our demons are all around us and they don't come from hell
every single one of them reminds us of ourselves
Her body aches for the Jungle.
She cannot escape it. She cannot escape the vague rootlessness that has taken over her life—the way that she wanders with no escape. The way that no place feels like home (not even resting against Rodrik’s side, his unnatural skeletal body warming her scarred flesh). She is a warrior without a sword, without a purpose, without a reason. For her entire life, she has pledged herself to the Amazons and to the jungle. She was raised there. She eventually served and lead and fought there. All of her memories were made in service to the jungle, to the land that had captured whatever pieces of her heart were made to be caught.
So in the afterglow of the Reckoning, she has wandered.
For a while, her wanderings were nearby, taking her simply around the borders of various lands, haunting the edges and the trails without thinking. Then, slowly, they began to take her further and further out. She began to lose track of time—to lose track of where she was. Then, suddenly, daytime wanderings began to not stop when the sun began to dip down in the sky. Instead, she simply kept walking, or she found a quiet place to nest for the night. Then, she gave up on trying to find her way back to the home that was not a home. Instead, she kept going, following whatever scent or breeze struck her fancy.
But even this has an end, and her wanderings have once again led her back into the heart of Beqanna.
To the heart of the only thing that has ever laid claim to hers.
He is not difficult to find, not difficult to track, and although her pulse doesn’t race at the sight of him, there is a familiar warmth that spreads throughout her at the sight of him, unique as it may be. She does not make a scene. She does not gush or make flowery declarations—but she also does not apologize. Not for her absence. Not for her return. After all, she is still a Queen to her bones. She does not bend to the expectation of anyone, even him. Instead she simply presses worn velvet lips to his cheek and breathes in the scent of him, something about it comforting. “Rodrik,” she greets, the only sound to fall.
IMAGE © CANDID-CROCODILES
@[Rodrik]
looking for heaven found the devil in me
 He longs for the things he once had.
The turning of time has only left him empty and aching. Searching for the things he once had, the things he should not have lost ever. The crown that had fallen from his head. The home that had been lost before the Mountain had swallowed it whole. And the family he has had to bury along with those that he has murdered.
A void within the red devil continues to consume him every day that passes by. The darkness overtakes the only thing he has left within him. The humanity that he can barely hang onto.
Eventually, he will be nothing.
He is already nothing.
It was only her that had brought him back to life. The only thing that he could ever let himself be fully consumed by. She was the answer to his demons, fighting them away all those years ago when he had nothing left.
She was the light within his darkness.
There she would always be when she needed him most. Coming back to save him from the demons that continue to eat away at him, chaining him up, and ripping the last pieces of his humanity away. There she was ready to fight away—to be his light again.
He does not need pretty words or declaration of love. No reasons or apologizes had to be spoken. Rodrik accepted her as she was, the Queen she has always been. He loved every bit of what she was. The darkness and demons she had too.
“Brunhild,” he says softly back.
The red devil accepts her touch. He presses into her, finding years of loneliness gone within an instant. There would always be comfort within her touch, sending his worries away immediately.
“You’ve been gone too long,” is all he can manage to say next. |
@[brunhild]
our demons are all around us and they don't come from hell
every single one of them reminds us of ourselves
She is nothing light.
Such light had been snuffed out a long time ago.
But, for him, she will be an anchor. She will be a lighthouse. She will drag him back from the pits of hell with nothing but the gritting of teeth and sweat upon her brow. She was once dragged there herself on the haggard edge of a disease that had consumed her out of nowhere, and she had crawled back.
For the Amazons, yes, but also for him.
She would gladly return to that dark place if he needed her to.
Brunhild is glad that he does not require flowery declarations of love because she would not know how to give them to him. She can only give him her presence, her loyalty, the depth of her feeling displayed in the quiet way that her muzzle finds the curve of his jaw. She can only give him the stillness, the vulnerability that she surrenders to when she is pressed against him like this.
He says her name, and she closes her eyes for but a brief moment, relishing in the way it sounds on his tongue—as if it was something sweet instead of dark steel. “I have,” she confesses, but it is not followed by an apology. “I wandered for a long time,” her dark voice fills the space between them, and she looks ahead, studying this foreign land and wondering what had brought him here.
“Next time, I would like for you to be with me.”
It’s the closest she can get to unpacking her heart for him. It’s the closest she can get to laying it bare before him, the simple act of expressing her want, her need, nearly undoing her. She swallows against the resistance in her throat, the need to bottle it up and lock it away, but instead she leans her forehead against him, breathing him deep into her lungs and letting the warmth wash over her. “I missed you,” the words are low, breathed against him so softly that he might have missed them altogether were it not so quiet.
IMAGE © CANDID-CROCODILES
looking for heaven found the devil in me
She was the only thing he had ever needed.
The crown of power could not satisfy him. The bloodshed of others could not sustain him. The darkness within him could to fill him.
It was only her that he could entirely feel complete. The very essence of her consumed him from the first day he had laid his eyes on her and until this very moment. Their love and loyalty was unspoken, but it was unbreakable no matter the distance or time.
They are both creatures of hardness and ferocity. Neither needing the flowery declarations of love, but simply of who they both all. Equally they have both come to accept each other for who they are, their demons and angels. No matter the price, no matter the sacrifice that would be required.
He inhales the scent of her mane, tasting the smell that marks her and only her. It could almost be a dream that she is her, a ghost from his past coming to haunt him again. The darkness was a devilish thing. It knew how to play its tricks on him. And it did gladly without care or reason.
But she is not a ghost.
She is simply her, and real as thing as she has been before.
Her touch is more welcoming than he can fathom. There are no words to describe the way he has missed her. It is only by his touch as he traces the outline of her neck up to her own jawline that craves her more than anything he has ever been offered in his entire lifetime. Her voice is sweeter than anything he has ever heard. It brings him to his very knees, to the very floor of the earth.
The red devil cannot help but wonder where she had gone. What lands did she see? What people did she meet? What even had brought her back to Beqanna? How could he have let her gone alone?
It had been senseless for him to even not considering going with her previously. He could have left the darkness of it all within Beqanna. Leaving everything he had known was more than enough as long as he had Brunhild by his side. He needed to remember that, needed to finally realize without her he was nothing.
“I will follow you wherever you go,” he says firmly, pressing his head against her own and closing his eyes.
She presses into him then. He already knows the weight that she cares. The years apart have been heavy, but he cannot let her fall back into the darkness, to lock away it all again just as she had before. This time, he would not let her leave without him. This time he would be there—he would always be there at her side.
He doesn’t miss her next words, despite how soft she speaks them. “I missed you too,” he whispers back to her, pressing himself closer into her. |
@[brunhild]
our demons are all around us and they don't come from hell
every single one of them reminds us of ourselves
She calms beneath his touch, the wild edges of her unrest settling, the tendrils of her unrooted soul finding root in the fabric of him. He has always done this. He is a steady presence—a calming force. Shadows had always chased him, had always spread far and wide in his wake, but she has never known anything but peace next to him. Even when they stood with sin on their shoulders and blood on their hands, she has found peace—resting with him first as peer and then friend and now, impossibly, as something more.
As everything.
Still, it teases out the barest hint of a smile on her forever stern face—something that softens the rough edges of her, making her plain face almost feminine, almost beautiful. “I’m not going anywhere,” she murmurs before a husky laugh follows with a shrug of her scarred shoulders. “At least not for now.”
Because she couldn’t promise that she wouldn’t slip away again.
She couldn’t promise that the call of the borders and what lay beyond wouldn’t tempt her again.
Without the Amazons to root her, she felt listless, unsettled, unsure. It was only in the here and now with her shoulder against him and his mouth on her neck that anything made sense—that she felt like she still belonged and like she wasn’t a relic of a land long ago swallowed by the heavens.
Still, her mind wanders and she glances up, searching his face.
“How is our son?” she asks, knowing that the graces of motherhood have mostly escaped her. She cares for her hellhound of a son; she cares about him as much as she possibly can, but she was never made for the soft, sweet moments of motherhood. She was not anchored by the idea of nurturing him, and she was grateful that her and Rodrik had not created a soul that needed to be coddled.
Still, whatever is maternal within her, longs to hear that he is safe—that he is well.
IMAGE © CANDID-CROCODILES
looking for heaven found the devil in me
Rodrik smiles softly at her response. There was truth with in her reply, he could not hide from the fact that he agreed with her. Even felt the same way.
These lands, Beqanna, he had been born and grown up in were no longer the same. No longer was the Jungle around for him to run in or the face of his mother roaming through the flora of the amazons. No longer was the misty mountain evergreen forest that he had claimed to be his own. Each of these places he had marked into history were nothing now, nothing but stories told to children.
He was simply fading as well; a story lost within the pages of Beqanna. There was nothing more of him to hold onto here, not even being immortal would hold him here much longer. His family began fading away slowly into the darkness. One by one they would fade away and he would outlive them all—thankfully, Kavi would still be around since he had gained the ability to live forever as well.
Outside of these walls seemed more tempting lately. A world he has yet to explore, yet to know what it might hold more for him (perhaps even Brunhild too).
Rodrik catches her gaze, a hint of light fills his hollowed eyes when he looks into hers. Even at her question they still remain a lit despite the turn of the conversation. He has struggled with ever keeping track of his hellhound son ever since he was born—the omen that came from the darkness. But their son had not needed their love that most children require. Sinner had been much less of the children he has had ever raised, perhaps in similarity to his first daughter, Straia.
“I have not seen him for years,” he admits, but he does not feel guilty for it either. Sinner did not require the attention and love from his parents. “But I have heard rumors he has made something of himself within Sylva. I can only hope that he is doing well for himself there.” If anything Rodrik knew Sinner was identical to him in ways that he could be capable of climbing the ranks within a kingdom. There was more hunger within his hellhound son than he had ever had, but he knew instantly the familiarity of what his son would be capable of since he was born. |
@[brunhild]
our demons are all around us and they don't come from hell
every single one of them reminds us of ourselves
She supposes that she is glad that what they have is easy—simple despite the fact that they are not simple in any way. But now, in the relative twilight of their life, the crowns and the titles and the responsibility behind them, the very lands that had once clung to their every fiber swallowed up by Beqanna herself, they are allowed to be simple. They are allowed to pretend that they are nothing but two souls who love another, as though they had not commanded armies and led raids and schemed destruction.
But she doesn’t breathe the sins against his flesh.
She just smiles into it, hooded eyes lowering as she makes a soft noise at the back of her throat.
“If I know anything about his parents,” she says quietly into the space between them, a rare twinge of humor to her throaty voice, “then I think that he will do just fine.” She had not been wholly surprised that the two of them had given birth to a hellhound, that they had not brought forth something soft and sweet into this world, and part of her wishes she could love him more like a mother should.
She should have wanted to fret over him, to coddle him, to protect him.
Instead, she had been perfectly fine letting him loose on the world.
Simply stepping back and watching as he made his way out into it.
If that made her cold, then she is certain she can live with the consequences.
Because now, standing next to Rodrik, she doesn’t feel cold. She doesn’t feel alone. She simply feels like they are standing on the precipice of the great unknown, and she doesn’t feel scared at all. Instead she angles her heavy head toward him, the lines that draw her up more masculine than feminine. “So what should we do next, Rodrik?” Her voice is steady as she takes her gaze back to the horizon.
“There’s a lot out there for us to go explore.”
IMAGE © CANDID-CROCODILES
looking for heaven found the devil in me
A humorous smile curves his lips up slightly at her words. Although their firstborn had been born something rather unnatural it was not entirely a surprise either. He was morphed into such things that would be given life within this world—dark creatures that he had never thought possible. It had never been entirely possible for him to ever create something so soft and sweet. Perhaps his second daughter, Lucrezia, would come to the closest thing he has ever created to be a light within the world.
But with Brunhild, things were different. Their son had been born and initiated with the very elements that had made who Brunhild and him were. Perhaps there could be hope though—their daughter.
Rodrik wonders sometimes what sort of place she will have within this world and who she will become. He intends to have a better impact on her life—one that is more meaningful. One she may enjoy helping thrive and develop. It perhaps would be the first of his many children that he has ever done this. But with Brunhild the possibilities were endless.
The dark mare turns towards him, drawing his nutmeg eyes to her. He is uncertain of what to say. It has been so long since he has ever considered where his future will be. Beqanna has always been his home, but ever since the changes years ago he has never felt that it was. He considers what there could be—everything was out there for them to take ahold.
For the first time in a long time he feels excitement fill him. With Brunhild at his side, what more could he need? He only needed her and nothing else. That is all he has never needed. She was his home now.
“Then let us leave and explore what more the world has to offer us,” he replies finally. The words sound strange, but it feels right at the same time. “I will go wherever you go, Brunhild.” And he will always. |
@[brunhild] Just tagging in case you wanted to read 
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![[Image: lRJZ7qE.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/lRJZ7qE.gif)
