"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
12-12-2018, 11:30 PM (This post was last modified: 12-12-2018, 11:37 PM by Kensa.)
for every tyrant, a tear for the vulnerable in every lost soul, the bones of a miracle
At sunrise Kensa is already awake, she loves summer in Hyaline and greets each morning with an energy that is so like her usual self that one would almost think she were not ill at all. Of course she will be near exhausted by noon, fatigued by the strain fighting the plague puts on her body. There are hours until then, and this morning her blood thrums with a familiar passion for life.
She is not up in their nest, but headed for another favorite place. A niche where fruit trees and spindly oaks grow together, the air syrupy sweet with the smell of summer fruit trampled into the dewy grass. The lake lies below, vast and blue beyond the narrow trunks. She splashes through the blue water, considers lingering for a swim but the water feels wrong, insufficient sensation. She trots up the pebbled shore and continues on her way.
The greener seasons have done right by her, she is leaner than she ought to be but not yet cage ribs and jutting hip bones, Hyaline’s rich fodder is keeping its Ambassador as fit as possible under the circumstances. It probably helps that she eats a lot of plums.
Of course the plums are wrong too. Too sweet to break her fast on, even if she were hungry, which she isn’t. She tosses a few of them to the ground and pulverizes their foggy bruise-colored skins under her pale hooves. The squish under her feet is repulsive and she shivers with amusement and disgust while dancing away from the feeling.
Some days are like this, the world is bright and loud and smells intensely of life and rot. Kensa relatively vibrates with it, thrilled by the very intensity of existing (others might be overwhelmed but she is special, or odd).
Peeking back out of the trees and down towards the lake again, her topaz eyes search for the pale beacon of Litotes. He is good company when she feels this way, seems to enjoy her exuberant ricochets. Gives chase when she runs, leans in when she touches. He is her bright place and she needs him now, her head is full of him all at once, certain that he is just the right thing. She’s Goldilocks today, capricious filly again. Kensa calls for him, a flirtatious come-hither whinny that she hasn’t used before but is certain will bring him around her way.
kensa
for every dreamer, a dream. we're unstoppable with something to believe in.
but you’d never get hit without earning it and i only hit you first ‘cuz i deserved my own hit too still it comes the time to call you out since i’m the one that you should be about
Litotes wakes to the sounds of summer birds, chirping and cheery and ever so ignorant to the plague as it spreads. He yawns and blinks the fog from his eyes, quickly realizing Kensa is not beside him. Sleeping alone is no stranger to him, and there are plenty of nights they spend apart, but he is particularly sorrowful that they do not wake up together this morning. He stretches his neck, huffing irritably but still in a good mood - the plague is not so present in his body today. His legs elongate gracefully below him, the mid-morning sun gleaming off of what is left of his cremello sheen.
No matter about Kensa - there is always much to be done in Hyaline. He will distract himself that way (though her warm and sugary presence would be so lovely on such a nice morning as this).
Lie eats for the morning before setting out. The grass is green and supple, the stream clear and refreshing. He stares out over their ledge, watching the golden glow as it glints off the lake before trotting down the mountain. A few coughs here and there are the only signs of sickness as he trots down the mountainside. The shale crunches beneath his hooves but he does not mind the sound; in fact, it invigorates him - the little things, they exist to be noticed when most needed, when one needs to be grounded. Hyaline has become routine, but not today. Each memory plays out behind his eyes - the lake, the plums, Solace and Kagerus, the dash to safety from here to Silver Cove.
Home. This is home. What could make it even more so?
The lake’s clear blue brilliance is just within sight when Lie hears Kensa’s flirtatious call. He stops, turning his head in the direction of the sound, confused by the foreign cadence. Something stirs inside the General that he has never quite felt before - something instinctive and pleasurable: a stirring in the pit of his stomach, one of comfort and need (so natural).
He already struggles with denying Kensa whatever she wants, but now he is completely within her control.
The chocolate of his counterpart’s head nearly blends into the trees, but he manages to spot her head as it peeks around a tree. A burst of energy pulses like lightning down his legs: he gallops toward that ever mischievous and glinting gaze. Is this what Kensa feels like all the time? he thinks as he draws closer, effervescent smile lighting up his entire face. There she stands, welcoming him with her usual energy, though this time it is more restless and . . . sensuous. Despite the difference, Lie is delighted to see her so happy, so unaffected by the sickness he certainly gave her.
Their greeting is warm and long: Lie presses his chest to hers, wrapping his neck around her darker one until his muzzle rests at the base of her nape. There he drinks in her familiar scent, though now it ignites a flame that burns at the back of his throat. Suddenly he bites the crest of her neck, this display of affection harsher and more demanding. The line of her neck leads his nose upward, as if hypnotized by the graceful arch. He places kisses along the way, then steps away to brush his cheek against hers.
“Kensa,” he murmurs, followed by a dangerous grin.
for every tyrant, a tear for the vulnerable in every lost soul, the bones of a miracle
He appears only a moment after she calls him and the smile that breaks across her face is radiant. Litotes is incredible, tall and strong, lean and as bright as sunlight on water. She admires him unabashedly, her topaz eyes intent on the smooth motion of his body and the rapidly shrinking distance between them. It is good to forget for a morning that they are unwell, that their home is quiet and sparsely occupied.
Kensa minces a bit when Lie embraces her, excitable, hooves lifting and settling in dewy grass near his own. She rubs her face against the side of his thick neck, the caress firm, she wants to press herself into him. She nibbles his shoulder as he breathes her in, her flaxen tail switching against her hocks as she shifts and stomps. Kensa is coiled tight, and when Lie sinks his teeth into her crest she squeals in protest and pleasure. Snapping at his thin summer hide though her lips only brush against his neck rather than warning him away with a real pinch.
He has never bitten her or claimed her like that, and her heart is racing with thrill and desire that makes her breath quaver. Litotes traces her outline, and she can feel the tension in the touch. The certainty that she wanted to have him close to her unfurls into a need that she had not yet experienced. The little pricklings of desire she has felt in the past are nothing to this, and she dives for it, plunging after the sensation with her trademark recklessness…but it isn’t reckless is it? Not with him, not here in a place that they both love so much.
Cheek to cheek they exchange a breath, and then both draw back so that their mirror eyes can meet. Her name on his lips is soft but husky in a way she hasn’t heard before and her ears flick forward, lashes flutter down, her cheeks flush but she is not shy only overwhelmed by the way her breath catches when he grins at her wickedly. It matches the demand, ancient and intoxicating, that she’d felt under his teeth and though she has always seemed to lead their dances she is now on Litotes’ line, intoxicated.
“Yes, Lie?” She whispers, breathy. What are we doing? she wants to ask, but neither of them will have the answer. Where Hyaline was loud with the sounds of summer only moments again now she just hears their breathing and the rushing of blood in her ears. Whatever he says next will be right, however he touches her will be what she desires, she knows this in a soul deep way and though fear naturally twists inside her it is small and insignificant.
kensa
for every dreamer, a dream. we're unstoppable with something to believe in.
but you’d never get hit without earning it and i only hit you first ‘cuz i deserved my own hit too still it comes the time to call you out since i’m the one that you should be about
The affection between the two is almost overwhelming: Litotes wants to tear away from Kensa’s hot flesh, though he forces himself to swallow the fear that lodges like too-eager swallowed food in his throat. How unknown this all is, he thinks, almost cursing himself for being so fixated on her that he has no experience in pleasure. It is not entirely out of nowhere, the flirtation and devotion to Hyaline forming a bond like kudzu: perpetual through disaster and uncontrollably invasive.
How ignorant - impossibly ignorant to deny that their desires would collide.
Their cheeks brush, breathe to breathe they stand - his grin a perfect physical example of the red velvet blanketing his heart. Kensa’s question goes unanswered, the reason for his murmuring a subtle shiver in the air they can both feel. He will not respond - at least not yet. The Primarch instead presses his lips to his counterpart’s forehead, then one above each eye, draping his mouth slowly over her lashes when he pulls away to feel their tickling brush (a strange gesture but an honest one - a part of her he did not know that he needed to).
In this instant, hovering a fraction of a centimeter above her white fur, he knows it (knows it like he knows nothing else): he loves his Kensa, his plum-devouring goof, his equal. She is the sun to his shadow and the shadow to his sun, both equal parts of an ancient cliche. How he adores her in this moment and all moments future and past: her passions, her pitfalls (in sickness and in health). The sensuous embers smoldering in his eyes simmer to an encompassing gold glitter, like two suns that would warm his love if they could.
The cremello steps to the side, stretching his muzzle to trail his lips down her neck. His journey stops where his teeth marked her skin, pressing a firm kiss into the indented flesh. Kensa’s burnt chestnut spine stretches before him: rolling curves and soft, neverending summertime fur. Litotes cannot resist the way her little movements whisper - the subtle ebb and flow of their dance. He presses onward, kissing down the middle of her back until he thinks he may pass out from breathing in too much of her intoxicatingly sweet scent. On her hindquarters he stops, presses his cheek into the welcoming fur of her back’s coat and just breathes, inching close enough that their sides press hotly together.
The desire is still there but this is decidedly sweet - Lie being the kind so terribly unable to resist his emotions when they spill over.
“I love you -” a pause, hesitant and painful and too much for words barely above a whisper -
“Kensa, I love you.”
Red, flustered, and scared for a moment too long, the cremello prances away from the chestnut. The distance between them stretches for only a second before he steps carefully back, for once not scared that he will ruin what feels right. He returns his head to the dip in Kensa’s back, eyeing her for whatever permission or reciprocation he feels she must give.
for every tyrant, a tear for the vulnerable in every lost soul, the bones of a miracle
Reaching this moment had never been her intention. The blue lake below had called them both, joined them, and she wonders--as he kisses her eyes and trails his lips over her bicolor face--if that were the day they were wed. The lake had sealed them one to the other, and she will forever hold onto the notion that a romance set in those cold waters constitutes a union between two souls. Her feral heart is racing but solidly anchored, her thoughts do not roam beyond the two of them, but rather roll through her mind on a melody that she cannot name.
A kiss is pressed against the place where he’d placed his teeth, and though she at first craves a similar touch to that claiming bite she is instead gifted this insistent tenderness that fogs her mind and thrills her nerves unexpectedly. Kensa reaches for Lie, her lips leaving a trail of kisses along his neck as he slides along her side.
She knows he is hers before he can say it, but it’s not just knowing he will follow where she leads anymore, because that was a thing of their childhood. The chestnut has tucked her chin along her own shoulder so that she can watch him (her breath stuttering) as he makes his way down her body. I love you. Her chin lifts, and her topaz eyes are liquid and shifting over the planes of his snowflake marked face. Kensa, I love you. Her dark lips, part, but the silence between them is just a heartbeat too long and Lie dances away from her. His absence is a chill that for the briefest second feels as though it might break everything and in that second she is filled with a desperation that would have made her run after him, begging and promising whatever she must.
But he returns, presses against her again and sealing away the cold. What she feels then, desire and pride, longing and safety, she doesn’t have all the words for the emotions. Well, almost doesn’t. She twists back into his embrace, curling into him until she slides beneath the shelter of his neck so that she can brush her lips against his and look up at him, admire his beauty and strength as she says, “I love you. I will love you always.” She gives and promises in that breath, and then steps forward just a little further, her heart pounding. She hasn’t taken her eyes from him, and asks him to love her, to possess her without saying another word.
How does it feel
To know you're everything I need
The butterflies in my stomach
They could bring me to my knees
How does it feel
To know you're everything I want
I've got a hard time saying this
So I'll sing it in a song
Oh I adore the way you carry yourself
With the grace of a thousand angels overhead
I love the way the galaxy starts to melt
When we become one
kensa
for every dreamer, a dream. we're unstoppable with something to believe in.
@[litotes] included the lyrics to the song i listened to for muse when writing this because i am annoying.
boy what's normal to you? 'cause that sure ain't normal to me.
The fire started slow: the last dying ember of a cigarette one thought was stomped out catching onto a single unlucky leaf. There it raged at the size of an impressive campfire, a shadowy figure leaving it unattended to see if it would go out or blaze on, then returning absently to stoke it or desperately suffocate it. Flames licked and shivered, hot and ultimately unstoppable, finally left to their own devices as most forest fires are.
Naive, reckless, blind: Litotes was and still is all of that for Kensa. Naive, reckless, blind.
Her skin is hot against his - her mouth sweet and intoxicating - the fire so hot and perpetual now that he can barely stand to be so close to her. I will love you always. The roiling gold of his eyes goes dark, a smile soft and innocently possessive passing over his lips: now and forever they will belong to each other, now the desire from their first few seconds returns.
Litotes is drawn back to their first encounter, when their destinies first loosely intertwined. He is reminded of that initial sensation, like he had been waiting his entire life for someone like her - not someone like her but her, how that second their eyes met just . . . clicked right into place. The hesitance of their romance’s birth washes over him in a cold wave, urging him closer to the growing warmth of his passion’s fire. He wraps his body around that heat, embracing it - consuming it as it consumes him.
Kensa’s invitation is fluid and natural; Litotes follows her direction, barely a second passing between their individual actions. Here, he offers his love, just as naked and vulnerable as her beneath him. His lips press to her neck, kisses and gentle bites pressed wherever he can reach.
This is honesty and connection like nothing he has ever felt: kind yet demanding, sweet and hot as it burns down his throat and through his veins. The dark of her fur brushes against his neck and it’s almost too much, too overwhelming: all these little pieces of Kensa he loves. Not the sex, the desire, the curves, but the way she smells of plums (god, is that smell all over him right now) and her seemingly always soft skin.
Sweat coats his every muscles when he sidles up next to her, pressing kisses along the way. The air is a welcome cool between them as he presses closer, raising his neck over her own to tuck her in close. All Lie wants is to be close to her still, sweat and overheating be damned. His smile is droll when he murmurs:
“I love you, my plum.”
and if i fall would you know that to do? and if i'm caught up would you stay?
