this reckless wandering love was never ours; risk

[sochi]

sochi

Sochi has never been one to fully understand her own feelings.

They are tangled things, messy, and for someone who infinitely prefers the cleanliness of a black and white living, she instead merely ignores them. She lets herself breathe in the cold air of autumn and any of the things that may form in the back of her mind—suspicion, distrust, confusion—simply melt away. Perhaps she feels a little more rash, perhaps a little reckless, but these are at least things she can control.

So she gladly slips away from Loess, pointing instead toward the immediate south. She shifts, finding that her feline body comes quickly and easily, and when she opens her eyes, the world comes into stark relief. The night settles heavily around her as she lunges forward, silent as her paws collide with the hardened ground of Loess. Her breath comes steadily as she focuses on the path before her, as the kingdom that she has known so well begins to fade and the forest that sits on its border creeps up around her.

The ground grows softer, the trees thicker, and she nearly shivers in delight as she catches the scent of the deer that run before her. Then, the emotions that she felt tickling at the back of her throat fade completely and she is left with nothing but instinct. Her body moves like a missile through a familiar pattern as she weaves through the trees, coming up downwind. Her nose twitches and her tail flicks.

Eventually, she lunges with snapping jaws.

When the fog of her mind clears, she realizes that she has the deer’s throat in her jaws and she bites down all the harder, shaking until she feels something like satisfaction settle into her belly. She drops the prey to the forest floor. The cream of her face is stained crimson, she knows, and it will be darker by the time that the night is done. Trembling slightly—with energy unspent, with anger, with hunger—she glances down and then her eyes flash up as she hears the sound of something moving in the darkness.

well, I can try to get you closer but I know you’d break your neck just to see the stars
and if we don’t dare to hold it then this reckless wandering love was never ours

[Risk]

risk

Tonight, he hunts the hunter. He trades in his soft skin for armored scales and crooked fangs. Risk prowls the forest with cat eyes and viper pits to see the world in any form it might take around him. But he keeps his equine shape because he wants this hunter to know precisely who he is and why he is tracking the feline paw prints in the autumn mud. Tonight, he will make the hunter pay for what it did to him.

His hooves snap little twigs and orange leaves as he trails along, unconcerned with giving away his position. There will be no running from him. When the scent of blood hangs heavy in the air, he lifts his head with ears turned forward, straining to listen for any clues. He keeps his chin held high as he steps forward to face the feline, but he cannot be sure this is the one who took his life. Risk narrows his eyes as he examines her with tense muscles and taut nerves.

“I’ve come to return the favor to the one who killed me,” he spits, bristling as he watches her. He hopes that she can’t see the way his legs tremble as the memory of fangs sinking into his own throat course through his mind. Risk had been so cold, lying there on the forest floor all lone while he bled out. But he was only a child then. Now he returns, fully grown and prepared to purge the forests of those who would gladly consume him once more.

“You’re clearly a killer, but are you my killer?” he asks as he begins to circle her. The crocodilian scales along his skin grow a little around his throat but his different colored eyes remain focused on her just the same. Is it enough to keep him alive this time, though? Will it buy him the precious seconds needed to retaliate if she chooses to lunge at him? A trembling breath exhales from his lips as he tries to steady himself.

@[sochi] he's tryin REAL HARD to be brave

[sochi]

sochi

She does not recognize the thing that prowls forward from the shadows. She does not recognize the feline eyes or the fangs or the armor the crawls up its sides. Does not recognize the features, even as they contort beneath his own gifts. But the truth is that she recognizes him. Recognizes the hatred and the way he hunts the hunter. Recognizes the need that drives him forward, even when he spits and snaps at her.

Nothing like fear comes to the surface. Nothing reacts in her and her eyes sharpen.

“You’ve come to kill me then?” Her voice is husky and low, her lips spreading into a wide smile, the white of her teeth only mildly stained with the crimson of her kill that still drips down her chin. There is nearly something thrilling about the idea of him trying to kill her—something that makes her feel nearly alive with the thought of life slowly draining from her. Would it hurt? How much exactly could she heal?

He circles but she doesn’t move. She just tilts her head, an ear flicking slightly as she monitors the way that he prowls around her, a tail twitching. When he comes back into her direct line of sight, she doesn’t bother to hide the way that her yellow eyes go to his throat, evaluating the thick of the scales that grow.

“I’ve killed a lot in my life,” she confesses but there’s no guilt that comes with the words, nothing that brings the shame she had fought against so much in her early life. “I don’t know if you are one of the victims,” she says with a smile, shaking lightly and feeling drops of blood fly from her.

“If you were, then I have no regrets. Death clearly has loose fingers nowadays.”

well, I can try to get you closer but I know you’d break your neck just to see the stars
and if we don’t dare to hold it then this reckless wandering love was never ours

[Risk]

risk

He does not know his mothers, but he has inherited their voices. He has the same way of getting louder when the world would have him quiet, the same preference to challenge a fate that is not kind to him. When she doesn’t seem to care enough to even try and recall whether she ate him once, he grits his teeth and steps closer as ancient rage finds a home in him. His heart emulates forgotten war drums and he wants to catch her between his jaws, to bash her against the rocks like a dog who has finally caught his rabbit.

But he only bites his anger back. What if this wrath is not meant for her?

He swallows hard and inspects her a little closer now. The thing that took his life did not wear stripes or orange fur, he remembers. That hunter was the color of golden sands. A disappointed sigh slips from him as he takes a step back. The scales and the fangs recede beneath his skin, replaced with the brilliant copper marbling over his black coat. They are almost opposites, in this way. But his eyes remain different colors as he brings his attention back to her once more.

“You are not my enemy, only similar,” he confesses at last. And even if she were, what would killing her bring him? Kelynen and Kensa are long gone either way with no trace of them to be found. His blue and green eyes turn to watch the forest for a while as he considers his options and shifts his weight uneasily. With no place to return home to and no friends to seek out, he finds himself entirely lost in this world.

“My name is Risk. Death has no interest in me, for whatever reason,” he explains with a shrug of his shoulders. “When I returned to life, my family was gone and my home was empty. I am alone.”

While the words should carry some of the ache he feels when he says them, they only convey his anger instead. He is intent not to punish those who’ve committed no crimes against him in his journey for vengeance, though, meaning Sochi is only displeasing to him at best.

@[sochi]

[sochi]

sochi

There are parts of her that are disappointed that he does not carry out his rage against her. There are parts of her that hunger for the outlet of a fight—for the feel of primal rage that makes no sense out of context. She hungers for something to wrap her head around that makes sense, that she can at least understand. Something solid and real when the rest of it all feels as insubstantial as smoke, falling between her grasp.

But, he doesn’t entirely disappoint, and her feline head snaps up to study him closer.

His body changes, shifting fluidly—pieces of it fading away and colors beginning to appear as they spiderweb over the hard muscle and lean pieces of him. “I very well could still be your enemy,” she smiles with bloodied teeth as she mimics his shifting, although hers is more dramatic. Within a second, she stands before him as herself again, although she feels no less a predator with these dull teeth.

Her eyes bleed from yellow to hard silver, mercurial and unreadable beneath the swath of her black forelock as she angles her head. “Risk,” she says the same, weighing it on her tongue and finding it acceptable. “You should be glad,” she rolls a shoulder, remembering the bite of death and the cold of the ocean. “Death is no kind companion.” Not that she thinks she needs to tell him—he clearly knows.

For a second, she wonders at his words, thinking them through. There was a time where they would have meant nothing to her, or at least very little. Family had never been something that was the pinnacle of her life and for a breath of time, it was something she had abandoned entirely in the interest of herself. The fact that she had turned to it again—made it such a critical component of her life—feels weak and she feels some sort of bitter hatred for it. “I may be alone,” she admits but straightens as she says it, like she could pull together the armor of her contempt. “There are worse things.” She’s not sure that there is.

well, I can try to get you closer but I know you’d break your neck just to see the stars
and if we don’t dare to hold it then this reckless wandering love was never ours

[Risk]

risk

His eyes are melancholy and wrathful all at once, a desperate lava flow that would rather enjoy consuming everything in its path. When she dares him and suggests she could still be his enemy, though, he can only shrug his broad shoulders dismissively. Maybe if he died another time, he could wake up at home with his family. Maybe his birth parents would be there waiting for him. There is still a blur of Virgo’s face leaning down to kiss him somewhere in the echoing abyss of his thoughts. But then she’s revealing her true shape and he watches curiously as her eyes become a bright silver – like a knife, like a promise.

“Should I guess your name, then? I would wager something like Stray,” he says, and for the first time he laughs. The sound is surprisingly like summer rains before it dies to silence once more. Death is no kind companion. He would like to agree, but he’s begun to wonder if it’s better than no companion at all. “Death is what we make of it and nothing else. A beginning, an end, whatever.”

The blue and green of his eyes study her for a while as she digests his words like a modest feast. His head tilts and he wants to ask what could ever be worse than being alone, but he doesn’t. Loneliness has always eaten straight to the core of him and picked its teeth with his sorrows. Even in the fleeting seconds after Virgo left and before Kensa came, he had learned to become hollow and lost inside. He had learned the ceaseless aches of solitude all too well. Risk swallows hard and blinks.

The shambling skeleton of his soul considers reaching out and touching her but he bites it back just as he did his wrath. Though there is no blind rage within him, there is likewise no ravenous kindness to be found.

“Are we unlovable, you think?” he finally asks, his voice soft despite the burning question. Risk is quick to avert his eyes from her gaze before she can answer and he focuses instead on the swaying branches of the trees nearby. He doesn’t think he could stand to see an honest stare at this point.

@[sochi]

[sochi]

sochi

His laugh sparks one of her own and it is a bitter, vicious thing. Rough and raspy on her tongue as she lets it roll like thunder through her chest. “Stray is accurate enough,” she says, unwilling now to give him her name simply because he wants it—simply because he asks. She does not believe that a name has any great weight to it. She does not believe that it gives command over her—does not give them power.

And yet—

She holds onto it, swallows it down, meets his gaze as he describes death and shrugs in response. He was right, she knows. Death was only what you made of it. Permanent. Temporary. Something to be feared or something to be chased. She knows better than most, even as the feel of need beats in her throat. The need for the dark of it and the endless depths of it. The need to lose herself in the chase of death.

His question catches her off guard though and it shows on her face. A brief moment of surprise and then something like pain that is quickly washed away in blank neutrality. “I have never been known for being particularly lovable,” she finally manages and there is a part of her—weak and pathetic—that wonders if that is what drove Castile to another. Was she kinder? Softer? Was she someone more lovable than she?

She hates the part of her that wonders and growls before she can stop it.

“I don’t care if I am,” she says between gritted teeth, lifting her chin, and even she is not certain whether she is lying or not. Does she care? Does she wish she could make herself something that she is not?

But then, suddenly, she feels the same cold, heavy weight settle in her chest and she knows. Knows that she cannot be anything but herself and just like she abandoned hope of apologizing for her predatory nature so will she abandon hope of apologizing for this. If she was unlovable, so be it. She would be.

well, I can try to get you closer but I know you’d break your neck just to see the stars
and if we don’t dare to hold it then this reckless wandering love was never ours

[Risk]

risk

He likes the way she laughs, he decides, but nothing on his face reveals the fondness for it. If he gets attached then fate will rise up to rip her away, so he has to keep a little bit of that hate for her. He had loved the others wholly, with every bit of himself he had to give, and it had left him destitute for it. So perhaps the embers of his anger could serve as an anchor so his beautiful enemy could stay a little longer.

Still, he feels a bit of guilt when she looks hurt by his question. But she is quick to hide that pain away and resume her stoic expression once more. They are each terrible at hiding all their scars inside. He pretends not to notice the way her smile bruised at the suggestion but the corner of his lips twitch downward at her answer all the same. Is he likewise difficult to love? Had he been too loud, too wild for his family? Had he brought home too many dead things for their liking? Risk swallows hard as he tries to figure out why they left without him.

“I would like to think that I am lovable but.. here I am,” he says, feigning sudden interest in the ground between them. “If I only knew what made me so hard to care for, I would..”

But what could he do? What was left of him to carve out after dying had taken so much of his joy? Would he really hollow himself out just so someone else could fit all their love inside of him? He exhales sharply and drops the thought all together. Risk is a barren field where no one wants to live. His heart is the same color as the hardest time of night, the witching hour where everything sleeps but pain.

“Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so loud or angry. I wish I knew how to be soft and kind,” he confesses while still avoiding the silver of her eyes. But he was born bitter, furious with a world that would not ever let him know peace.

@[sochi]

[sochi]

SOCHI

These are the questions that she has asked herself more times than she could count.

Mostly in her youth, when she was a girl trying to navigate the complexities of being both prey and predator. A girl tossed about on the whims of Beqannian politics—forced to reconcile herself with the truth that she was a pawn in the game. Later, when she was trying to wrestle with the weight and the gravity of the quests she had been drawn into and later joined willingly. Was she the villain she had wondered? Was this what had made her into what she was? Was there some deeply cruel core of her?

Later, she had made the decision to not question it.

To never think on it.

To never wonder or feel guilt for that which was not easily changed.

But she understands the question he asks more than she cares to admit and shrugs again, the motion only slightly stilted, the muscles in her jaw aching from the way that they clench. “You would do what?” she asks and is not surprised to find that her tone is sharper than anticipated, cruel in the way that it leaves her mouth. “There’s nothing that those like us can do to change what we are—to make us any different.”

She draws in a sudden breath, her tail snapping behind her.

“So you accept that you are not to be loved and you grab the things life does have to offer you.”

For her, that was her strength—her nature, her instincts.

She straightens and looks at him, as if forcing him to look at her in return.

“You take what is owed to you,” she growls. “So take it.”

she said a war ain't a war before both sides bleed