"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
07-02-2018, 07:54 PM (This post was last modified: 07-02-2018, 08:05 PM by Jenova.)
She’d slept peacefully through the night despite the cold. In fact, she didn’t wake until almost midday. Her bright blue eyes only open when the sun’s path has reached its highest point. Last night, she’d curled up beneath the trees to a brown and gray winter landscape. Now it’s all white and pristine, like something straight out of a painting. Jenova hurries to rise from her makeshift bed and trots into a more open area to see just how much had fallen.
It is the first snowfall of the year and she is delighted to be near the river during times like this. The current cuts a line through the snow drifts and she can see the flurries have collected up to knee height in some places around her. She smiles as she spreads her wings to catch the little flakes on her feathers where they either blend into the white patches or create pale freckles on the powder blue splotches across her. While the lazy days of summer were always enjoyable, she thinks that winter might be her favorite time of the year. Lounging in a lake while the cicadas cry out nearby just can’t compare to kicking up the snow and watching the way her breath puffs in front of her.
With a flap of her wings, all the little crystalline snowflakes she’d collected swirl around her before they join the others on the ground. Jenova begins to trudge forward but she’s careful not to lift her legs too high. Two grooves form in the snow behind her until she finds a flat patch of land. She continues scooting along, forming different shapes until her legs grow tired from the effort. The white puffs of her breath slowly calm as she bows her head down, etching different pictures of herself and her past friends in the snow with her horn. She lifts her head once she’s finished and bursts into laughter at the pitiful attempt. They’re absolutely terrible. Someone should pay her not to do their portrait.
Still, among her sketches she’s drawn her parents. Even though they don’t resemble them in the slightest, it makes it a little easier to remember their faces. She misses them terribly but she’s not one to complain. Instead, she reflects on her memories and cherishes them. Jenova gives a little toss of her head to brush the light blue and white forelock from her pretty face. Somewhere in the distance, a bird chirps in annoyance, but the world is otherwise hushed around her. Everything is at peace.
JENOVA
And in my dreams you're alive and you're crying,
As your mouth moves in mine, soft and sweet.
Your beauty is beyond compare - oh, if I could hear but one song from you
I shall hail thee Queen of Birds...
The river is a quiet place to travel in winter, and the bay roan stands out like a fire. His body red, his mane and tail highlighted by the metallic golden streaks - the only thing that doesn't stand out might be the silvering in those same flags, but they don't make him any less stunning.
As, of course, he himself would say any day. Any other day really, to be honest. He has a purpose to travel towards Nerine today, but if he can stall, then all the better. It has been a little over a year now that he'd made his way to Loess with Arthas, and since then he's constantly tried to mend the broken line between his home and his... temporary second home (okay, maybe not constantly, there have been distractions). If the Loessians hadn't been quite so stubborn, he would have succeeded, but even Arthas had found it too annoying to be king (like Leilan would have told him a thousand times) - now it was Wolfbane who owned that title. Which meant the close alliance with Sylva was void what with them being available for hire by anyone.
He smiled to himself, thinking of that. It meant that his brief position as a spy-or-liaison (he'd told both parties different things) was no longer needed, and that he was free to go. To roam Beqanna once more, and either woo or irritate whomever he came across. Mostly, to sway the ladies and irritate the gents (who then usually turned out to be NOT-gentlemen). For one without a purpose, he was dead-set on continuing the life cycle as it should be. As long as he could keep that one girl out of his mind.
His hoofs make deep marks in the fresh white of the world. Now or then, he kicks at it, or walks figures in it, nameless swirls and even more nameless heaps of white in the world. Accidentally, he also kicks snow over a bird who'd been trying to find something (a worm perhaps), and the feathered little beastie angrily chips at him. But on her own, she's nothing, and the draft-bred stallion ignores the avian creature.
He continues his silent trek, but the smirk has already died on his face by the time he notices the blue-white figure in the distance. A winged unicorn, or a horned pegasus - a pegacorn, or unisus. Doesn't matter - she's pretty and she's female, and his smile is back on his face when he emerges from the trees. A perfect distraction. He stops before walking into her snow-ploughed patch of white though, and looks down on them curiously and then back at her before grinning. "Quite the artist, I see. Glad we meet in winter." he nods at her. "I'm Leilan, of Ischia." Formerly of... whatever. A lot. "Whom have I the pleasure of meeting today?" he prods. Anything, anyone, to make him feel better - but she could just make him feel at his best today.
there's something here that doesn't make sense
let's go and poke it with a stick
@[Jenova]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
something about the dark. something about our bodies, and the way we find one another.
something about the place where fear melts in the mouth and gets lost in kisses and under fingernails.
Jenova is one of those rare beautiful fools, one who doesn’t understand the true workings of the world around her. Her eyes don’t see the thread that connects them all or the way her life is always so close to danger. Instead, she only knows of her daydreams and the perfect world she’s sculpted for herself. The precious girl spends her days sighing and imagining the life of a princess or queen as though their lives are perfect and so far away from what little troubles she knows. Even now, she believes missing her parents is the penultimate of pain. Her heart is fragile like the crystalline icicles dangling from nearby trees – one breath might shatter them both.
Her ear turns to listen as he approaches and she looks over her shoulder at him. Her long lashes blink slowly as her wing hides the lower half of her face like some modest angel, but she doesn’t realize the things she does. Jenova smiles as he observes her work and tucks her wing tight against her to reveal the sweet expression. His compliment has her laughing softly and the sound is sweet like delicate harp chords plucked just gently enough to emit a sound. Ignorant girl, she doesn’t know what he means when he says ‘of Ischia’. If he had not paused after saying his name, she might think the title was also part of it. LeilanofIschia.
She absent-mindedly bites her lower lip shyly.
“I am Jenova, of here,” she says with another laugh. She mimics his careful pause, lest she be called Jenovaofhere. “The pleasure is all mine, of course.”
She says this with a little bow – wings splayed out to accentuate the gesture, a dainty foreleg lifted. When she rises, her bright blue eyes look over him curiously. The little golden strands of his mane draw her closer without any concern for personal space. Their chests are touching before she realizes but she seems unbothered by the contact, though his cold aura sends a shiver up her spine. The glimmering gold is too alluring for her to worry about all that, though.
“Were you born this lovely?” she asks as she delicately touches her nose to the strands to see if they are as soft as the others. Her breath is almost hot against his skin but she doesn’t seem to notice or care. She’s a curious thing, refined in her words and some of her gestures, but entirely wild in the way she carries herself. Her mother didn’t have time to teach her quite everything there is to being a lady so she improvises from time to time. It certainly makes for an interesting girl, to say the last.
Jenova
something about the sanctity of trust, of midnight confessions,
of held breath let out on a sigh like a smoke signal, a safe harbor.
some kind of magic. the kind that’s only for us.
Your beauty is beyond compare - oh, if I could hear but one song from you
I shall hail thee Queen of Birds...
To be honest, Leilan never intentionally made use of a girl’s naivety. To be even more frank, he never met those, not really. Or perhaps when he was naive himself, so, does that count? But even then - he walks where his eyes find something pretty, and happily engages in any kind of contact with one who catches his interest. Many girls catch his interest, really. And this light blue happy bubble is just one of those passing through.
But she comes close very quick, even closer than his own instincts would have told him to for a first meeting, and he subconsciously builds a layer of cold around himself. When she shivers, he realizes what he’s doing - defending. Which is ridiculous, so he lets go. The air between them warms again - warms fast, warms quickly, a hot breath on his skin as she is drawn to the sparkling gold in his mane and reaches for it. Not as soft as the rest, but, the metallic streaks are still just hair, and they move with her touch.
He almost shivers himself. His ear and eye are drawn to her, his head bends to breathe on her own neck as well as he chuckles in his lower voice. ”I like to think so, but the gold is newer, if that’s what you were referring to.” he speaks low and soft, due to the lack of distance between them. Already her smell is intoxicating. Had it been fall, he might not have been able to help himself. He wonders how her mind would react to such, however. She seems not to understand what her closeness and light touch does to him.
there's something here that doesn't make sense
let's go and poke it with a stick
@[Jenova]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
If she had known that his frost skin was a defense mechanism, she might have laughed until her sides hurt. There was nothing threatening at all to her in her opinion and it seemed ridiculous to suggest otherwise. (In truth, though, all wild things possess some degree of danger and she is not an exception. Even a cornered mouse may draw blood from its aggressors and she has plenty more than teeth at her disposal.)
When his skin warms against her own, she finds that she enjoys the heat of his body blending with hers as the cold winter prevails around them. She seems satisfied by the texture of his golden locks and retreats from his side for only a moment to reposition herself better. Jenova has grown greedy for his body heat and so she turns to face the same way as him and tucks herself into his side, pressing her shoulders and hips to his. Her body almost seems to shrink against his, curled tight against him all soft and small like a trophy wife at a banquet. She makes for a lovely accessory.
“How did you get to have gold, then?” she asks in her soft voice, all syrup and sweet like licking honey from your fingers. Her doe eyes are full of wonder as she stares up at him through long lashes. Jenova is in awe of him but she seems terribly unaware of what she does to him with her presumptuous behavior. She only knows what her body tells her, that it craves this sort of touch until it’s dizzy with the sensation, and she obeys so eagerly.
“Do you think I’m lovely too?” Her smile would make cherubs swoon when she watches him, waiting for an answer. No one has ever paid her a compliment and she is curious to know herself through the eyes of another. A little white and powder blue forelock hangs in her face but it fails to obscure her sweet expression.
JENOVA
And in my dreams you're alive and you're crying,
As your mouth moves in mine, soft and sweet.
Your beauty is beyond compare - oh, if I could hear but one song from you
I shall hail thee Queen of Birds...
For the tiniest of moments, the roan stallion is disappointed - she moves away again, her lingering warmth cooling quickly and making him finally shiver for real. But instead of saying something, like he had expected her to do, she turns her backside and swivels her body next to his in a cuddling position. Her feathers softer than anything he’s ever known, she is an all-new sensation.
One that he can only love. He’s drawn to her physically as well as mentally, watching her from above, their 2-hand difference in height making her look up and him look down - but he’s so, so very comfortable this way. Her blue contrasts with the light red of his roaned bay coat, standing out in the snow together. Quite a pair they make. She asks about the hold again - like a bee homing in for honey, she can’t seem to let go of it until she knows alla bout it, it seems. And although he’s told the story before, he doesn’t mind repeating it if that means he can entertain her. She’s like a little fairy come to help him take his mind off things.
He moves his head to brush over her neck gently, untying a small knot in her mane. There, all beter. He perks his ears at her question, and hums. ”A gift to me from the goddess Nike. She is all golden herself, a sight to see. She challenged all of Beqanna to a game, and me and my teammates won the first prize. Gold to attire the three of us, and an elemental aura to surround ourselves with. I believe you experienced mine just now.” he tells her into her ears in a low voice, his neck curled behind hers, and when he’s silent again he continued to groom her mane for a while.
But she has more questions, and makes him pause to speak more. He chuckles and answers truthfully. ”You are the loveliest girl I’ve met all winter, and just the thing I need right about now.” His voice slightly hoarser than intended, he falls silent as his nose and lips caress her neckline once more. He is very needy right now. Wants to claim her as his own, if but for a moment (or more, in the future). Does he feel love? He doesn’t think so. Attraction, yes. Curiosity, too. A certain want and need combined, it’s not love.
But it’s all the rest; and probably the best she’ll ever get from him.
there's something here that doesn't make sense
let's go and poke it with a stick
@[Jenova]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
something about the dark. something about our bodies, and the way we find one another.
something about the place where fear melts in the mouth and gets lost in kisses and under fingernails.
Jenova does not appreciate the color her father has given her or the wings and horn from her mother. Instead, she is envious of all the unique aspects of those around her, especially this golden goddess Nike. A wistful sigh leaves her lips as she imagines a perfect beauty, glimmering in the sun like some unattainable apex of aesthetics. How lucky she thinks Leilan is to mimic some of that gorgeous color. Revere and Cherise would surely scoff to see their daughter so unappreciative of their gifts.
When he fusses with the little knot in her mane, the brief touch is electric on her skin and she shivers despite being quite comfortable nestled against him. His compliments make her cheeks and ears grow hot. Her body urges her to flee from his side while also demanding that she reciprocate his affectionate touches. It confuses her, really, as she has never had the chance to explore her own body or another’s before. Still, she turns her head just enough to sigh against his skin without daring to go any further than this.
Jenova doesn’t understand concepts such as romantic love or attraction as Leilan does. She knows that his skin pressed tightly to hers is thrilling and his touches make her knees weak, but she doesn’t think beyond these things. In fact, she might not ever feel devotion so great as love, but that’s alright with her. A wild thing like Jenova hardly has a need for commitment beyond a day.
“Maybe I’ll have to visit Ischia every now and again,” she mumbles idly against him. She thinks it might be fun to see him later when the summer is too hot and maybe he can use that frost to cool her off. Jenova has always avoided the kingdoms for fear of overstepping their boundaries, but if she’s visiting Leilan then it’s a different story. The idea of exploring a place that had previously been forbidden is wildly exciting for her. She would always return home to the river though. This was the only home she had ever really known within Beqanna and she’s not terribly eager for a permanent change of scenery just yet.
She’d like to ask why someone like her is just what he needs but the topic seems rather dreary and complicated, so she leaves it off the table for now. Jenova is no good for advice or comfort when it comes to tangled up emotions and darker days, as she doesn’t know such emotions herself.
Jenova
something about the sanctity of trust, of midnight confessions,
of held breath let out on a sigh like a smoke signal, a safe harbor.
some kind of magic. the kind that’s only for us.
Your beauty is beyond compare - oh, if I could hear but one song from you
I shall hail thee Queen of Birds...
His little trophy wife seems unbothered by his touches, and so he continues with them. He wants her, but, she doesn’t respond in the usual way, she just lets him do everything - well, he hasn’t tried everything yet, of course, but seeing her lack of initiative there is just enough doubt not to try that right now. Instead, he lets himself be distracted by her words. To visit Ischia now or then.
He hums in approval - not entirely trusting his voice, betraying what he feels, but he manages a few words. ”It is lovely.” To himself, he has to admit that he also means her - and wouldn’t it be nice to see her more often, the girl who’s not afraid of touch, who will always be distracted and drawn in by a shimmer of gold (lucky him). Perhaps she’s someting that needs to be saved for later, then. He could do that. Not break her innocence right now. He could definitely do that. The prospect for to see her later is enough; the dreamy girl is a welcome break from reality.
But he can’t let go of her either. For all that she lacks initiative or manners, she also lets him in. It’s a dangerous path, a thin line he just agreed with himself with not to cross. Nevertheless, he traces the lines where white and blue do not mingle, the ones near her spine, but then also the ones lower. He’s testing her, in a way. What makes her shiver, what makes her uneasy. Or if perhaps none of it does, and he could potentially go all the way.
It’s exciting, not allowing himself to do just that; and so he ultimately craves her more. His shallow breaths come rapidly on her skin, wherever he grooms, nibbles, rearranges feathers, or places that one teasing kiss, right between her shoulderblades.
there's something here that doesn't make sense
let's go and poke it with a stick
@[Jenova]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
Her ear turns to catch his words and she eyes him curiously as she notes the slight change in his voice. Jenova, naïve little thing, doesn’t understand what murky tones and husky breaths signify in a male. Still, those three words have her stomach doing backflips even as the mystery of them prevails. He lets a thick silence settle over them with only his touches to draw her attention now. She chooses not to disturb this atmosphere with her own words but rather basks in his attentions instead.
Jenova’s skin twitches and shivers at his every caress. Maybe it’s obvious just how inexperienced she really is. Still, she keeps herself firmly rooted against his side as he explores her skin for each vulnerable curve available to him. Finally, she makes her move by taking a step backward to cease his kisses for just a moment. The pastel girl reaches out, slow and nervous, to brush her lips across his jawline before skimming his neck for just a moment. Her hot breath quivers over his skin before she pulls back once more.
The air is almost painfully cold against her body after becoming so accustomed to Leilan’s but she does not return to his embrace once more. Rather, she turns so they face one another before she dares to place another gentle kiss on his cheek. Her wings flex uncomfortably as she shifts her weight a few times. “I have to go now, but I promise to come to see you. Some time,” she says with a smile that betrays her girlish attraction to him. “If you miss me too much, though, you’ll know where to find me!”
And then she’s gone, running off in the snow as she giggles so sweetly in the distance. Maybe she’ll find him in the fall when she’s even more eager to be his plaything.
JENOVA
And in my dreams you're alive and you're crying,
As your mouth moves in mine, soft and sweet.
| 
