"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
i can take you there, but baby, you won't make it back
He drifts in the open skies on warm air currents, his leathery wings spread wide with his talons tucked close to his chest. A blur of red marks someone crossing the border into Pangea and he follows from a great distance above them. Is this one Brine, he wonders? He can’t quite tell from here and so he circles them for a while like a vulture eyeing a pitiful creature nearing death.
When he had stolen her from Nerine, it had been her feathers that drew him. The memory of another’s wing crushed between his teeth is fresh and he is eager to learn if all of them taste so sweet. His vile tongue runs along the pointed edges of his teeth before he tucks his wings in halfway to begin his descent. Ghaul’s forelegs reach forward for the ground rushing up to meet him and he lands with a heavy thud near the stolen stranger. Brine’s scent confirms her identity and he feels a wide grin smear across his face.
His talons claw into the earth with each step, leaving a clear trail behind him as he closes the gap between them. Personal space has always meant so very little to him and so he is quick to let his sides press against hers. Her body is smooth and unscaled, as he had guessed, and some secret piece of him is disgruntled at the discovery. But her wings are soft and he runs his lips along them with a chuckle of delight. He can’t see her, but he thinks she is beautiful. It is a dangerous thing, to be beautiful in Pangea.
“I am Ghaul, prince of Pangea. You are mine for one year,” he explains in his rasping voice. The drake traces his nose from her shoulders and up her neck until he reaches the curve of her jaw. He memorizes her features and croons softly against her ear. But he wants to draw this out, to savor every moment with a captive plaything. Jenova had died too quickly to really relish the flavors of her death and such mistakes cannot be tolerated now that he has matured.
No, our ghostly Brine has in fact had the exact opposite of a good year. And, she contemplates this as her eyes narrow on the peculiar creature taking menacing strides towards her.
The grim reaper has finally come to fruition.
It’s her time.
His body presses against hers and she feels his harshness and jagged texture, it triggers an unexpected chill to release deep through her neck. She isn’t entirely sure how to act in this sort of situation. His scales additional armor, the violent and hideous way big horns sprouted from what should be his eye sockets.
But, death is ugly; isn’t it?
He speaks, his voice a discordant violin. And, he says she is his.
Like hell I am.
“Pangea?” she asks, an irritable tone gripping to every vowel, though angst mutes her from saying more. “Is that another word for the afterlife?”
i can take you there, but baby, you won't make it back
It might hurt his feelings to know that she thinks of him as ugly, but he is not blessed with mind reading as his dear brother is. Ghaul remains oblivious to the feelings and opinions of others. He nods when she repeats the name of his home and he grins despite the sound of disgust she carries so fiercely in her voice. He loves this kingdom despite its rough appearance and the reputation it has begun to build – it is the cradle that fostered his growth and strength. When the winter had threatened to tear him down, he always found a warm little nook to curl up in.
“Afterlife?” His turn to repeat with a questioning tone, though his voice is merely curious. “Pangea is my paradise. The only safe place in the world.”
The rest of Beqanna had never been kind to him. In the meadows or the rivers, they called him monster. In Loess, he was scum. But here, in the canyons and red clay, he is a prince. It is the place where his father left him and in exchange it gave him Anaxarete and her aliens. It never took without giving him something else. If the afterlife is like this, then he doesn’t mind to go.
“Nerine is cold and dreary. You will like it here,” he says with a slow nod. He absent-mindedly lips at her neck as he imagines what it would be like to tear her open. She has some fight to her, like Sochi had, but he doesn’t think she has what it takes to claw his face open the same way. Ghaul traces his tongue along the roof of his mouth and exhales slowly to try and center himself again.
02-18-2020, 01:38 PM (This post was last modified: 02-18-2020, 01:39 PM by Brine.)
brine
I turned off my light, harder to find that way
In all fairness, he did steal her. And—to be fair—Brine has been controlled by intimidating, power-hungry monsters for the last two years. Her judgment—even if it shouldn’t necessarily be directed at Ghaul—is definitely warranted.
Yet a piece of her softens as he claims Pangea as his paradise, his only safe space.
A link between similar thoughts, reminding her that even beneath his protruding horns and raspy husk, there might be something deeper.
“Must be nice, feeling safe,” the envy is impossible to hide though luckily he doesn’t seem like the type to really care.
Ruthless—her daughter—would accept this challenge with open wings. Her sense of adventure always perplexed the much more reserved roan, as if adventurousness could be considered a negative trait. It scared Brine then, it still does now. The thrill of adventure had been burned away, leaving a soot-covered paranoia that would never quite get restored.
The kingdom is beautiful, though she doesn’t argue that the coolness of Nerine feels refreshing against her dark coat. The sun ate her alive on summer days, hence why she spent so much of her time in the shadows. There was a summer so hot that Ruthless believed her mother was coloured black because it’s all Brine had ever exposed herself to.
Brine went with it, it made her feel like she chose to hide and not as if she has to hide. So much so that Brine would sometimes say Ruthless got her colour from the sun—that she was too beautiful for the rays to not penetrate with a golden glow. And that Brine only received her lightened blue tone after her golden world’s birth.
It is a pretty story, but much like all things pretty it has a grimy-underlayer.
“It’s not forever I guess,” the fight has left her voice, acceptance now lying across her like a dead carcass. Thinking back on her daughter boiled out every inch of her attention, and now nothing sounds more appetizing than the thought of being alone.
He lips at her mane, a physical form of contact that she knows should be grotesque and uncomfortable—yet, the softness is soothing. A soft touch that feels so alien that she isn’t sure it can possibly come from a man.
Well, he can hardly be described as a man. Part of her isn’t entirely sure if she should even consider him a male.
But nonetheless, she doesn’t move away. She stands there idle for a second or two until he speaks again and the hair on her back stands, “I will like it for as long as I have to.”
i can take you there, but baby, you won't make it back
His grin fades when she replies, as though she has never known safety. His expression does not sour but rather takes on a look of innocent curiosity. Had Nerine not been her nest, the place she felt safe to breathe between the chaos of this world? It had never occurred to him that perhaps others do not find the same relief he does in the canyons of Pangea. A kind of chittering forms in the back of his throat, so quiet it might be easily missed, as he mulls over the thought a little longer.
“Why does Nerine not feel safe to you?” he finally asks, tilting his great head. “In Pangea, we are one family. They are my brothers and sisters, by blood or by bond.”
And this much is true. While Draco and Darkling are his siblings through birth, he has come to accept Greta and the aliens as his siblings simply because he has grown to care for them. Even Gospel is his sister in his mind, even while she spits venom at him and curses him for leaving her alone for so long. This means, of course, that they each defend one another with a ferocity that is unmatched in other regions.
She does not gnash her teeth beneath his touch and he wonders what other oddities this woman is hiding. Brine does not behave in any sort of way he expects but the surprise is pleasant. When she bristles at his words, he laughs and settles in beside her, relaxing completely at last.
“Maybe you will like Pangea without being captive. Gospel left the north for this place when she was small,” he explains, as though she has any clue who he’s speaking of. He pauses for a long while, turning his head to observe his home and the various outlines that wander about. The hunger in his belly has quieted as their conversation twists and turns, making it easier to think. “What do you think of when you say safe?”
![[Image: Brine-Signature.png]](https://i.ibb.co/0B2DW04/Brine-Signature.png)