"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
11-06-2015, 02:25 AM (This post was last modified: 11-06-2015, 02:25 AM by pyxis.)
as your love starts to surround you all of their words are trying to drown you
So many things are different, and yet, in all of the ways, it is all the same. She is back in her body—the angles and shapes and muscles familiar—but it feels foreign. She wakes up in the middle of night and feels phantom pains where she had once had hands; she remembers the way that her throat had burned for the taste of blood. Her nights had always been restless, but they grow increasingly so, hours upon hours spent wandering along the borders, trying to unpack the confused, crazed remnants of her mind.
The worst of it are the not-memories of friends, and family, and him. The words they had screamed at her and the blood spilling from their bodies—blood she had spilled forth. When she does manage to sleep, she wakes in a cold sweat. When she does sleep, she is plagued by the not-memory of a kiss that did not made sense and yet made her blood sing—her body going hot and cold and slipping wordlessly into it.
Tonight is no different. She skirts alongside the meadow and thinks of the moment she had first seen him, thinks about the handsome angles of his face and the fierce beauty of Red—she thinks of them and misses them in the same breath that she tries to avoid them, not sure that she is ready to confront them. Would she be able to keep herself from telling him everything? Would she have to admit what that meant?
She wasn’t sure she could even admit that to herself yet.
Pyxis’ steps are slow, unnaturally so, but she does not stop until she sees the flash of red and a hint of glowing silver eyes. Her heart suspends between beats. It is him, and she is powerless to stop herself from moving toward him. It is him and everything is pulled to the surface, the pain of the quest and the agony of losing everything over and over again with no way to stop it. Words could not describe it.
Before she knows it, she is standing before him, stripped raw, vulnerable and trembling with the alien desire to be held. “Daemron,” and her tongue trips on the name, catching with tears in her throat. He looks exactly as she remembered. Her icy blue eyes move to where Red stands next to him, and she feels the fear ride through her veins as she remembers the not-memory of the wolf feasting on her fallen sister. She forces herself to ignore the terror, and she gives the wolf a smile, greeting her, as well, “Red.”
and you break, it's too late for you to fall apart and the blame that you claim is all your own fault
11-07-2015, 12:32 AM (This post was last modified: 11-07-2015, 12:47 AM by Daemron.)
the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives
His mind is consumed by the night with the wolves – the night with her – and it eats away at him. He thinks of her ocean-eyes, the brilliance of their fire; how they went carefully still. He thinks of her unguarded smile, the light and shadow playing upon her lips; how the rest never did reach her gaze. When he remembers her bared expression (naked and real), desire rips through him until he aches with the memory of how brightly she had burned. Yet when he remembers watching her leave (watching her flee), a cold frustration settles deep into the marrow of his bones.
So Daemron, too, slept little. He stalked the woods, slowly retracing his steps until he found himself heading back toward the Meadow. He searched for her in the faces of passerby, though his mood was black with the suspicion that she did not want to be found – not by him, at least – despite what she’d said about seeing each other again. But it was Red who found her first (who watched her tremble as she dreamed a fitful dream and slipped away before she woke), and when she returned to the chestnut stallion her keen eyes glinted, and he knew.
At first he resists the pull (the need) to go to her, but soon it is too great a thing in his chest – and so the wolf takes him there. He is the first to see her, drenched in dusk’s dying light. The mere shape of her hits him like a fist; and he realizes that whatever this was (whatever they are) is dangerous. But then she turns, and the roaring of his veins grows loud in his ears as she comes toward him, and he can think of nothing else.
Immediately, Daemron takes in the differences about her with a measured gaze, though he finds that her eyes are still blue and her lips still soft. He is no stranger to magic, and so he is not startled to see her newly adorned this way – but he is curious. “Pyxis,” he returns, an undercurrent of electricity just beneath the coolness of his voice. It surprises him that the maned wolf only ruffles her hackles at his side, making no move toward the mare as she’d done before. There was a reason for which Red kept her distance, and a line of tension jumps in his jaw as he wonders what that could be.
Suddenly, he commands a half-grin to his expression. “Something’s different about you.” It is meant to sound light, though it seems to fall excruciatingly short – and then he notices her trembling. “Are you –” a halt as everything within him screams, hold her. Hold her and never let her go. Instead, he lowers his willowed head to search her averted gaze. “Look at me,” he murmurs, his concern both gentle and fierce. He wants to see her. He needs to see her. “What happened?” It’s a guess – but by the look of her and by the way Red reacted, he suspects that something did.
as your love starts to surround you all of their words are trying to drown you
She doesn’t know how he manages to do this: how he strips away all of her defenses. All she knows is that she is standing before him and what had started as trembles have come violent quivers and shudders, her body shaking as all of the not-memories flood over her. “I died,” she finally gasps out, and she lowers her antlered head, the delicate, branching antlers still foreign to her. “You killed me, and I killed you,” this time her voice is softer, but still broken and bruised, each syllable aching with the pain.
Each second that she is around him, she can feel the knife digging deeper and deeper into her gut, and she can feel the blade with excruciating detail. Pyxis knows that she is vulnerable now, and she hates it; she knows that she will have to reverse this somehow, but right now, in this moment, she is helpless against him. He commands that she look at him, and she does. Her eyes are bright with tears, bright with hurt.
She takes a shuddering breath, and she spills the story. She does not bother to leave a detail out: she tells him about how she had transformed and how the two of them had left her sister to die in the alley. She tells him about how she had thirsted for blood and quenched that thirst with teeth buried in his neck. She tells him about how her parents had appeared and then her sister and then him, the way his mouth had been on her right before he had ripped her chest apart. Finally, and with a guilty look to the wolf, she tells them of how Red and the pack had chased her and her sister, how they had torn her family apart.
When she is done, the shaking has subsided, and she is hollowed out, her voice hoarse, her eyes closing. It seems as if she will never outrun the exhaustion. “I guess I wasn’t entirely honest,” she murmurs, unable to meet his gaze. “I guess my parents and my family isn’t so perfect after all.” She laughs, but the sound is choked and lifeless. “I’m certainly not.” And then she falls silent, feeling more alone than ever.
and you break, it's too late for you to fall apart and the blame that you claim is all your own fault
11-10-2015, 11:01 PM (This post was last modified: 11-10-2015, 11:55 PM by Daemron.)
and you’re so mysterious, got that obsession with death
got your unkind of ravens and your murder of crows
I died. His brow furrows, confusion in his silvery stare. You killed me, and I killed you. An injured whisper – a confession. Then she looks at him, piercing him with those eyes; eyes shimmering with tears that never fall, even as the gruesome story spills from her soft lips. The maned wolf gradually goes to her as she tells it, careful to keep from touching her as she finally settles close, as though sensing the end before it comes. But Daemron remains very still – his face a mask as he listens, the echo of a breeze rustling in his willowed mane as Pyxis’ tale comes to its end.
He is quiet, looking at her. Even now, he finds her beautiful – vulnerable. He aches to hold her. Yet somehow he fears that to her, it would only be another attack. He believes her story. After all, a life-altering dream had once befallen Noori, and it had made her Mother Spring. It’s been said before that Daemron is no stranger to magic, and while that is true he is certainly a stranger to this. To the way she is crumbling before him. To the violent anger that rears within him at her pain. To the need and confusion that wars inside his chest, knowing that his memory had played a large role in causing it.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, because he is – he loathes that she had seen him as her killer. Daemron doesn’t know how to reconcile that with the fact that she’d seen him as something else, too. (Something more.) Heat simmers through his muscles as he resists the need to feel her against him. She tells him she wasn’t honest, avoiding his eyes; she says her parents aren’t perfect. She says she isn’t perfect. You are. She falls quiet. To me, you are.
“Pyxis,” he starts then, his voice steady. Resolute. “It doesn’t matter. You went through hell, didn’t you? And you survived.” Without quite meaning to do so, he reaches for her. His muzzle brushes hers, softly, just below her chin. Look at me. A fire smoulders in him until his breath feels thick with the smoke of it, the smell of her a match to the flames. “What matters to me is that you’re safe – you’re here.” He can’t help what he asks her next. He needs to know before he burns out of control. “Why are you so afraid that I’ll hurt you?”
daemron
cause you’re so dark, oh, but I want you hard
as your love starts to surround you all of their words are trying to drown you
The emotions that flare between them are too much—too much for anyone to handle. Certainly too much for her to understand. She is tearing apart at the seams, dissolving between his very fingertips, and yet, she is still a wildfire. Her skin is all nerve, alive and waiting for him, and she loathes herself for it. She loathes that every inch of her is alive and longing for him. She hates that she is all need, all want, all his.
Red moves closer to her, and she is a study of contradictions, body both tensing in fear as she mentally relaxes, the presence of the wolf both damning and calming at the same time. In this moment, trapped between the splintering emotions of her fears and her desires, she wonders what would have happened if she had not met him. That day, she was only meant to have a conversation. She was only meant to tell pretty lies and smile pretty smiles and move on. There was never meant to be any weight.
But this? This is all weight.
“Survived?” she finally chokes out, and her bones scream with the agony of it. “I did not survive,” she gasps. Some part of her had died in that dream; some childlike corner that had ached for a normal life, that had ached to love simply. A part she had hidden away—a part she denied—that had died the second her teeth had sunk into his throat. The second she watched her sister be ripped apart. The second he laid his mouth on her and the second the bullet had torn open her chest. It had all died. She had died.
He touches her, and she breaks all at once—shatters. Resolve gone, she moans without meaning to, leaning into his touch. Suddenly, she is her father’s daughter. Her mouth is on his neck, his jawline, and she is feverish with the delight at touching him, at his warmth and familiar scent. Teeth scrape down his flesh, and she shivers. She leans into him, wanting to be lost forever in him, to lose herself in this. But her bottom falls out and she stumbles back, shaking. “No,” it is almost a whimper. “No,” this time stronger, and she trembles out of reach, ignoring the way she ached. “Love does not hurt. It kills. You’ll kill me.”
She loved him, and she couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
and you break, it's too late for you to fall apart and the blame that you claim is all your own fault
and you’re so mysterious, got that obsession with death
got your unkind of ravens and your murder of crows
He can see how real it is – her not-dream – and he believes her. Yet for all his belief, Daemron had not been there, though her harrowed gaze tells him otherwise. To Pyxis, he had been there. He had done the things she said he’d done. He had sunk teeth to bone while his wolf tore her family to pieces.
He had murdered her.
Frustration coils like a snake in the pit of his belly as he watches her. He watches the way she tenses like prey, the way she chokes over her words, and the way she looks at him. (Like something more.) He doesn’t know how to answer her, for she stands before his very eyes – her ribcage fluttering with every breath, her lips soft with every exhale – and tells him that she had not survived.
A marvel, then, that something in her comes alive at his touch – and oh, how he burns with it, losing himself in the feel of her lips upon his flesh only to respond in turn, pressing his body roughly against hers. The heat of her, the heady scent, the way she burns with him – nothing could matter more. (Such sweet destruction.) His mouth runs along the curve of her neck, finds the hollow of her throat – reality crashing with the echoes of a dream.
Hell, he could drink her in like this forever. (Too late.)
Her absence from him is all too sudden – a blow that leaves a raw, fiery imprint. A blow that causes something ferocious in him to stir. Love does not hurt. It kills. A muscle jumps in his jaw as he stares at her, almost unseeing. You’ll kill me. It’s then that he barks with laughter (short and angry) and his eyes refocus to pierce hers.
Shaking his willowed head, Daemron’s mouth forms a hard line. “If that’s true, then I won’t be the one to kill you.” He steps close, knowing it would be too much for her. For him, it would never be enough. “Because you’ll never let me love you,” a statement, not a question – and yet however terse, he cannot keep from adding, “Will you?”
Like maybe she would.
daemron
cause you’re so dark, oh, but I want you hard
as your love starts to surround you all of their words are trying to drown you
Pyxis fights against this feeling in her chest with everything that she has. She fights to tie it down. She fights to ignore it. She fights to slash its throat. But she can’t. It grows without stopping, feverish in its need to consume. What had started as a small spark in her chest is now a wildfire, and she can feel it flaring in her throat with every breath—can feel it swell in her belly with each glance of his silver eyes. He was awakening something in her that she had spent her entire life trying to ignore. She wasn’t sure that she would ever be able to move on; she wasn’t sure that she would ever be whole again.
But she had to.
She thought of the emptiness of her mother’s eyes when their father in her left, and she understands now what it means to be hollowed out. If Daemron ever left her, she would be that empty—she would collapse on herself. She was more vulnerable now than she had ever allowed herself to be, and she knew the danger of staying near him. In ways she would never understand, she knew that she was giving him the power to destroy her—but she had to fight it. If she gave in to him now, she would never forgive herself.
“I can’t,” is all she says, doing her best to remain impassive, to hide the truth behind the flatness of her eyes. Her voice is simple, without embellishment, and she does her best to tamper down the flames behind the ice of her gaze. Moving toward him, knowing that she was walking a fine line, she does her best to be strong when her mouth finds his cheek. A single shudder races down her spine, but she does not show it in the casual, practiced smile. “You have been fun,” she says, aching with the lies she is once again weaving for him, “but I can’t stay.” His taste permeates her tongue, and she feels herself breaking.
So she does what she does best, and she takes a step back, shrugging her shoulders elegantly. “I apologize for the,” she pauses, searching for the word, “messiness of this.” Lies, all lies. This was not just messy, it was catastrophic. This was words colliding, constellations exploding, dynasties rising and falling. This was everything, and she hated herself for lessening it. “I should go.” Her eyes find Red, and for a second, just a breath, her mask falls—unable to hide the anguish from the sharp gaze of the wolf. But she gathers herself again, taking a deep breath, letting it out in an apathetic sigh. “Don’t try to find me again.”
Please find me, her heart screams, but she ignores that too.
And she does what she does best: she leaves.
and you break, it's too late for you to fall apart and the blame that you claim is all your own fault
pyxis' running away really ruins the whole concept of long threads. :| we can start another one right away if you'd like and just pretend time has passed or he can run after her or whatever you want. up to you! <3
12-04-2015, 11:40 PM (This post was last modified: 12-04-2015, 11:41 PM by Daemron.)
and you’re so mysterious, got that obsession with death
got your unkind of ravens and your murder of crows
“Talk to me,” he murmurs as her silence lengthens ominously. But it happens again, right before his eyes, and again he is powerless to stop it. She shuts herself away. (Will it always be like this?) One minute, she is glorious and burning and alive — and the next she is as cool and smooth as stone. This masked face devoid of emotion (so raw and real only moments before) is not hers. He knows, feels, believes that the empty expression she wears is only a disguise.
And he wants her to stop hiding.
“Don’t disappear on me again,” he says, low and rumbling. His voice comes more harshly than he’d intended — a plea wreathed in accusation. But she touches his cheek, lies through her teeth, smiles and tells him that he's been fun, that she can’t stay. “Yeah,” he laughs then, “Sure, Pyxis. It’s been fun.” His mouth is sour with the mere taste of such words, but he is short-tempered in his defeat. He doesn't know how to keep her — and how could he, if she didn't want to stay?
I should go. Like clockwork.
“Maybe you should,” he says roughly, averting his gaze. “It’s what you do, right? You run.” His willowed tail snaps at his haunches as he steels himself against her departure. “You’re good at it.” The dread of losing her before he’s ever had her scrapes away at his insides. “So run.” (Because he is hollow, too.) He doesn’t see the way she falters when she looks at Red. He doesn’t see the wolf rising suddenly to her feet as Pyxis tells him, don’t try to find me again.
Daemron catches the animalistic snarl that rises to his throat, silencing it before it ever surfaces. He says nothing. He would not have turned to see her leaving (to witness his heart being dragged off to bleed out with her) had he not heard the soft padding of wolf-paws following after her. His chestnut head whips about, his gaze narrowing. “Red,” he growls, unable to suppress it now. The lanky canine pauses midstep, angling her head back at him. Her intent is plain, there in her dark and knowing eyes, and there is a responding flash in the grey glow of his.
It is the first time his wolf has ignored him — and with her head low and her eyes bright, she trails after the mare into the darkness.
daemron
cause you’re so dark, oh, but I want you hard
I figured you could have some fun with wolfie >:-)
play her out however, in other posts too if you want to space it out a little, but maybe she could somehow wrangle them back together?
because let's be real, another thread soon <333 #poutyponiesunite
