"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
He is drifting, drifting, drifting. Leather bound wings lay flat against his spine as clawed feet dig mercilessly into the damp soil of the forest. Autumn saturates his skin, his scales, the very essence of what thumps in the bone cage of his chest. The solid and heavy rhythm echoes of a name, a fleeting body of smoke and sin. Lior wants to forget of her delicately chiseled features and the way she moves between the raindrops.
The musk of dead leaves and dampness intoxicates his heavy mind, crumbling the age old bricks of the wall he has built between himself and the rest of the world. In only a moment's breathe, the dragon is now the horse. Tall, dark, silent. The trees and their limbs seems to quiver above him in the anticipation that they may stroke his skin but he remains just beyond their grasp.
Where was he going? How had he even ended up in the forest to begin with? Had he just not been in Nerine with Nayl? The mercury eyes slide from edge to edge as he observes his surroundings in the slow methodical walk that was his usual gait. Never in a rush, never in a hurry. The hot air in his lungs suddenly reminds him that it needed to be released, comes in a soft frosted plume from his nostrils.
Not quite equine, not quite reptile.
Suddenly he finds himself dulled by this relentlessly torturous existence. What was the prize to the game? Death? If so, then so be it. The Nerine queen has denied his body, the others seemed to float in and out like a morning's fog. Feathered hooves fall heavily against the slate stone at his hooves as he remains on the edge of his old home. Seemingly the cave had shifted and changed, no longer crippled by the crumble of its former state. A shrug is all he does to acknowledge the change. Beqanna was a strange place and so he has learned to never ask questions.
And so he stacks the brick and mortar as he rebuilds the wall between himself and Beqanna.
Baby, this is what you came for…lighting strikes every time she moves
It had been fun, that midnight rendezvous in the forest. The man in the lake, with his slippery skin and silver tongue. He had said all the right things, and made her feel like a woman. But there was just something not quite right about the man in black. His eyes. Beautiful pools of hallowed out nothingness.
And there is nothing Carli loves more than a well-dressed man in black. But oh, she needs to be worshipped. Little golden bird tucks her well-trimmed feathers into her sides, her black leather boots gleaming in the sunlight as she steps between the trees. The scent of the lake was behind her, and her body was still dripping with the scent of the other male—and with the crisp coldness of the water that she had immersed herself in. She stopped and closed her eyes, letting her mind slip back in time.
The moment had been perfect. Everything about it. What had happened? Ever present, her slippery silver-tongued devil had let slip the best prize he could ever have imagined. His mind was elsewhere, even while he charmed the canary into singing for him.
She may be without her magic, but Charlemagne is nobody’s fool.
She opens her eyes and shakes her head, her black hair falling in obsidian cascades down the side of her neck, and she continues on her way, bending and weaving through the trunks… her mind settled on the future.
Whatever that was.
For the first time, immortality was not within her grasp, and she could feel the youth of her existence slipping away.
She was a woman who tasted power and wielded it like an iron club.
What was she now?
What could she become?
Everyone’s watching her, but she’s looking at you…
It's the word that slithers into his mind as the mercury of his gaze finds her gleaming and glinting in the filtered autumn sunlight. She walks boldly, shamelessly. The dark stallion does not hide beneath her gaze. Lior watches as she plucks a path between the scarred and naked trunks. It was hard to miss either of them amongst the burning colors of autumn fire. "Mare." He speaks flatly as she is closing the space between them and Lior taking a place off the side of the path so he may make room for her to move past him, a nod offered.
The path that they currently shared was beaten from decades of foot traffic. Horses, deer, bob cats had all traversed by the cave. They had all been pilgrims at one point or another. He edges closer to the mouth of his former home as she is close enough for him to catch the sweet water scent dripping from her skin. Gardenias and rose water. The savage in his throat makes him salivate slightly with repressed frustration but the stallion bites back with practiced ease. Silver eyes watch unabashedly as the sharp slate beneath his hooves echo in the depths of the cold cave.
She holds herself squarely, the indention of a finely muscled hip, the small tangles of damp mane caressing her neck with silent jealous rage. He envies them for but a moment before returning his focus towards her face. She seemed to be slowing but Lior remains tall, stony. What did this water nymph want with a beast such as he? Wings lift slightly as he absentmindedly moves them to stretch beneath the warmth's dying rays of sunlight.
The sound of that singular word, uttered so gravelly and cold. So matter of fact. Her eyes slid shut and she turned around to face him. A man, slick like oil, preening against the pin-pricked rays of light that shown through the trees, as if set on fire by the orange in the trees. The light around him burned, and Charlemagne’s eyes were pulled down by the shutters. The smell wafted him; sandlewood and patchouli.
It was intoxicating.
She moved then, shifting her weight back and forth in the soft earth, testing her weight against the sticks and rooted herself to the spot. Her wings—they shifted against her soft skin. The wind moved against her, and the crispness of the fall air took her breath away.
Or was it the well-dressed man in black.
Her words were like champagne. She speaks with a silkiness that she knows they like to hear. She is beautiful, and she knows it.
She’s powerful. Or at least she used to be.
Yes. That is indeed what I am. What I wonder though… is are you interested in who I am?
She does not bother to smile. She does not see the need to be coy, or false. This man did not seem to have the time for it. She has simply said her piece, hoping that he would be curious enough about her to learn more than about her than just the state of her sex.
And you, she says, jutting out her black masked mouth towards him. Breathe she says to herself. Just breathe.You are a stallion. A man. And I am a woman. How about that?
02-21-2017, 12:00 AM (This post was last modified: 02-21-2017, 12:04 AM by Lior.)
I look inside myself
These women were such curious things. With their soft tongues and swaying curves, they knew how to tap the very primal language in which to entrap a man. To steal what remain at it's purest stage.
She, though, seems to still beneath the crisp caress of autumn air with her tapered snout jutted towards him challengingly...or is it curiously? A pewter eye glances towards her more delicate form from beneath the thatch of a long since matted mane. Ears click forward within the mangle of mane as she speaks with a flint voice and matchstick tongue. "...who you are?" The words are flat and almost mechanical as he echoes them. Heavy hind end moves so he may rotate his position to fully take in the shape of this woman.
She is buckskin, radiant with her dark hair and flashing eyes. But Lior is accustomed to a pretty face. He makes no effort to apologize. She is but a mare, flesh and blood, driven to the earth like all of those that surrounded them. He is unsure if he desires to continue the conversation as Nayl's rejection still troubled his sleep and he is certain another pretty face could not soothe the fever that burned his brow.
They never seemed to want anything more than for him to trail them like a rabid mutt who had gone mad for a bitch in heat. But that is neither here nor there. Perhaps a little light conversation would be beneficial for the quiet man.
"Then since you have suggested the topic, who are you?" He asks with both mercury irises catching her feminine form. Lior's words flow low and cool like glacier waters from the tip of his tongue as he observes her patiently with the idle flick of his burr ridden tail.
She laughs—an airy, tinkling sound. She cannot help it. He is so different than the oily man. He is dry, and matter fact.
Where the other is playing a game, and hiding behind mysterious eyes, this one is up front. But could it really be as simple as that? No, it never was. And here in the trees, where camouflage is best suited to protecting your body, Carli finds that her thoughts are resting back with the man at the lake—wondering if this man truly was as he seemed.
Weren’t all men the same?
In her experience, they were. And yet, she takes this chance.
Let him test his mettle.
“I am Charlemagne. Recently returned only to find that the abilities I was born with to this wretched world are no more. And instead, I am stuck with these—“ she stretches out her wings, pushing them against her body, lifting her off the ground ever so slightly. “—things. So heavy and unwieldy. I don’t know how you can manage them.”
She pulls a pout across her face, before putting her thoughts away again, once more displaying a serenity she most certainly did not feel. Instead, she stepped closer towards the black one. Imposing. Dangerous.
Sensuous.
“And who are you?”
She had never found out her mysterious lover’s name. She refused to be caught unawares again. If she was going to make herself known, she would be the one in control.
Her words are like butterfly's wings. Wispy, pretty and fleeting. Much like most of the women who inhabited Beqanna.
But she is moving, wings lifting, fanning. Lior does not flinch or sway as she makes her casual remark, taking the liberty of closing the space between them with a single pace. The water scent of her skin is enticing as it reminds him of the cool stone floors of his former home. A single brow lifts as he watches her slip closer. What is it that she is seeking in the space between their bodies? "I manage." The dark stallion murmurs lowly, his neck coiling thickly as he tucks his muzzle close so he may avoid the feel of her skin as she snakes close.
The buckskin sheen of her coat is fascinating as it ripples under the haze of an autumn sky. Her dark hair frames her face as she boldly eyes him. She is of something much different than he, she is of regal blood given the way she faces the dark man, speaking with an intelligent and articulate tongue. It takes a moment for him to respond to her question as he is distracted by his thoughts. "Lior." His name tastes funny on his tongue as he has only spoken it to a few horses in Beqanna. Typically the tall man preferred to grunt or plainly ignore the others what poked around with silly questions and elusive eyes. The stallion now falls silent as he watches her with scrutinizing eyes, attempting to read her actions.
02-28-2017, 12:43 PM (This post was last modified: 02-28-2017, 12:45 PM by Charlemagne.)
charlemagne
If our love is tragedy, why are you my remedy?
She looks at him, blinking. He is so different than the man at the lake. The slippery man said much, but meant nothing. The black one… Lior… said little, and meant much. She found it refreshing. She also found it maddening. She was not the only one supposed to be talking. She has been gone many, many years, and there is more to learn. More to seek.
More to be.
She looks up at him, the yin to her yang—where she is bright, he is dark. Where she is open, he is closed. Such a dichotomy. He stands over her, his scent wafting with the stench of another female. This was not promising, but then, she was not out looking for much more than a joyride. In the dark of the forest, she had clung to another—a perfectly nice gentleman that she probably would never see again. And the baby… if there was one. Troublesome thing. Without her blood-born abilities, Carli had no way of knowing what it would be… but she would be without it soon enough. Alayne had been the only daughter she’d ever raised… and look at how well that turned out.
She is on the ground again, and she takes a step back from him, creating more of a gap, and looks up. He looks like he has seen much. What could she learn from him? “It is a pleasure to meet you, Lior.” she fluters her wings, and positions herself under the light of the sun in order to see him better. She was still considering him. “So what is a dark, menacing, and forboding creature like you doing in a place like this? Surely the wings make it near to impossible for takeoff. Which means… You have just received them…”
She is not new to the ways of magic. Indeed, Charlemagne born mute and without a soul to care for her… The bugs had given her her wings and informed her of her abilities. So she can spot them a mile away.
“Those fairies can be real bitches, can’t they?”
Stay classy, Carli. Always saying allowed what others have the class to keep hidden away behind closed doors.
The last comment. The one referring to the fairies as bitches causes a fragile smile to toy at the edges of his lips. Indeed the dark male agreed with the buckskin woman though he did consider arguing the fact of his wings but decides to suppress it instead.
There had been a time when he had possessed a great deal more of power but he also had been a slave to Gunsynd, lame and deaf. But now...now life in all it's peculiarity, had restored him whole and now granted him with the ability to become the great black reptile he had so long associated himself with. "I suppose so." The male observes her with silver eyes, dipping away to absorb the warmth of the autumn sun.
She glitters but not physically. Like a raw diamond before it is cut, there are secrets just beneath the muddy surface. "A creature like me..." He repeats under his breath as he glances at the mouth of the cave that was to his back. A moment of silence, consideration, is taken and the pretty mare is forgotten. His heavy head moves as the muscular neck returns his focus to the tawny form of Charlemagne.
Faint pieces of his smile falter upon his whiskered lips.
"I'm not sure." He sounds lost for a moment as his eyes focus upon his company. He had come to the forest to return to a life of solitude, to remain as the dragon and reserve himself to a quiet eternity. But then this mare, peculiarly alone in the depths of the Beqanna, had stumbled upon the dark beast, intercepting his path. "And you, Charlemagne? I can't imagine you were out here looking for me." His words are low, simply for her alone as he watches her, the thatch of tangled forelock temporarily lifted by a slip of autumn breeze.
…I can’t imagine you were out here looking for me…
No, she most certainly was not. Instead, what had plagued her was her uncalculated worth in the world. She is no longer powerful. No longer young. She is no longer the girl she was—reckless and having the ability to get away with it. No, this woman was much smarter than the one who had left these lands. Much more cautious.
And yet, her first foray into the trees has presented her with not one, but two scenarios with two men swathed with darkness, one dripping sex appeal and the other dripping with disdain for…something. Or someone. Carli could not place her mind on what exactly Lior was keeping locked away between his staccato sentences, but he was most certainly not all that was meant to the eye. He looks like he has suffered much…
Charlemagne knew a bit about that.
Her ears prick towards him and she draws golden eyes level with his—having to look upward of course—and smirks knowingly. “I most certainly did not expect to find what I have found today, Lior. And yet I have found you—and you also do not fall in line with my expectations. Instead, your company has exceeded them; for that, I find I am comforted.”
If for only knowing she was curious about his ability to have succeeded in finding magic where there was none, the calculating canary shifts her sport and steps closer to him again, judging his mental reaction towards her. Would he mind them being closer? Would he divulge more information? Could she get him to talk?
Could she get him to smile?
She wondered for a moment what it would take to put a sincere smile upon this twisted man’s face. She smiles again secretively, only the barest hints of her thoughts flittering across her eyes.
“I was looking for remnants of the Beqanna I used to know…. And find that it has been plunged into the ocean. Sad, really. The state of corruption was at an all-time high.” Charlemagne smiles sardonically. Corruption was, she figured, precisely why she no longer had the ability to do…anything. She looks away, kicking at a river rock that looked like it had been left behind by someone who lived at nearby lake. She snorted at the memory of the slippery man, and then was determined to put him out of her mind. If he wanted to find her, she was not hiding. Lior, on the other hand, was very much present…and very intriguing.
“And please, call me Carli. If I had any friends left in this world, that is what they would call me.”
