"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
08-30-2018, 02:40 PM (This post was last modified: 10-13-2018, 09:13 AM by Solace.
Edit Reason: edited to change prefix
)
Solace
Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.
Winter was coming to the mountains. The nights stretched longer which each passing day and Solace felt the cold like she never had before. Her children bustled around her and still, she remained apathetic. She smiles at them, answered their question, and thanks them for their little gifts, of course, but her heart was not in it.
They probably could sense that something was amiss, even if she never said it out loud. They were clever, these little princelings, too smart for their own good most the time. And her smile could only ever be bittersweet after Kagerus disappeared, leaving her with nothing but harsh words and painful questions.
She wills herself not to turn over these questions now, as she herds her family into their shelters grotto. Once her little band of offspring is settled in and gently snoring, (no simple feat) Solace puts the entrance of their cave behind her. With soft steps, she removes herself from the tangle of children to seek the open air of the mountainside where she can finally be alone.
Hyaline's Caretaker allows her facade to fall, lifting her pale eyes to the stars with a sigh from deep in her belly. The night is still, yet the bitter cold causes the little mare to pull the cloak of her wings tight around her shoulders - a sharp reminder of the lovers she has chased away. She will be back, Solace chides herself as the loneliness thrums fresh in her heart once again.
She said she would be back.
Solace tracks the crescent moon across the sky with lingering glances as the night passes, willing herself to sleep. Until an hour has slipped by, and she had forgotten to look up, and finally, finally, she relaxes into the dark arms of her standing sleep.
@[Kagerus] I'm marking this as private, but considering there is a cave full of children right behind her they would be able to overhear/see her XD
{ and in my dreams I've kissed your lips a thousand times }
There'd been too many stops along the way.
Or maybe I'd questioned my sanity one too many times.
I should have made the journey alone, without Panthera.
I've been blessed time and time again, and even this time, a blessing - but one that came with a warning. You ask too much and give too little. You are selfish and proud, you think yourself a magician and though we allow it, we grow tired of it quickly when you do it for self benefit. I can only imagine that that was their reasoning. I can only imagine that they had one at all.
But for her? Anything. Even this.
Especially this.
It takes every morsel of self control I have not to run to my children as if they are air and I am fifty feet below water. Their scents carry from every corner of my kingdom as I step across its bounds and into her belly, silent in the night. Abysm, Velk, Valdis, Warlight, Rhaegor, Sviko - my relative herd of children are all somewhere in the folds of Hyaline tonight, be they sleeping or sneaking or sharing stories late into the night. My heart slams against its ribbed cage in protest as I force myself to walk quietly through the long grasses and towards a secluded meadow, west of the western most peak... On the other side of the mountain from my family's grotto.
I feel like I'm going to be sick from missing them so. But the pain is great, and the blood is still fresh (though it clots now in places), and what I fear most are their reactions. I'll be able to handle it in the morning, I'll be composed in the morning - but for now, I stow away beneath the fronds of a birch-willow, shoulder heavy against it's mottled bark. Salt and iron mingle as tears escape my eyes and run down my face; but they are not tears of any single emotion. Rather, I am overwhelmed with emotions - so much so that, before I can even begin to number them, I am falling asleep.
--
When I awaken on the other side, I start. The Abyss surrounds me, echoing silently, the reverberations felt but not seen; I'd not expected or intended on Dreaming tonight. My tongue feels dry, but I can't seem to swallow; so I close my eyes instead, and try to fall back into the black nothingness of true rest.
--
Solace.
The world around her is hazy, unclear due to the distance: but she knows. She knows that she dwells now in the slumbering subconscious of her wife, and vice versa; they've been here so often before that it makes sense that they'd be tethered, even now. Storm clouds roll over head but don't let fall a single drop of rain. She can't see her angel, but she doesn't want to - in the surprise of awakening next to her wife's mind, she wraps herself in cloaks.
She doesn't want her to see.
She doesn't want her to see.
She doesn't want her to see...
From ear to opposite nose, a gash runs deeply. Blood covers her face, making the white of her overo nearly unrecognizable. It's clearly fresh, clearly inflicted by one of greater power, clearly something of consequence.
Luckily, she doesn't want to be seen, and so she isn't. So they sit there, storm clouds rolling overhead; in silence.
Sleep had rarely come easily for Solace.
It had been something she wrestled with, a beast to be tamed, a friend who was so hard to pin down you started to wonder if they were a friend at all. But Kagerus had changed that. Solace had never felt more alive than in the days after their sultry nights together, and despite their active family and bustling kingdom, which should have drained her, her mate soothed her as no one else could. Kagerus pulled her into the sleep she craved with opium dreams, kissing her in ways that left her no other option than to breathlessness tumble into her bed, smiling and exhausted.
And the lack of rest, it only made her queen's absence more profound.
Solace hadn't truly slept since Kagerus left after their fight. The list of places she could have gone was terrifyingly infinite, and Solace can only assume she meant to barter with some higher power. To tempt fate and risk her own safety (the safety of their home) for a gift Solace had never asked for. It wasn't a risk she had wanted Kagerus to take - no matter the prize.
A deep weariness had ground her down. Deep in her skull, a dull ache had taken root like a thistle in the soft tissue of her mind. Only days had passed, yet the changes could be seen in her appearance, the way the light caused her to squint, and how she always kept the sun at her back.
It is a relief to escape this night, to fall into a sleep.
Only a heartbeat passes before Solace feels her. Kagerus is alive, close, pressed against her consciousness like cool water on a burn. She clings to the contact, wrapping her awareness around that of her mate with the force of a northern gale. There may be miles and mountains between them, but Solace's soul recognizes the touch of her lover.
"baby,"
Gently, Solace reaches to disrobe the dark shadow that is her mate's conciseness, seeking closer contact. But when a tender pull does not lose the black cloak around her, the light-being allows her hand to fall beside her pale, naked thigh.
This isn't their sultry dreamscape of cigarettes and hot, sleepless nights; it is stripped down, bare bones, without the garnish and artistic flair they so often indulged in when their minds tangled together in the world of endless possibilities. Solace melts into the mist of what she can only name their souls, pressing her own shapeless being against the other, wrapping her with warmth, with love.
They are together, and Solace focuses on pressing every ounce of her love and longing into the dusky haze that is her mate.
If anyone was watching her physical body they would see the fine hairs along her spine stand on end, and a pulse of electric blue light thrum across her hide once before dimming to a barely perceptible sheen across her coat. Her lips move soundlessly as she whispers in their dream, a dark and aching plea.
"come back home"
S
olace
we're reeling through an endless fall we are the ever-living ghost of what once was
{ and in my dreams I've kissed your lips a thousand times }
It's funny, this being in love thing. All on it's own yes, but within the scope of Beqanna, too. It has been years now that I've ruled alongside my lover. It's been years now that everyone knows us as the lover-queens, the Caretakers of Hyaline. Though other leaders have taken consorts, none have come to such a firm head as ours, where responsibilities are equally handled. From the outside, I must wonder if others see our love as a charade, as an act to gain members, as something no heavier then a crown made of leaves.
It will never matter what outsiders think. As the sound of our intertwining heartbeats thrums in a melodic dance behind our dreaming eyes, a weight lifts from my shoulders. Perhaps that's what love is, in the end. A place where your barriers drop. Where two souls, body-less and whispered, connect.
Baby.
The single word is almost my undoing. As the gale of her love confronts the shadows that I've cloaked myself in, my innermost layer crumples. Her forceful love is met blow for blow, though I've not the strength to show it the way she does: instead, I must simply receive her, my hands pressing up against the veil between us in a desperate attempt to connect our beings without revealing the truth of my quest.
Her hands worry at me, pulling at the threads of darkness which hide my true self, and it's all I can do to always keep one more layer between us. It's childish of me, to hold on to this act of hiding for so long, to not give myself fully to her: but it's not just the scar, it's everything. It's how I spoke to her in the fight, and how I went and did as she bade me not, and it's Vulgaris' teeth around my throat and how they should have killed me, and it's Magnus' lips heavy on my skin with the need of a long forgotten lover, it's -
- Everything.
I'm crying, I realize, the shoulders of my figure-less essence shaking with the might of an earthquake within my lover's grasp. She is so warm, so light, so nurturing. It's always come back to this. To her saving me and pulling me out of a darkness so suffocating that any glimmer of self left within me is nearly gone. I'm crying, and she loves me. I'm broken, and she loves me. I'm unworthy, and she loves me.
Come back home.
The final layer falls, revealing me for what I am, though in this minimalist rendition of our innermost beings, I remain a dusk to her dawn. My hands reach and without even a breath's hesitation we are together, pressed as one - my tears trace down the spine of her being and the warmth she exudes calms the tremors of mine. Everything else fades away. There is only us, together after what felt like an eternity's separation.
"I love you so much Solace."
With the unearthly sensation of shivers running through us from head to toe, the dream gradually dissolves into reality, water washing down our painted forms until only what truly is remains. I've teleported to her, pressed against her and absorbing the tingling sheen of light which radiates across the gold and white of her form. Though still shuddering, I've largely quieted; with closed eyes and worshipful lips, I press kisses to the curve of her jaw bone, down her throat and to her cheek and everywhere I can reach without extrapolating myself from her sublime figure. It's only been days, but life without her was impossible.
I pause, when I remember my deformity. Open my eyes, pull away just an inch.
"You don't have to worry any more about... Dying." My words are whispers, hushed and almost abashed in the fact that I'd succeeded in my plight. "I love you, and I want to be with you forever. No matter the cost."
"Sol, I - I'm so sorry for how I spoke to you. And for leaving Hyaline and my responsibilities. I'll do anything to make things right."
There is a fear building in her, thunderclouds stacking one on top of the other, the pressure rising. Solace cannot remember a time when Kagerus has shielded herself from her. There were no secrets between them, and her mind springs to fill the gaps with terrible truths. It takes all of her practiced self-control not to adulterate the love she pours over her mate with the sour taste of dread.
But she is strong, for her wife she could conquer gods, and she does not let the worry stifle her as they wrap their arm around each other, shaking, raw, and fitting just right.
"I love you," she replies, wondering if she could ever say it enough.
Between them, the veil fades and Solace rushes to fill the space it vacates. Only briefly does she consider the wound (the softer version of the wound) as reality begins shifting again. The fear that by Kagerus, by her own will or another's, would never set foot in Hyaline again has faded. She had not trusted her queen, not as she should have. And each kiss contradicts her doubts.
Solace feels her eyes flutter open and she realizes they are home, together.
She presses herself against her lover, absorbing the deluge of affection with a newly lightened heart. Kagerus' first words fall by the wayside, Solace has already judged her mission successful by her return.
"Forget about all that," she murmurs, "You're back now."
But soon there is a pause in the rhythm of their love-making, and Kagerus pulls away ever so slightly. Solace seems to fully recognize the wound now that they stand before each other as flesh and blood and the shock of her return has passed. Her blue eyes trace the jagged lines of the gash, the hot, inflamed skin this it's crusting scabs, and she wishes she could trade her light for healing.
"Who did this to you?" She asks bitterly, looking for a point to place the anger thoughts of Kagerus' pain summons. But after a moment her features soften, (Kagerus was back and that's what truly mattered) and she lifts her gaze to those warm, dark eyes. "If it was a fairy you better not say," she adds with a touch of dark humor, "because whoever it was had me to answer to, and I intend to make them fucking sorry."
S
olace
we're reeling through an endless fall we are the ever-living ghost of what once was
{ and in my dreams I've kissed your lips a thousand times }
She says to forget, but the pain that radiates across the flat of my face says otherwise; even more profoundly than that, the deep sense of peace and security I feel at knowing she will be with me forever makes sure that I don't forget. I will never forget the way her voice lilts when she says she loves me, and I will never forget the way her lips and tongue make my fingers curl into our bedsheets; I'll never forget getting to be by her side while she brought our children into this world, and I'll never forget sleepy mornings in our grotto, full of family and love and contentedness.
I will never forget, because now, I don't have to fear that I ever will.
When I pull away, a coolness comes between us, followed by her bitterly spat words; but they quickly fall by the wayside, replaced by the exhausted peacefulness that I know she also feels in her breast. My mouth opens and reaches for her to come back to me, wordless and needy; but her dark humor makes my own lips curl up, momentarily forgetting their sultry intentions as a pained laugh reverberates through me.
"I hope that's not the only thing you intend on fucking."
The humor gradually fades from our girlish laughter, and I find myself pressed face to face with my lover, breathless and wondersome and hoping that maybe, just maybe, this will be the last time we find a happy ending to a bad story. We deserve contendedness. We deserve forever.
As our breathing slows and our hearts find a harmonious rhythm to beat to, my mind briefly goes over the events of the past week: Vulgaris and Magnus and the Mountain. My stomach nearly turns itself inside out at these memories, but a mindless kiss from Solace sends any bad feelings I had quickly away. I question for a moment where Panthera might be, but then forget I'd ever worried; in the embrace of my lover, all those questions and worries fall to the wayside.
There is only here.
And now.
And forever.
When next I speak, it is a haze of half-sleep, ardor and wonder and love heavy on my tongue.
"I hope I get to be your girl forever, Solace. You're the light of my life. I will never love anyone as much as I love you.
And I want you to know that there's nothing you could do that could make me love you less." I pull away, consider her immense beauty, lose myself in her cerulean eyes. "Nothing, sweetheart. Nothing."
@[Solace] hi sorry for this weird awful mess of horniness and gushy love bullshit
Too quickly she allows herself to be distracted by Kagerus' laughter, easily slipping into the rich warmth she had been starved of. Solace rests her head against the strength of the warrior's dark shoulder, drinking in the nuances of her. The distinct notes of her scent, the quiet cadence of her heart, and all else fades away.
For once, for them, all is right with the world.
"Always," she confirms. Pale lips trail the line where the porcelain and auburn hairs overlap, sleepily fascinated by how perfectly they fit together. Not bothered by the world rushing by around them, Solace is content to linger in this moment until dawn.
But Kaguers is pulling away, and she lifts her head to look past the gruesome wound and into those nutmeg eyes. They consider her fondly, and the depth of the love she find's there stills her heart her for the briefest of moments. Castile's face rushes before her, but she doesn't allow his image to linger, focusing again on her Queen. On her eternity.
"Forever," she repeats, with aching sincerity.
The moment lasts for a breath, maybe two, before Solace shakes her head and a light laugh stirs in the darkness between them. "I never wished for it, not before you. If I didn't have you I wouldn't want it..."
"Thank you," she finally says, pressing a kiss into the corner of her mate's mouth. But the touch doesn't stay tender for long, and her teeth grasp the delicate skin lightly before she turns away, taking several steps away from the grotto with a roll of her golden shoulders.
"I think this means I owe you," she calls back, and her blue eyes sparkle in a way that Kagerus would only know the meaning of.
S
olace
we're reeling through an endless fall we are the ever-living ghost of what once was
Out with the golden we sew, and the lower past that crawls.
Now, to the doorway you run, to the girl that's not lost.
And in our wakefulness, the true dream of our existence is realized. For what is a dream except that which our heart most longs for... For tracing lips and soft-spoken words of love, for warmth in each other's embrace and for a serenity so bone-deep that the sensation transcends this reality, as if calm will follow us into our next lives, stubbornly committed to us. There is laughter and heartache in the breaths between our words. In the breeze that rolls across our backs like a blanket, there is a reminder of everything we've built together here; a kingdom, a refuge, a family.
She is my dream girl, and I think I've known it all along.
At least, when I try to remember what I dreamt of before her, all I can see is gold and white and blue.
I almost don't want to hear her speak for how otherworldly our reunion feels, for the way her running lips make me feel like the tallest mountain, the most winding trail; I could carry her upon my shoulders forever. There is no part of me I don't want her to journey to; there is no darkness so profound that I would not welcome her light into it. Vulnerability has never been my strong-suit and I don't think that it's hers, either - but there's something to be said about two people navigating through the darkness together, with only clasped hands to tether them. There's something to be said about love. About blindness. And about dreams.
Thank you, she breathes, pressing a kiss to the corner of my mouth, finding the most intimate of places even if any other could too. It doesn't matter where she touches me; wherever she chooses, it is a place most profound, because it is her touching me. It is always her. When her touch intensifies and builds to the climax of a needy pull, its intoxicating; instead of snapping me back to reality, it releases a flood of need into my veins that leaves me feeling at once flight and sluggish. A wordless tone fills the back of my throat with the sound of desire as she scampers away, clutching her wings to her side like a filly and swishing her tail ever so carefully.
I think this means I owe you. Simpering girl, with her knowing flutter of lashes and a coy step towards somewhere - else. I find that as I watch her swaying hips in my haze of love and ardor that I don't care where she goes. Instead of smiling, the neutrality of my face intensifies, ears pressing back as I take a step towards her - her, my wife, my angel, my darling.
"We'll see who owes who by the end of the night, sweetheart."
--
Her back is up against the wall, and what clothes we have on are admittedly disheveled, half off and twisted in the telltale signs of reuniting lovers. I have her pinned, for now, breathing hard as our eyes meet with a ferocity that some might not expect of sanctuary leaders. My tongue flits briefly across my lips, tasting blood where she's bitten me - naughty girl - and in between ragged breaths, a hand of mine slithers up her figure to find its place around the neat, pale flesh of her throat.
"What do you say that I give you that mark now, hmm?" My head tilts with the last syllable, hand tightening to emphasize my point. "Make us even?" My new scar has followed us here to our secret place, but I almost like it; like the way it makes Solace stare at me anew. Scars are hot, I can almost hear her saying; or maybe I can just feel the arousal between her legs.
Leaning toward her, I increase the pressure upon her throat with a twisted smile; but I stop just short of kissing her cupid lips, dropping my gaze towards her scar-laden collar bones, testaments to a past lover's triumphs. "And those..." I glance back up to her, my tone dropping from playful to sinister. "Those I will get rid of."
And with a blink of a heavily-lidded eye, they are back in the world - the room - where their stories had been fused.
Before her body has time to adjust to the switch, Solace is against the wall and characteristically disheveled. She runs her tongue along her teeth (knowing what she had done by the taste alone) and her blue eyes flit to Kagerus' love-bite lip, red and wet.
Gracefully, Solace slides her right leg up along Kag's thigh, letting her bare toes dance along her skin as the pressure against her own throat increases. As fluid as smoke, she pulls her knee in close to her chest before kicking Kagerus back onto the bed behind her.
"Easy, girl," she says with a lazy smile, looking down into to beautiful tangle of linens and woman. But as her lover's voice changes from playful to threatening, she finds that the fire in her belly burns even hotter.
Solace steps forward, unable to stay away fro long, crossing the wood floor to the bed with a single step to place herself splay-kneed on top of her wife. "I'll trade you," she says in response, lifting Kagerus' empty hand to place it on the puckered skin of her collarbone. Solace's gaze, more than her weight, pins down her lover, holding her in place under its steadfast intensity.
"You take these," she agrees, "and give me something new."
The dreamworld is shifting around them as Solace closes her eyes, envisioning the place where she had always been the safest. When she opens them again they are together, naked and ghostly, iridescent stars in the night sky. The world is a wash of indigo and violet, and below them where the bed had been, they have fallen into a plush bed of woven cloud.
Now outstretched beside her, Solace looks to Kagerus. She traces her own fingers along the dip where her sternum ends, one brow lifting in thoughtful curiosity as she holds her lover's dark gaze. "Maybe here," she suggests with a half smile, enjoying the way Kagerus gaze can't stay put for long. Then her slender hand is moving again, tracing the line of her own throat to find the dip below her jawline, "or here..."
S
olace
we're reeling through an endless fall we are the ever-living ghost of what once was
Out with the golden we sew, and the lower past that crawls.
Now, to the doorway you run, to the girl that's not lost.
When my lover's thigh slides thickly between mine, a single brow arches as if to say how bold; but of course, Solace is unmatched in the realm of sexual prowess, and it catches me completely by surprise as she sends me, sprawled, to the bed. The fighter in me sends a rush of blood to me cheeks and to the space between my legs; but like a good kitten, I subtly readjust my pose to something more svelte, the curves of my body accentuated by the silk sheets that gently surround me.
Easy, girl, she says, and I pout wantingly, fluttering my eyelashes and popping a finger between my glistening lips. Our eyes hold for that moment, Solace standing and me softly twisting and simpering in the bed; but of course neither of us want to deny each other the pleasure of our company for long, and so she steps forward. Despite how I've memorized her every curve and hollow (with my hands and my eyes and my lips), the way the light hits the upturn of her breasts and the sleek lines of her stomach do not fail to leave me breathless. Starstruck.
And yet, the instant her skin touches mine, my body reacts; I will never be too dazed to welcome my lover into my embrace. Hands to her hips, grasping there firmly at first before releasing to gently trace the goosebumps alighting along her sides.
I'll trade you.
With the fluidity of a smooth-flowing stream, she takes my hand and places it on the puckered skin of her collarbone. Everything feels light in this moment, the pads of my fingertips barely grazing along the scars; but more than anything else, it is her gaze which grounds me. I love you, I think; and I know that she hears the words in her mind as I smile up at her beatifically. Even as we discuss sado-masochism, a feeling of tenderness pervades all else, settling across even the most diverse aspects of our relationship.
I am a whisper's breadth away from agreeing to her terms when suddenly she takes charge of the dream; as we spin through the darkness, I arch my back, leaning into the gravity of her dream without a single fear or mistrust.
When our eyes open, my lips part in silent awe.
Solace...
But her mind is elsewhere, pulling me away from the intricacies and wonders of her mind and imagination with as simple a thing as a brush of her fingertips. Feeling as if the air we breathe fills our lungs differently than it ever could in reality, my eyes find hers with a feverish need, the fact of how long we've been without each other finally driving my actions. Just as she teases me with another potential place for my mark, I reach - arm wrapping around her waist as I sit up, pushing on the cloud with my other arms so that our positions are flipped.
My gaze finds hers - hungry.
"I'm sure you'll find somewhere darling." The words are growled more than they are spoken, and as they drift to her, I lower myself slowly towards her warmth. "I don't have to tell you how to fuck your Queen, do I?"
My wolfish smile at the repetition of the words she had spoken to me the first time we made love is the last of my expression she sees as I press myself to her folds; but as her back arches in response to my tongue against her sweetest parts, my eyes flash up, the hunger in their depths finally becoming satiated.
![[Image: kag]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/2e8039018ce4dff6112c167ec23e886a/tumblr_p72zjit7wC1s5a0qvo1_100.png)
