"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 is almost surprised as how disappointed she is when he unwraps himself from around her. There is a part of her that isn’t quite ready to leave this moment, to leave the field, to go back to ruling. There’s a part of her that could simply stay here, content in the heat of his skin and the prickle of pain that comes with his bites. Nothing overly hard, but hard enough to elicit a slight shiver of enjoyment, though she holds herself together well enough that it’s unlikely he notices. Though maybe, because for once, she doesn’t entirely hide it.
But still, another part of her is ready for the noise. Part of her is giddy and excited as a schoolgirl at the thought of what they could accomplish. She had a kingdom at her command, and he had ideas not necessarily tied to the good of that kingdom. Together, they could find something that suited everyone, that stirred the pot, that left Beqanna running at the sight of a Chamber member or cowering at their names. She wants to be remembered. Not for her sake, but for the Chambers. She wants her kingdom to be the stuff of nightmares, wants to keep the other kingdoms up at night.
She laughs slightly at the mention of the Gates, leading him slowly out of the meadow. They brush now and again, and she’s in no real rush, though the Chamber is not all that far away. The kingdom does have a rather useful location in Beqanna. Not too far from most things, yet secluded enough to be protected. “Indeed they are. None too bright, either. They brought a broken girl to the Chamber on a diplomatic mission. One, might I add, Gryffen rather has his eye on. He seems to get his prizes, eventually.”
She doesn’t except Weed to know who Gryffen is, but it’s irrelevant other than the girl and the fact that the Chamber would spirit her away just as soon as they could. For her part, she was simply tired of them crawling around. She had broken the treaty with their previous Queen and yet still the Gates came back to them, looking for an alliance. Not that she hadn’t made her disdain rather clear rather quickly.
It doesn’t take them that long to find the pine trees on the horizon, still small compared to what they will grow to, but still impressive. The rise up on the horizon until they are inside the forest. She leads him through with the same grace she’s had all her life, years spent weaving her way through these very trees. She doesn’t doubt that Weed can follow, perhaps not as gracefully, but well enough. After all, he could move roots out of the way, if he really needed. She almost laughs at the thought, realizing she really did have a thing for wildlife, apparently.
But instead she turns to face him as the trees thin and the thumping beneath their feet becomes more prominent. She grins slightly, but it’s not her usual playful look. No, this is a look of someone who knows very much just where she belongs. “What do you think?”
Weed does not forget annoyances. It is a running list in his head of those who have ever crossed him, and it does not get shorter with time—it just expands. So he remembers his last visit to the Gates as easily as if it happened yesterday; he remembers the interaction as clear as day and it makes his skin crawl with anger. That damn tree had ruined all of his fun, and he wouldn’t forget that quickly. If he had his choice, he would gladly burn it to the ground just to soothe his own personal sense of justice.
So he laughs when she answers, and the sound is genuine. “They have never been bright,” he says scornfully, although his ears perk at the mention of the broken girl. He, much like Gryffen, enjoyed being around broken souls, although his method was quite different. He enjoyed the art of deception, enjoyed the art of earning their trust with syrupy words and soft touches only to yank the rug out from under them. It was a special kind of enjoyment to break their hearts after they though you deserved it.
Perhaps everyone could get what they wanted after all.
Smiling to himself in anticipation, and thrilled with the ideas coursing through him, he nipped at her in excitement—part in enjoyment of her presence and part in sheer pleasure of the moment. He could practically smell the bloodshed on the horizon, as if it was the moment of knife pressing against flesh, just waiting for it to rip. “It will do,” he says as he takes in the foggy kingdom. Not because he does not enjoy it, but because he was not like others that gave themselves so willingly to their kingdom. To him, it was nothing but backdrop. Although he could not say the Valley did not hold some allure to him.
“Do you want to know what I really think though?”
He grins for a moment, teeth flashing.
“I think I’m sick of everyone getting along.”
She does not forget annoyances either. There’s a list in her head, waiting for their turn, for the opportune moment. She will not forget Chezter, from the Falls, and the entire kingdom will pay for his stupidity. She does not forget Camelia, and her decision to walk out of the Chamber rather than plead her case for an alliance (not that Straia ever would have granted one). But moreover, she will remember the Gates Queen failure to inform her kingdom and Mast, with the broken girl in tow, looking to continue an alliance that had long been broken. How very sad. And such a waste of her time. She will not forget the Amazonian mare’s attempt to steal her son and uncle from out beneath her nose.
Only the last is truly a personal affront, but she doesn’t particularly like any of the kingdoms. They waste her time, they belittle the Chamber by sending fools to the border. And anything that betlittles her kingdom is enough to warrant retaliation in her book. But she waited patiently, taking the opportunity when it arose. Badly timed chaos never worked as one might hope.
She grins slightly at the sound of his laugh; such a rare sound, and it’s beautiful. It’s a laugh that remembers every grievance just as she does. They have never been bright, he says, and she grins slightly. “What did they do to you?” she says with a chuckle, assuming there’s a reason he’s so fascinated with the Gates. She’s not against taking them down a peg, but it feels almost unfair. A cat simply playing with its dinner. If they truly wanted to show their strength, they’d have to do more than toy with the Gates.
He nips at her again, and she does not flinch, but rather enjoys it, reaching out her head to snap at the top of his neck and mane. She is less pleased with his response to the Chamber, though she also hadn’t particularly expected anything different. To Weed, the Chamber was a means to an end. To Straia, the Chamber was the reason for it. But in the end, if their goal was the same, she’d take whatever help was offered. She’d also simply take his company, truthfully.
“What are you thinking, my leafy little monster?” She says with a grin, enjoying the possessive use of the word my where he would not. Of course she uses it purposefully, though only the grin gives that away.
“They were stupid,” he answers curtly, although the shortness is not directed at her necessarily. It is at the way he had offered his sweetest smile, and that damned tree had alerted them of his presence; the way he had plotted for good fun and had instead been greeted with guarded smiles and ushered to the border. What could have been fun for all of them had instead been thwarted and nothing rubbed him the wrong way more than having something ruined for him. But he doesn’t feel like elaborating, doesn’t feel like rubbing salt in the wound and so he just shrugs it off, forcing himself to give a wicked smile.
“It doesn’t matter. They are but ants, and they will be the beginning.”
Because he too viewed them as but an appetizer for what would become their whole meal. They were not big enough game to sate his appetite, and he did not let his personal grievance cloud his judgement. In truth, he hungered for chaos in any form; he was not particular about which kingdom was struck by the lightning first so long as someone was struck. For now, he would gladly keep the Chamber off his radar if only because he fancied their Queen, but they both knew his loyalty was shallow at best.
He picks up on the possessive word and the vines tighten. “I am not a pet,” he snapped, his elegant voice picking up an edge as thorns began to wrap their way around the base of her leg. He considered returning the favor, but decided against it, not enjoying the way the word ‘my’ sounded on his tongue. He liked Straia, perhaps more than he had ever liked anything in his life, but only because she was so independent—so unattainable. If he felt like he could possess her, own her as he enjoyed owning others, it would no longer be pleasurable. It made him sick just thinking about her falling into that category.
“Regardless, I have ideas,” he toyed with the silence for a moment, pressing against her as he forgave her claiming of him, brushing it off easily as he moved forward into the conversation further. “Alliances are dedicate things, don’t you think?” His coal black eyes wandered to a particularly large pine tree near them, and branches began to fall from it at his narrowed gaze, the sound of them crashing to the ground enough to thrill him. “I don’t think it would take much for them to break entirely.” He tilts his head to look toward her, “One word here, a nudge here, and all of a sudden allies aren’t quite as powerful.”
With a nod, he pulled the entire tree to the ground, the base of it groaning and then cracking as loud as a gunshot, bending in half as it plummeted to the earth, sending dust up in a wild plume.
“Things are so much easier when people don’t know who to trust and who not to.”
His is not attainable. That is the thing she finds most attractive about him. Despite the fact they are drawn to one another, she does not trust him. Certainly not with her kingdom’s best interests. He is here for her, to use her desire for chaos and the power that she wields to his own benefit. The raven queen is entirely aware of that fact. She likes to think, though not to hope, that he’s there for her two, simply because he wants to be.
Not that she will fool herself into believe he will ever serve anyone but himself. He does not serve the Chamber, and he does not serve her. But that is of course exactly what makes him unattainable. What a strange circle they have created for themselves. Neither can be caught, and that very fact makes them both fascinated with the other and simultaneously rather wary.
How delicious and dangerous.
She simply chuckles as his comment, murmuring, “I know,” with a careless sound somewhat reminiscent of the way one might shoo a fly away. But of course, she does know. But she’s always been a little prone to poking at wounds and picking at scabs.
He moves on though, not holding on to her little jab. Good. There are too many who fail her there, who linger on all the little nasty “slips” of tongue. Not that everything out of her mouth isn’t purposeful, but she simply doesn’t let them always know that. The only ones she keeps around are the ones who aren’t bothered by it. Though skin is key in her world, and she has made that true of those who call themselves Chamberlings.
“I like those trees,” she says as he pulls one of her pines to the ground. She deserves it, certainly, for her possessive little my. But still, she scowls at him, eyes narrows and unimpressed. Yes yes, dramatic effect. She gets it. But still, the trees had only just grown back. “Though I agree. Who will spread these words? I can only send so many Chamberlings to do the dirty work before it becomes obvious.” And she couldn’t send ravens for this one either.
The two of them should never work; they are volatile, selfish, distrustful. Yet, somehow, they do. There is a spark between them that Weed does not attempt to fight; there is a magnetic pull that is both unwelcome and pleasurable. Not that he would ever admit that he was at the Chamber for anything beyond his own selfish motives, but he cannot say she was not a factor—or a frustratingly lovely distraction. Behind the teeth on flesh and thorns in flesh, there was something that he could not name. Something dark and twisting that smoked through his veins and up his throat. Something he both hated and longed for.
Not that he was ever going to admit that to her.
Instead he presses up against her side, breathing into her ear, “I will get you new ones.” And, like that, he digs into the earth, forcing the remnants of the roots to grow—faster and faster so that the trees growth is in warp speed, going from sapling to aged pine in a matter of moments. “Happy, Queenie?” He considered it a gift of sorts, a rare move for him, but something that seemed oddly fitting.
Soon, he is laughing, and he is surprised that it has happened twice in such a short period of time, the sound both elegant and rusted as if his throat didn’t know how to conjure the correct tune. “It doesn’t have to be obvious,” he toys with the branches of the nearby tree, the brush underneath them swaying in time with his breathing. “Not with a little bit of magic.” He leans in again, “I can be much more effective than ravens.”
09-14-2015, 11:41 AM (This post was last modified: 09-14-2015, 11:42 AM by Straia.)
She both loves and hates the way he makes her feel. He can crawl beneath her skin in a way that no one else ever has. Not that she would ever jump off a bridge for him, but the prick of his thorns is a release, letting out whatever seems to be bottled up inside of her. Pushing them that much closer, her skin parting just a bit to let in the plants that are so much a part of him. Just as the ravens have become very much a part of her.
It is that same feeling that nibbles at the back of her mind when he’s near. He’s never quite close enough. Even pressed up against her, words a breath against her ear, it is not enough. She does not move closer, but she does not move away. Instead she watches, the barest of smiles on her lips (the truest smile she really has, and rarely shows) as he replaces the tree. "Yes."
For a greedy moment, all she wants are more trees. She wants to fill all but the heart of the kingdom with pine forests, wants new paths to explore, new trees to weave through as a cat does through legs. She wants to get lost in an impossibly large forest all her own. But he is not here for that, and she will not ask. She is not that greedy. The Chamber does not need more trees, though she doubts the kingdom would complain if it were to happen.
He laughs again, and her smile grows just a hair, more mischievous now as it often is. But conspiratorial as well, because no one else need know about this. Not yet, anyway. “Oh, I am sure you can be,” she says, and she means this is so many different ways. But only one meaning is clear in her tone, because she will never let on completely. Just hints, here and there. “Should I let you fly away then?” Because she wants to set him free, let him plant seeds of doubt and start rumors. They always spread through Beqanna like wildfire.
Though there’s a part of her that’s almost afraid of the moment when he pulls away from her. She does not show it, does not say it, but she knows he may not come back. And of course, she wants him back.
Weed is not the most trustworthy of soldiers. He is not someone to be given orders that one expects to be followed exactly. He is, instead, an instrument of chaos. He is a catalyst, a virus. He is something to be released when one does not care about the result so long as there is one—because if anything, Weed is someone who gets results. So his smile is as mischievous as hers, something within him straining toward what he knows is to come, groaning with the coming release. He could almost taste it in the air.
Not that he wanted to hurry the process.
There was something sweet in the waiting.
“You should,” he whispers into her ear before biting her neck one more time, his teeth pinching her flesh and holding, only slowly letting her go with a small, breathy sigh. “I have much to accomplish.” They both know the truth of it, the words unspoken between them hanging with dark intent. The world was open before them, and he could not wait for the earthquakes to start splintering the kingdoms apart.
So, not without regret, he steps away from her, lifting his elegant head to look toward the border, his coal-black eyes flashing with anticipation. The wind lifts his mane for a second away from his slender neck before he turns back toward her, catching her gaze and then nodding. “I’ll be back,” he says and there is purpose behind it, because he does intend to return one way or another. “I expect you to miss me.”
An order, as much as a small concession that he to would miss her, in the only way that he could. Then, with a small, devilish smirk, he disappeared into the shadows, leaving behind just one more gift for her: the beginning of a pine tree where he had been standing, the branches already reaching toward the sky. The second to the first—a pair to be exact. And in the bark was a simple, scripted S.
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