"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
04-09-2016, 05:30 PM (This post was last modified: 04-09-2016, 05:33 PM by Killdare.)
± when you feel my heat, look into my eyes ±
So quickly they had run her off, pushed her aside as if she wasn't there and he had endured her leaving because, what else was he to do? Chase the girl? Command her back? He thought not, both would have made matters worse and the last bit- well, she'd likely not be pleased at the force or demand. Why did he care anyway? An odd feeling rose in him when she had faded into the backdrop, slowly blending in and taking color from her surroundings until she was gone. For a moment he ached, thinking of how easily they left or were taken from him but he remained with his circus and let her go.
The scent though, he couldn't leave it be. Once he had made nice with the new guy, Arthas, he was called, he found his way to peace and quiet again. He found her scent, as a hound trails a fox and he followed it until it was faint no more. Where was she going? Though he would never assume to understand the way a woman's mind worked, sometimes, he wished he could. That would make things easier, or more difficult- it would simply make something and sometimes he thought that something was better than nothing at all.
It's a lifetime which has passed since his first love and children had gone. It's forever that he as been alone, or untrusting or both. Thus when he does realize he is following her he doesn't stop himself, he doesn't turn away but simply follows, head slung low. While sight might fail him now, his nose would not and eventually she would run out of places to hide- well, hopefully.
As he twists a winding path he melts into something less man and more beast, burning from within until the fire rages without. A boiling intensity follows the sudden shape of magma he's taken and it's apparent he is frustrated by the chase- he always was. They did that to him, made him boil, made his eyes and his mind burn. It's fitting now that he should reflect this, soaking a molten path as he goes, one that does not venture from the route he takes. It doesn't grow, nor does it spread, it trails him for a while until it appears he is taking it back in just as he is leaving it behind.
I can still hear you saying -
you would never break the chain
She was going out. Wasn’t that the default option for when women were in over their heads? She’d let someone like Kimber get to her, and that irritated her beyond belief. Why had she been so weak, especially in front of Killdare? It was Kimber’s fault - that silly blue mare shouldn’t have brought up her brother the way she did. Lupei could rip her face off if he wanted to and honestly, she should be thanking him for his service to the Chamber, not joking about it. With a rage-induced snort, the hidden mare lashes out with a single hoof, sending dirt and debris flying. “Stupid, mouthy mare.” She thinks, but she knows full and well that the azure female is not the source of her problems; merely a scapegoat for her rage. The way Kimber had just sauntered up and batted her eyelashes, laughed in that despicable fake-ish tenor.
And Killdare - he’d seemed more interested in that than Dacia anyways. Letting the others push her out of conversation, watching as she sauntered away. Astri had been right to force a heart of stone upon her daughter. “Unrequited love is the source of problems, not the solution of them.” She’d been told, and the saying rang like pealing bells in her head now. How could she have been so blind? With the shake of her head she slows, closing her eyes so that she can push the feelings of rejection far from her mind. Silence consumes her, but then, another sound takes its place.
Footfalls - heavy, unrelenting. She’d know them anywhere. With the curve of her neck she peers behind her to see the horse, now fully molten, trailing only feet behind. So he’d come looking for her after all, had he? Probably wanted to slap her on the wrist for being so curt with his favored captain. “Stupid, mouthy mare.” She thinks again, but this time it’s in no relation to Kimber. With an audible sigh she casts off her invisibility trick, trading it for her signature black with a little twist: her mane and tail fade to ombre red, tiger stripes of the same color running along the top of her neck and back. She looks poisonous. “I won’t apologize, so don’t ask it of me.” She states calmly, gaze never leaving his molten face.
He may be her king now, but to her he’d always just been Killdare.
Tasting the air left an relentless pang in his lungs and when she finally melted back into view she had only been mere yards from him. Close, too close and he quickly snuffed the raging heat that emanated from his massive body. Turning moving liquid to thick plates of hardened obsidian. Volcanic rock, like a dark knight’s armor but this is no fairy tale. Maybe it could be if the equine of Beqanna knew anything of the human world and few did but he never had paid them much mind. Those with knowledge tended to ramble and exhaust themselves and listener alike.
He watched her coat fade into sight, becoming as dark as he had, burning into she was the night. Her hair was wild, some sort of jungle cat and the lines that marked her body only added to the exotic depths that she sought. Sometimes he wondered if she reflected her mood because he could not help that this pattern seemed to fit the occasion. Had they always?
‘I won’t apologize…’
The words are calm but bitter, rebelling in his face but there is little concern on his own. It’s not his face that would express such a feeling because he had for so long buried his emotions just as he had the magma that moved beneath his coal-covered skin. “Fine, then don’t.” A grunt of words leaving his mouth as he expels a puff of blackened smoke with them. When he was fire, he was all fire and his lungs gave way to fumes- pushing forth black fog like the exhaust of a diesel truck.
“You could have stayed, Kimber has a – way with words that you shouldn’t let get under your skin.” Words and ways, the woman was touch and go and even he could hardly predict the personality of the hour.
“I’d have liked it if you had stayed.” The words are careful, still unsure as they come but they’ve been said and he doesn’t have a mind to take them back. “Then again checking on you is the perfect way to excuse myself from a circus.” A smile, though small breaks against the hardened lines of his mouth. He pulls closer, watching her with what appears to be concern through hellfire eyes- even the pupils have gone from them.
“It’s a fancy trick you have there- almost,” it’s closer than he’s dared to come to anyone while the fire raged within him, his nostrils flaring wide as he brushes her jaw with his nose. “I’ll always smell you though. Are- are you okay Dacia?” The whole feigned purpose of his search remembered and it would lose its point without the question.
I can still hear you saying -
you would never break the chain
Steel - it makes the man, consumes the woman. Reflected in her eyes but resounding in his voice. They clash, swords drawn against each other when they should be joined together. She hates this, what they’ve become. Distant? Unknown? Had she ever really understood the bay before this though? Killdare had lived a whole life before she came into existence. A life without her. Dacia would do well to remember that. It was only by his good graces that she was still remaining here, in the Chamber, not pulling her weight. But what escapes his mouth is not what she expects, the rough grunt softening her stony exterior in mild surprise. He mentions Kimber in an apologetic tone, a stinging feeling piercing her breast with the sound of her name. “Hmph. If that’s what you want to call it …” She mumbles, the phrase tilting off into a rushed whisper.
Kind Killdare. The only side she ever sees when no one is around. He exposes himself now and despite her resolve, she meets his step halfway, eagerly closing the distance between them. “Weakling.” She thinks, but his concerns and his smile are pulling her under and she chooses not to fight against the current this time. Her eyes close and his hardened nose rubs gently against her cheek, the warmth radiating through her skin as she presses into the touch. She wants to tell him that she’d never hide from him. Not forever, anyways. But he speaks first and the moment disappears. “I …” She begins, voice failing her as she inhales to gather her thoughts.
Her eyes dart upwards, finding his enflamed ones marked with worry. No more lies, this time, no more secrets. Enough was enough. “I’m not sure, to be honest.” She states, body relaxing with the weight of it suddenly being lifted from her shoulders. “Killdare, try as I might I can’t stop thinking about you.” She tells him, her soft admittance falling suddenly from her lips like stones. “Or, I should say, about us, together.” She finishes, knowing he’ll get the gist of where she’s headed. She smirks, head shaking briefly. “Am I crazy, you think, to be feeling these things?” She asks, expecting that he’ll dismiss them as childish fantasies.
But still, some small part of her hopes that he won’t.
Life is funny isn’t it? The ways of the heart are more humorous still. Some could find it odd the pair, an older man, a barely of age girl. Others would turn their heads as if they did not see and still there are those that found themselves the prisoners of such similar love interests. Killdare had known the world long before he had known the once olive colored girl, he had seen and experienced struggle and hardship when he was no younger than she was now- even before that. Love was another thing. He knew what it was to love, even if that emotion had been so briefly spent and taken away as quickly.
Whether that is fortune or misfortune has yet to be seen.
If he could experience the heat of flush he might sense emotion flowing from her now. At this time it bypasses his notice and he is left to discern her intent from her body language. When he pulls forward she meets him causing a closeness that is more intimate than he had expected or intended. The smell of her skin is far more intense, the sweetness of her breath is infuriating to each intake of breath. When she does finally speak the words catch, an uncertainty following them that tugs his attention far more than words alone ever could.
Then she says it, she asks and as the thoughts turn real and leave her his own surprise floods him. His ears splay to the sides, the charred core he had armored himself with cracks, leaving fissures where his feelings spent the rock. It’s not entirely absurd is it? No, not when he had found himself trailing her, leaving behind the group of Chamberlings and creeping after one young girl in particular. He had known her, known her for her lifetime and still the desire did not leave. Once he may have attempted to push those thoughts away, would have thought better than wasting the emotion. Love turned to hurt no matter how you looked at it, one way or another.
“No, you’re never crazy Dacia.” At that moment he decided to hell with hurt, bother with the risks, and fuck it to any other reason why he shouldn’t entertain this want. Instead of worrying he let go, pressing himself into her neck and tracing the trail of stripes she had made- a map for his whiskered lips.
If Dacia could look back on all the years before this one, if she could reach into the past and view the glimmer of happiness that was once his life with another, she’s not sure how she would feel. She supposes, at first, it could be jealousy - but now? Now that his body is pressed so tantalizingly close and his nose is drawing patterns against her skin? Now she thinks she would be honored. Honored to even have the chance to love someone like him. Even if she cannot have all of him, even if their meetings are stolen hours of time. She sighs, eyes closing with untold satisfaction.
A laugh erupts from somewhere within her - part nervousness, part incredibility. “Well then, what now?” She asks, the question falling between them with a feather’s weight. He had responsibilities - she knew this. People, an entire kingdom that depended upon him. Dacia couldn’t expect to be the center of his attention whenever she felt it. She wonders if he even wants the others to know. Best to keep one's secrets hidden in a world like theirs. Lupei’s own small family had been something of a shock to her. She wonders what the wolf would think … or Kimber.
A small grin flickers over her lips, but she combats this giddy emotion by pressing them against his own shoulder, teeth grazing his outer armor slightly, unsure if he’ll even sense the affection. It’s overwhelming, all of this, but she won’t be the one to ruin it with her insecurities, so she lets him ponder and (as she’s always been) remains quietly happy.
Color-Changing Vixen of the Chamber
ooc: you can end this thread if you'd like fully expect (nay, demand) a foal this season <3
He could laugh at the almost innocence of the question. The naive sort of way the words leave her lips but something tells him she knows what will come next. The fact that she does not relent this knowledge causes him to step back, slowing the rising tension in the air to consider the situation more carefully.
First he snuffs the burning flesh that pulses over his boys in what was once skin. Now he is man again, earthy coat, feathers, the works. Her teeth grasp as charcoal no longer but press deliciously into his being and he silently enjoys the touch. From the earth he calls great spires of magma, twisting columns that would surround them into secrecy before hardening into thick black obsidian.
Points pinch the air as they spin upwards to create some small shred of privacy- though in the days to come he knew he would care less and less for curtains. For now though this blockade would serve because he knew too well the innocence that still was reality for the girl. Sure he would press her into the earth but this time would be only for his eyes, this time would be just theirs and no one else’s.
This time would be Dacia’s and while it would not be his only memory of firsts that did not dissuade him from the act. Part of him riled at the very idea while the other half begged him to be reasonable and gentle. In the end he was both relentless and kind.
KILLDARE
magma King of the Chamber
this is where they get it on obvs. i look forward to seeing baby :)
fully expect (nay, demand) a foal this season <3