"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
When he had first taken his gift back from the faeries, he had grand plans of using the power to use them to manipulate politics in his father’s favor. He had intended to use them to bribe, to threaten, to lure others into supporting his father in his ascent to power over Pangea. That had, however, turned out to be unnecessary. The cosmic god who had dipped his hand down into the murk to carve out the wasteland had seen in his father’s heart and deemed it worthy of his own merit. He had handed it over without protest.
So Bruise had, instead, turned toward culling favors among those who would seem useful in the future. Some, like Violence, were grateful, if not wary; he felt he could know what to expect from her, although there was nothing predictable about the way she lifted bone from earth and ravaged his mind. On the other hand, there were those like Nier who had, of all things, tried to harm him after he had gifted his powers back to him. Bruise still burned with anger when he thought of the close call that kick had been.
Regardless, there were now three horses drifting around Beqanna who owed him a favor.
Now, he just needed to find the last one.
Personally, he detested the meadow. It was ripe with filth and overrun with the stench of too many commoners, but it served its purpose. If he was going to find the fifth and final piece of his puzzle, this would be where he would do it. Swinging his heavy horned head around, he watched with boredom as the horses milled about him. It was then that he saw her and his expression grew dark, mischievous.
Uprooting himself from his spot of rest, he made his way toward her, cloven hooves picking his way through the crowd with unnatural grace. “You look like something has been stolen from you,” he whispered when he was close enough for his voice to carry.
I am bored. My expression does not change often unless there is some outside stimulus.
Usually fighting or fucking.
I stand among the charming wildflowers, observing the way horses interact on a normal basis. The milky blue of my eyes are half lidded and lulling close to closing by the second. I draw a breath and release it irritably. I want split earth and sky, I want to send the lovers skrieking at the stamp of my hoof.
I want my heart to stop beating.
And then I hear his voice. From the corner of my slit eyes, I see him. More goat than horse...I am curious. The way he moves, split toed and heavily horned. He draws something feral up from my loins as I watch him moved to me, plucking a careful path. (I like the way his hips sway.) The bearded man walk up close to me, I feel the spill of his shadow cool the unrelenting heat of the sun on my delicate curve of my spine.
'What would you do to get it back?'
The words are like a hand on the genie's bottle...rubbing me just the right way. I meet the stallion's gaze squarely as I have no patience to fuck around with coyness. "Anything." With the admission of my voice, I close the gap between us, possibly making it uncomfortable for him but I do not care. I admire the curl of his horn, the dead space in his eyes. He makes my skin ache but I like it.
He does not mind the closeness—in truth, he prefers it. He likes to lose all space between him and others, to feel their pulse beneath him, to feel it quicken and then slow, to be close enough to see their pupils dilate when they recognized him for what he was, what he could do. He likes to press his muzzle to their ears and whisper, to unfold his threats like a gift, to share them like a secret.
So he does not mind when she presses up against him, he simply presses back, his young body handsome and unscarred, made of burnt gold and ash. “That is the right answer,” he murmured, his voice sooty, almost flirtatious although he was incapable of true attraction—not the normal kind.
For a moment, he toyed with the Fear, his ability becoming more attuned to it. Before, he had been clumsy with control; he had been unskilled. He pulled on the threads too hard or not at all. But now, oh, now he was becoming masterful. He saw the Fear as more than just a singular thread. He saw it as an aurora, as Northern Lights above him, dark and sinister. It was a symphony and he simply only had to dip his fingers to weave his own tapestry. He could play the Fear like an instrument.
He does not need to induce terror now, and so he is mild with his gift. He merely likes them to feel the thrill of the Fear when he strikes the deal. When they remember him later, he wants them to remember the Fear first. Loyalty was not freely given and bargains were not honored on merit alone.
“Remember that,” he murmured, leaning over to whisper in her ear. “I will call upon you for a favor.” Then, he reached inside of himself, finding the last wiggling strand of magic given from the faeries and lifted it, poured it into her. Empty of ability to restore, relieved to have done the faeries’ bidding, he looked upon her. “Now show me what you can do.”
Bruise
head like a hole; as black as your soul.
totally up to you how / if she reacts to his fear induction. <3
For so long, when my heart was still frozen solid, I did not fear. I was unable to feel anything and I liked it like that. As I close the gap between myself and the buckskin male, I can feel the rapid beat of the damned muscle deep in it's bone cage.
I do not want this.
I mean it when I say I would do anything.
The sooty man meets me with a wiry smile, his eyes too dark and shifting. I feel the squirm of something crawling behind my eyes and I, for the first time in my life, felt fear. It tastes like an old copper penny under my tongue and my eyes reflect what he is doing. It takes every ounce of my being to keep the scream that threatens to spill over my lips in my throat.
But in a moment's time, it is gone. Suddenly my features fall flat and the fear, the taste, is gone. I peer at the horned creature before me from a thick plume of snow white forelock.A wide grin starts to curl and contort my face as I feel the ice form and freeze my heart in a solid and secure prison. I feel invincible.
When the goat man asks to show him what I can do, I simply stamp my hoof and grin. On our left, the remains of a half eaten rabbit raises up on broken knees and missing innards. The skin bag drags itself to my feet and I smirk down at it before kicking the rancid little thing away. It rolls away in a flor, trailing bits of fur and bone before crumpling all together.
I smile back at him once again.
But I am not done. I tap the ground again. Something resembling an earthquake suddenly threatens the meadow. I watch as the earth cracks and slits between us. The rocks in the ground grind against one another as they separate at my will till there is a large gash in the ground. I smile upon my little trick with satisfaction before forcing the land to heal itself, a minor split and unevenness is the only thing that gives way that I had ever manipulated the soil.
"I am an animator." I speak flatly with an icy smirk tugging at one corner of my mouth. I have the ability to control anything inanimate, from the dead to the very ground we stand on. I also have a frozen heart...I am unable to feel anything but I decide that is irrelevant to the stallion's desire for a demonstration of my abilities.
He watches her with flat, bored eyes, tracing the feminine shape of her body and the way her eyes become cold and hazy—the fog stealing over them as he pours the magic back into her body. Bruise has no way of knowing that her heart is encapsulated in ice, but he feels it, feels the way that she is suddenly cut off from the Fear, as if it cannot reached her, cannot affect her. He would be infuriated if he was not curious.
As the bag of flesh and bones begins to jerk and move, he tilts his head. Not dismissive, but not overly impressed. It was, after all, not that different from the tricks that Violence had shown him when she had pulled the bones forth from the ground and had them dance around him. Useful trick but Bruise did not have much need for multiples of the same tool in his kit.
That melted away though as the ground began to shake beneath them.
Peering down, he looks as the rocks and rubble shake loose, the ground listening to her command. His dark eyes brightened in response and he glanced back up, looking at her through his forelock of ash. “Well, well, isn’t that neat.” It was, of course, more than neat, but he wasn’t about to give away all of his cards. “I may have use for that some day.”
He closes the gap again between them, remembering how she had done it when he first approached. He was not overly fond of relying upon his dark good looks, but he was also learning they were a weapon all their own, his sooty golden face appealing in its dark angles, the boyish charm bleeding away to leave a handsome stallion beneath. He reached over to lip at her mane, not waiting to ask permission to touch her. “What else is there?” he murmured, curious most of all about what had cut off the Fear at the source. Was she like his mother? Did she erase his powers? “There has to be more,” he whispered into her ear.
