"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
05-21-2016, 11:37 AM (This post was last modified: 05-21-2016, 08:19 PM by Kirin.)
keep you like an oath may nothing but death do us part
Silvered light broke down from the cloudless sky against the brilliant sands of the beach. The Cove was quiet, eerily quiet on the tepid autumn evening. Kirin groaned, his head throbbing with a pounding ache that he wasn’t coherent enough to understand. He flexed his arms, stretching against the soft grains beneath him and slowly the sound of the waves lapping the shore registered. Home? How? he wasn’t sure how or why he had ended up back here so soon of all things, so sudden. He meant to push himself up, to grasp at the loose fragments of the earth until he propelled himself upwards but he didn’t- he couldn’t.
Blearily his eyes fluttered open, taking in the metallic-light washed world and staring in almost horror at his hooves. Where the hell were his hands?! The sudden change caused him to panic, heart racing as he took breaths in hurried gasps. What was this, who did it, why?! Small marks of pink and red laced their way up his pastel colored limbs and the shout he let loose from his velvet maw was horrid. A blast of sound, of agony and hate barrelling against the rocky sides of the cliffs and sending gulls from their roost. To his dejection they added their own cries, rousing the night with their screeches and fleeing into the skies, leaving a mess of feather and shit in their fear.
In his peripheral he may have seen the forest green pointed vision of his sister Kohl, but obviously she thought it better to make herself scarce before he came too enough to confirm her authenticity. They were learning, they were all learning.
Everything hurt as he rose, shoving himself to his feet and spraying bits of sand from the lavender plumes of his wings as he brandished them about. Hateful,spiteful creatures he decided about the fae at that moment, blinking and looking around the deserted beach. Where was everyone? Had the whole lot of them perished without his guidance?, surely not, he would be sorely disappointed in them all and especially in Potion if the girl had failed to see to her duties. Well that is unless of course her daughter Ecco had taken to wielding her gifts rampant on the Covelings and so help him if she had. Starting all over from scratch would not please the lavender lord one bit but he knew once the decaying process had begun there was no stopping it unless that funny little healer boy intervened.
If they would not come to him by choice he would make sure they knew their presence was desired, a few of the women in particular. For now he would sort out his business with Misra, he had long awaited peering over the girl’s backside and right about now it sounded like the perfect remedy for what ailed him.
She is quiet, attempting to blend within the darkness of yet another eerie, creaking night. She is often absent, stolen away by her own curiosity and the incessant ache of loneliness that has lingered for so long within the depths of her chest that it has become a part of her. She cannot bear to stay too long; she loathes to see his touch linger upon another and she cannot stand to see him caress and adore the many females that have long since grown and blossomed. A frothing pit of self-pity and anguish bubbles within the confines of her rib cage the longer she allows herself to stay within the silvery confines of the pebbled beach. It would be impossible to describe how she feels - love is too saturated with broken promise and fraught with hope, and jealousy is a seeded word she is too wary to bury.
Instead, she allows her darkened figure to disappear within the depths of a shadowy night. She spends each evening, long after her lavender King has assumed she has fallen into a deep slumber, wandering the many lands that border their own. She revels in the silence, in the comfort of peace and quiet. She is grown now - a lithe, slender beauty with thick wings and cascading feathers of obsidian and silver, which catch the light of the waning moon so beautifully as she bounds with heavier footfall, plunging towards an open meadow as she extends her plumage to her sides and catches the thick breeze with ease. She is soaring now; flying so far above the crinkling, dying foliage and the sand dunes along the coast that she is enveloped into a shroud of fog that caresses her flesh with a gentle chill.
She embraces the night, the thick blanket of stars overhead and the sheen of light from the moon shining down as she glides through the thin air. She closes her eyes for a moment, savoring the invigorating feeling of freedom that floods through her delicate veins. She cannot stay forever, this she knows - but the gentle skylark is still too hesitant to leave; still too foolishly hopeful that he will see anything in her aside from a pawn in his clever game. Her thoughts, however, are broken unceremoniously. Her heart seizes for a moment within her chest as a shrill cry echoes from below, and shortly after, she finds herself surrounded by startled, frightened birds of questionable color and scent (these gulls always reek of their own feces and digestive fluids, and she flinches away as they near her).
With a powerful thrust of her wings, she soars lower beneath the sheen of fog that lingers above, and it is then that she sees him, his lavender pelt glimmering beneath the reflection of a bright, wistful ocean bathed beneath the evening light. She moves with ease through the air, gliding slowly to the uneven, soft sand, her darkened hooves prancing along the coastline as she alters her momentum. Quietly, she pulls her thick wings to her sides, brown doe eyes peering uncertainly at an uneasy, injured Kirin. She had not seen him in some time, but that was hardly rare - he was always within the presence of another; making love to another. Her blood boils softly, simmering beneath the surface, but she swallows the white hot jealousy as if it were acidic bile in her throat.
"Kirin," She murmurs, pressing her cheek to his hip as she looks warily to his various markings, which seep a trickling of blood along his perfect, flawless coat. "You're injured. What happened?"
keep you like an oath may nothing but death do us part
Skin and skin, more like fur and fur and he flinches at the touch because for moments he has forgotten what was. He doesn’t know why his body betrays him so, sinks away instead of responding with bold actions as it would have before. Kirin feels almost alien in his own body for a moment, a breath of air and even though the occurrence is fleeting it does not pass unnoticed. Silver eyes float to her face, taking in the familiarity of the curves of her jaw and the fine lines of her regal head. “Misra?” he asks, as though uncertainty still fills him and in acknowledgement to the fact that for a moment there he was uncertain- quite. If he had them still, his hands, he would shakily bring them to her dark face, cupping her cheeks in his palms.
Even as the bewitchment wore off he shook. It was not a reaction to or a quiver of anticipation, it was something new. Something he had not felt in so long that he had forgotten what it was. It took him a moment to even remember what to call it, and when the word finally came to mind he recoiled. Fear.
When the wretched feeling subsides he trembles still, aftershocks taking him as he struggles to control his own motions but already he can feel the emotion replaced with one more familiar. Anger ravaged him when he placed blame on those responsible for his state of being, when he knew who should be held accountable for the very unnatural way his body and mind were reacting. Kirin didn’t know how he would return the favor to the fae but when he figured it out, boy, they would be sorry. Now that was a more Kirin-like thought, and the return of normalcy was welcome as he hissed out a breath when his nerves eased. The light returned to his silver eyes as he looked over the grown girl before him, sucking in the salty air as the crispness of it put a stitch in his side. His whole body hurt now but the pain was welcome, pain was something Kirin understood though more often was he the one inflicting it. When she asks him his eyes harden, narrowing as he bristles not at her or the inquiry but the answer.
“Yes indeed it appears I have been. It was the fairies Misra, they took me away, made me a man and now I am back, thrown in the sand like a used seal.” His voice is bitter, chilled, poison on his lips and he seethes as he speaks. “And they’ve not left it at that, they’ve done something else it seems, bewitched my mind to think in ways it shouldn’t!” Every word became a growl, growing in intensity until he was shouting. Very rarely did Kirin have cause to yell, it had been some time since he last raised his voice and never was it in Misra’s presence. When he had said his peace he took another long breath, curling into the female as if she were a soft, down-filled blanket. In inhales her deeply, sucking air into his lungs as though he strains to breathe and then his heart races and his mouth salivates. Slowly he finds what is himself and with it the insatiable ache to be close, to be in control of both himself and others.
He trembles, and suddenly a slow ebbing of worry crawls beneath her skin and claws gently at her veins as her heart surges, pumping thick waves of blood through her. He has never trembled before, not that she had ever seen, and her lavender King had never struck her as anything but confident, at ease and perhaps a touch narcissistic. To see him unraveling beneath the weight of his own thoughts, between the pressure of his memory and the reality of the world around him is something she has never seen - and a pang of longing twinges within the depths of her chest, and she realizes that for the first time in the entirety of her short life, she pities him.
He flinches away from her, and at first, the rejection stings, but she does not allow her deep doe eyes to show it. Instead, as he recoils, she presses her cheek again to his hip - an affectionate touch to soothe him, for she does not like to see this side of him. He is always so full of regalia and charm; it is difficult for her to swallow the pain he is undoubtedly grappling with. Yet, in the same note, she is content that he has unraveled in front of her and her alone. She would never tell a soul, and she would never breathe a word of it. This moment was theirs and theirs alone, and she always kept their moments near to her.
"It's me, She murmurs reassuringly, her silvery feathers bristling as the evening cove air drifts over them - a chilling reminder of the looming threat of winter. She no longer flinches away from the icy chill, as she is more than a thin layer of sinew and bone now, but she presses closer to him nonetheless. Aching to comfort him. Longing for his closeness, as she always has. He gazes to her with a fierce fire in his eyes that causes her heart to leap within her chest, though his explanation (fraught with anger, with resentment) soon allows her to delve deeper into his pain.
The fae. Of course. She has heard of such adventures, equine souls whisked away for dangerous, at times terrifying adventures - she had thought it was only a rumor, only a child's tale. But here he stood, shaken to his very core, hazel eyes glinting about anxiously, and she does not doubt him. His voice rises, but again, she does not recoil. She entrusts him with every piece of her - he has never struck her, never hurt her, and she has no reason to believe that he will do so now. Gently, she reaches forward to preen and tug at his delicate, still gloriously beautiful feathers. They glint and glimmer beneath the moonlight, which bathes their winged bodies as they stand so close near the water's edge.
Misra remains close to him, wanting to soothe him with her presence. I am here, she wills herself to say, but she cannot. Instead, she simply nuzzles his flank gently, remaining a constant comfort in his time of turmoil. Soon, his resolve and anguish melt away, and he is wrapped around her in an all too familiar way. She drapes her long, elegant neck over his own, drawing him near - she is still lithe, still petite, yet she nearly matches him in size now - and obliviously, trustingly, she draws him near to her. "You are still Kirin. You are still strength and power and charm and everything I have ever known you to be," She murmurs, stroking his ego, prodding a hackling beast that lingers within him. "they cannot take that away from you."
keep you like an oath may nothing but death do us part
Slowly he finds what is himself and with it the insatiable ache to be close, to be in control of both himself and others. She pulls him near and he allows it, sinks forward into the loose silver sands and for now it is enough.For now the steady rhythm in her chest is welcome, the fire of her skin is gratifying and he finds no protest with her actions.
Her words snapped him back to the present. Over several beats, his eyes regained clarity of his surroundings. The pain from his deeply rooted memories faded away like mist before the rising sun, and a smile sprouted on his lips. Wicked as sin and shining as the Morning Star as it wound his way across his lavender muzzle. This was better, even if it was just for now (which he would soon come to find out over the next several weeks). This feeling was more himself and with it he blossomed, in this, his true nature, Kirin thrived- he lived. Misra’s scent fills his lungs, giving him life, self-sustaining oxygen, purpose. She always knew how to stroke his ego just right, to dote on him in ways that pleased him and the beast that wrestled itself in his chest where his heart might have been had he had one.
Kirin never loved things the way they were meant to be loved, Kirin loved things because Kirin loved Kirin. He adored what would serve him, he kept close things that he saw as self-serving, he gave special treatment only to that which promised him the most use. Misra was one of those things, few as they were, but that’s all that really mattered when it came down to the Cove. Favoritism. They all wanted it, few had it and even fewer grabbed his attention enough to pull him away from himself. Those few were rewarded but was it really a prize to be sought in the end? Depends who you ask, depends what you want and how far you are willing to go to get it.
“You’re right,” he breathes, sugar and smoke rolling from his lips and frosting the very words that left them. “My Misra, you are so very right.” My Misra, Mine, as was everything when it came to Kirin. Possessions, belongings, each and every one. She tasted of the sea, she smelled of home as he dug deeper his face into her skin. He didn’t bother to hold back the nips and nibbles that traced along her neck to her shoulder, his teeth by passing the delicate feathers that lined her sides. Kirin didn’t like the way the fae magic changed him, made him act. It wasn’t becoming of him to be weak or vulnerable and to remedy these unwanted feelings he reverted to a tried and true remedy. He took comfort in things that caused discomfort to some and pleasure in others and now it would be Misra’s turn to share that with feeling with him.
”Help me forget, help me remember.” It isn’t often he asks for things rather than take them but tonight he asks because he needed more than words. Tonight he wanted her to make him believe that what she spoke was true, that he was in fact all those things and that nothing could rob him of it.
"How can I do both?" She breathes, knowing how impossible it is to sate him, how difficult it is to lure his attention away from the others. Yet in this moment, her heart pounds, thrumming against her rib cage as he draws himself closer to her. She can feel the heat of his body radiating into her own, and she finds herself suddenly speechless. Her mind draws a momentary blank as his breath lingers across her silvery pelt, causing her to bristle and press against him in turn.
She knows what he craves, what he seeks, but she has little idea of what is to come. He is altogether a two-faced coin; at times violent and in others, gentle. He is as unpredictable as the weather that laps heavily at the coast, even now, as a soothing fog floods the sands in which they stand. Her thick lashes close over her doe eyes as he presses his cheek deeper against her, inhaling the scent of salt and sand that linger betwixt her feathers and along the nape of her slender neck. She whuffs softly, pausing to gaze uncertainly as he pulls and preens along her thick, magnificent wings, which still are dwarfed by the glory of his own. His pale lavender skin presses against her, and she surrenders, terrified and quaking to the very depths of her bone, and yet trusting him inexplicably.
She has seen the way he has taken to others - there were a certain few that he would caress and preen, adoringly (albeit possessively). She has seen the way she has destroyed others, crushing their skulls beneath the weight of his manipulation by the very blunt hooves of their own children. He knows the danger he possesses, and yet still, she surrenders, crooning softly to him as he quietly begs of her what she has never been able to give him. He pleads for what he has taken from so many and would be given by many more. She is nothing special, this she knows, and yet, for a moment in time, she is foolish enough to believe that she could be.
"I am yours, Kirin." She murmurs with a tremble to her voice. If only for tonight.
