others were not and although she dreamt of snapping him in half, she also dreamt of keeping him protected. She liked the way that he looked at her as though she was nothing but a simple, pretty girl. As though he could protect her at all.
And so she does not punish him when he tells her he has no secrets.
She just smiles prettily up at him, kissing the corner of his mouth once more. “Oh, that’s alright.” She pauses, searching his blue gaze. “So long as you do not tell mine.” This is a little more forceful, but she hides it behind the smile that continues, the false warmth of his radiating across his fine face.
Taking a step back, she shivers, but keeps the distance.
“I need to be on my way, but come find me again soon.”
This, too, is an order that she presents as a request.
“And perhaps you will have secrets for me next time.”
Another smile, dangerous as it may be, and then she turns to take her leave.
but in all chaos, there is calculation
@[lumineer] - i thought maybe they could jump ahead to darkness and fun times. <3
