"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
** warning: sexuality and mention of rape (not by Offspring) ahead
You're looking at an absolute zero; I'm not the devil but I won't be your hero.
Dawn and dusk had come and gone, too many times for him to count –
The dark sky had opened up in the wake of her absence, bringing with it gale force wind and a powerful tempest that had left the volcanic isle dreary and damp for many days after. The air was thick with sulfur and ash, while the dense humidity sat still beneath the plume of smoke that had risen from the rumbling mountain – and he had long since grown used to it (in part because of the blistering inferno that burned within him; it made him indifferent to the stifling heat).
Yet, there is an unease of restlessness that seethes beneath the surface of his marred flesh and within the darkest recesses of his mind, stirring him from his own complacency. The pale moonlight and celestial starlight lures him away from the island, with his curiosity left unsated – leaving him yearning to know more.
His powerful legs carry him many miles to the northwest, wading through the salty seawater, trudging through the dark and dreary woodland, and along the raucous and unruly riverside. The sun eventually does rise, and fall again, and at last, he has found himself once again enveloped by the salty ocean breeze – weaving its way through his long and tangled tresses. His dark and heavy scarlet gaze peers out onto the ocean – it is a crystalline cerulean, whereas his own sea was wild and reckless in its darkness. It is a sharp contrast that does not go unnoticed.
An array of auburn and crimson from the vivid sunset lay across the tide as a thick seafoam caresses the shoreline below, luring him closer – but he is still, his senses warning him of the nearby border (he does not dare cross into Nerine; he is not so foolish to do so without invitation – and he has not come for diplomacy; he has come for her).
He does not call for her – he can sense that she is near, perhaps tucked away within the tropical foliage, or maybe even gliding overhead with her broad, finely preened wings outstretched from north to south.
She would find him long before he would find her, of this he is certain.
He has come to see her, with the certainty of his promise to do so still at the forefront of his mind.
OFFSPRING
another zealot with the weight of the fucking world
The visit to Tephra had left her with much to ponder. For some reason the unexpected visit of the mare with her emerald eyes had left a bitter taste in her mouth. She had no claim over the brooding man with his puckered scars, she’s not even sure she wants one. The prickle of jealousy (that had reared it’s ugly head time and time again) can’t help but find footing and spread. After much thought she pushes whatever grudge down deep within her, blaming it on bad history.
Besides there were more concerning things to worry about.
The sun has set and she still has not moved. The night is clearer then it has been in days, sparkling stars winking above her as she stands at her usual spot. Her golden eyes find the glimmer of moonlight that sparkles over the dark waters but she’s unable to appreciate it’s beauty tonight. The usual hard golden eyes are now expressive in their worry. Pristine wings of ebony ruffle lightly against her side, anxious.
She should have seen him from her perch long ago but her mind is a whirlwind of concern and frustration. It is only by chance that she see’s his burning gaze from the cliffs, pinpricks of red outlined by dark shadow. Instantly her wings are spread, stepping fearlessly off the cliff as the wind catches beneath them. Gliding effortlessly towards the beach, hooves hitting sand in a mere matter of minutes. Once she had been so uncertain of the extra appendages, now she can’t imagine her life without them.
He is much like she remembered, just as stoic and brooding as that day they had spent in his humid home. ”You remembered.” Words rough and teasing but unable to fight of the worry lines from her eyes.
You're looking at an absolute zero; I'm not the devil but I won't be your hero.
”How could I forget?”
His own voice emerges from the depth of his throat, rough from disuse and jagged along the edges – it is barely more than a growl, though there is a flicker of light hidden away within the darkness of his gaze. There is a faint shadow of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he is drawn away from the cliffside and closer to her; she is a flickering flame herself – he dare not touch her, though the thought of it is alluring and tantalizing both (her name is more than befitting). She is as beautiful as he remembered, and as full of sharp wit – there is a chuckle rumbling from the hearth of his chest, not unlike the volcano that stirred restlessly amid the islands he had come to know so well.
Tucked neatly to each side lay her finely preened feathers, glittering in the dwindling sunlight – sable and rust against the pale sea, as the sun fades slowly beyond the horizon, leaving a starlit sky and a rising moon in its wake. He wondered, for a moment, what she might be thinking – he can see the tension in her jawline, and the heavy crease of her brow, despite her wayward forelock draping over her golden eyes. His own humor is lost, then – leaving behind a thin, straight line across the dark shadow of his mouth. Her mind is elsewhere – preoccupied with a much more urgent matter.
He understood all too well how difficult it could be to put the worries of a kingdom aside.
”Are you thinking of Taiga?” he murmurs then, his voice low as a sweeping gust of wind glides over the precipice, caressing the puckered scarring of his skin and weaving its way through her tightly knit feathers. ”I felt much the same way after Pangea fell – wary, unsure,” and he pauses then, his scarlet gaze peering out into the sea – the very same unsettled sea that had swallowed all the rest. ”but I have noticed that each time a land has been taken, it has been because of greed – and because of power.”
He thinks then of Hyaline – of Nayl – perhaps he had been too hasty in his judgement of her – would he not be as angry as she had been, if the roles had been reversed? He is looking beyond her, then, into the tropical terrain that was not unlike the wild, overgrown rainforest of yesteryear – with the soft whisper of a powerful and unyielding sea, lapping along the shoreline below. The fire had held onto him tightly then, and he had been angry himself, frustrated by his own failure and driven by a force out of his own control. He had been defensive, wary – he had every right to be, he knew, having gone into Hyaline with no knowledge of what he might find – but perhaps he had been too much so. Too guarded.
Too guarded.
It summarized him well.
OFFSPRING
another zealot with the weight of the fucking world
A shiver of pleasure runs deliciously though her spine as his voice, rough and dark, reaches her ears. He had not forgotten her. The vanity in her knew he would come while the jealousy she has been fighting claims a victory against the mystery mare. Both feelings flee as quickly as they come swamped by current circumstances. He makes it difficult though as he ambles closer, the burning embers of his eyes burning like the mountaintop of his beloved volcano. He is dangerous. She’s intrigued.
Perceptive can be added to his growing list of qualities, picking up the fine threads of her tension. The mention of Taiga brings a frown to her dark lips, but for the wrong reasons. Taiga is not the subject of her worry, merely the tagline. He describes the fall of another kingdom, of greed and power. Unable to keep the sigh that falls from her lips. He’s not wrong.
”It’s not that exactly…” She pauses for a moment, turning her view towards the ocean. The silvery moonlight filling her golden gaze. She was not one to hold secrets close to her chest and this was no different. ”Gryffen is my brother.” A scowl twisting her features, dismay and anger making her muscles ripple beneath her dappled coat as they tense and tighten. They would all find out soon anyways, it was only a matter of time before the white stallion sought her out. There was no love lost between them.
She doesn’t look to see his reaction, he may not even know who she’s talking about. ”It will not be his last.” Certainty in her words, knowing him as well as she did. Finally casting a critical glance in his direction. Would she be guilty by association? That had happened before. Her expression once more becomes guarded, unreadable although her posture remains coiled and withdrawn. ”He will come for me.”
You're looking at an absolute zero; I'm not the devil but I won't be your hero.
”The red eyes,” he murmurs softly, as his heavy lashes blink slowly over his own. She had mentioned her father before, and his scarlet-tinted gaze – Gryffen had a pair of his own (how could he forget a striking gaze so similar to his?), and the connection is made at last. The wraith-like creature had ventured onto the shoreline, feigning a concern that had been far too disingenuous for him to take seriously – with his own pale lashes fluttering over the crimson flicker of his gaze and a soft, demure tone adapted to a voice too rough and too ragged to ever be as saccharine as he pretended.
Offspring had known then that he should rebuke him; he should turn him away and keep him away from the heart of the volcanic isle, where what he so vehemently sought hid away within a distant seacave. He can sense by the coiling tension beneath her russet skin that Gryffen is all and more of what his instinct had warned him he could be – and it is enough to unnerve him; to leave his own nerve-endings frayed. She is guarded, steeling herself away as ire is melded with the white-hot blood pooling within her veins – he can see the frustration boiling beneath the surface, and when her own gaze bores into his at last, he can see the hardened resolve within.
She is wary, worried of what he might think – but behind the furrowed brow and terse jaw, there is a flicker of concern – not for himself, for Tephra, but for her. There is so much more than meets the eye, and she is as restless and as changing as the churning, open sea (and he is drawn in by it, by the fierce tempest brewing within her). He does not say anything for a long moment, instead closing the space that lay between them as an empty void, the warmth of his breath brushing across her cheek, as a gentle nudge is placed where her jawline is connected to her slender, dappled neck – a simper tugging at the corner of his mouth, his gaze coy, for a fleeting moment.
”I never would have known, had you not told me - there is not much of a resemblance.” He muses softly, his own gaze cast out toward the sea. ”He came to Tephra, once – seeking someone that found refuge in our land beneath Magnus’ reign before mine,” he pauses, his voice rough as the tone lowers, quieted between them as the humor fades away with the fallen sun. ”I did not trust him then, and turned him away. Apparently there is good reason.”
His eyes bore into her own again, tracing the flecks of gold that line her pupil, as the moonlight illuminates the darkened shadow of her wary face. It will not be his last, her words echo in his mind, and his mouth is contorted into a deepening frown while the scarlet of his gaze searches hers for an answer. ”His last? Do you think he is the cause for Taiga's collapse?”
OFFSPRING
another zealot with the weight of the fucking world
Yes, the red eyes. What had made her suspicious of him to begin with, the possibility of being related. The sons had always been the ones to inherit when it came to Cross’s many children, rarely the daughters. A memory seems to crawl over his features and her cat like gaze zeros in on him, cocking her head slightly. ”You’ve met.” It’s not a question, just curiosity. Wondering what would have brought those two together. She’s not sure she wants to know.
The silence thunders against her eardrums, watching him carefully. Assuming only the worst. Perhaps knowing her is too much of a chance, she wouldn’t hold it against him. She understood how the guardian must put it’s people first over personal choices… Even if she hadn’t always done it herself. That flicker of worry in the depths of red that matches her own, makes her chest restrict and tighten. She will not let him see her disappointment, long lashes lowering slightly to hide what she normally could push down so easily.
These days it was harder, constantly having to look over her shoulder. Preparing for the worst.
The warmth of his breath as his muzzle passes by her cheek, resting in the nook of her neck. Allowing herself to inhale his scent, dark like charcoal and salty. She resists from instinctually pressing her lips against his chest, just to taste the sea. Instead curling her neck, bringing her muzzle to her chest, drawing down her tangled forelock. Her feelings a constant tug of war of wanting to connect or withdrawing.
He speaks of Gryffen and she is quiet, listening. Looking for someone. ”Who did he seek?” She murmurs quietly, wondering if perhaps he had finally discovered the daughter she had spirited away. Unaware that Magnus, brilliant and beloved Magnus, had done much the same later on for the same mare and another child. It takes her a minute to register the name, her worry of her half-brother momentarily forgotten. ”Magnus’s rule? You have seen him?” She had known he had returned from the dead but had been unable to contact him since. It brought an odd sorrow she usually didn’t feel, one of the few kin that had ever truly cared what happened to her.
Thoughts of her Uncle are broken as a frown contorts his dark lips and she meets his hard gaze with one of her own. ”He has always tested boundaries, working under the protection of a ruler. A schemer behind the scenes. But now… He’s had a taste of what he can do on his own.” A soft shake of her head. ”No… Taiga will only be the beginning.” A pause as she remembers the beaten mare, caring only to save her child. Knowing the sacrifice she was making. ”I know what he can do.”
You're looking at an absolute zero; I'm not the devil but I won't be your hero.
His mind is elsewhere, drawing out a memory from the deepest and darkest recesses of his tired and weary mind – he had been wary of the stranger, sheathed in ivory, where lies are birthed from the hollow of his gullet quicker than carbon dioxide escapes his lungs. Yet, he had not seen him since, nor heard any mention of him – he was striking in his appearance (much smaller than he, but with a commanding presence and a wickedness about him that had not been lost on him); unmistakable. He is quiet for a moment, mentally recalling the insidious way in which his forcibly saccharine tone had betrayed the truth of his intentions, before falling away into scathing malice, with venom seeping from his tone.
He is pulled from his brief reverie by the gentle sea breeze, filling the space that had once been closed by the proximity of his lips to her jawline – he did not know what had stirred him to move closer to her, nor what had driven him to press the plane of his broad face beneath the crook of her neck. She had not spurned him, but she had withdrawn, wary and uncertain of his intention, perhaps – and there is a soft knot of uncertainty welling up within his stomach. He did not even know what his intention had been; he had simply moved closer, uncaring what the consequence may be. He felt a kindred spirit within her. Carved of iron and steel, independent, unbending.
It made him reckless.
He is suddenly all too aware of his own foreboding presence, of the shadow his behemoth form lay before him on the ground, outlined in the pale moonlight shining from above. He becomes withdrawn himself, his gaze peering out into the wide-open ocean as the void that lay between them increases as his self-awareness rouses to the forefront of his mind. He does not say anything to her, just as she said nothing to him – each burned by their own experience, wary in the delicate dance that the heavy scarring (emotionally and physically) left in its wake.
Her words, careful and deliberate (her mind is elsewhere as well, with worry knit heavily across her brow), interrupt him from his thoughts, and quietly his gaze is pulled away from the tranquility of the ocean and into the gilded depth of her watchful eyes. ”Amorette,” he murmurs then, his voice barely rising above the sweeping gust of wind rising up from the canyon below. ”I know little of her but she is close to Magnus – an adopted daughter, perhaps, if I recall.”
He pauses then, the edge of his mouth drawn up with faint amusement, reaching the core of his blistering, fiery eye, flickering to her own with a rumbling chuckle. ”I forget that you have been absent for some time. Magnus and I – I would consider him an ally; a friend. After the Reckoning swallowed the entirety of what we had all known, we had to venture to a distant mountain, to plead with the fae for their grace and understanding.” He says, his voice a whiskey-rich rumbling baritone, reverberating in the thickening air. ”Magnus and I came together to seek refuge, and were given the volcanic islands to call our own. Thus, Tephra was born. I only sought to establish it, and left it to Magnus, though I never truly left the island itself – the volcano is all that I have.”
He is quiet then, his mind drifting to another time, another place – as it so often did.
”Magnus left some time ago; I have not seen him since – and as for Gryffen, well. He is not the first to cause trouble, and he will not be the last. I have not known you for long, but I can already tell that you are a force to be reckoned with – and if I had to place a bet on either one of you, my answer would be you every time.”
OFFSPRING
another zealot with the weight of the fucking world
She had tried, once, a long long time ago when she had been youthful, still new to the world around her. Gryffen was even younger but already stained with a dark mark on his soul. She had tried to show him love, to fix whatever had been missing in his heart. She had tried to be kind to her little brother. The stark white colt, those blazing familiar crimson iris’s, resisted everything she put on him, every attempt futile. A soft breath escapes from deep within her, regret? She knew that he had been born that way, he was what he was. Yet there was always that pang of guilt, if there could have been more to try, if she could have saved him from himself. Saved them all.
The wind is a gentle caress that plays through the long strands of her hair, entangling them with his as he stands so close to her. The beating of her heart thrumming steadily but quickly within her russet breast as the gold of her eyes consume him, memorizing the hard lines of his face. Every pink puckered scar that crosses his chest. The way his touch had felt along her neck, the burning she feels inside when he withdraws. It’s so hard to not consider the possibilities of him, what it would be like to curl up against the broadness of his massive figure, to feel the volcano within him consume her. Once she had been all fire and brimstone, what would it be like if she could feel that again?
Those thoughts are swiftly followed by the other possibility, the bad ones. What would it be like to see the anger in his eyes, to be the brunt of it. A horrible image of him, dark and forbidding bearing down on her. Screams that make her throat raw as she fights from his grasp. Trembling without realizing it, golden depths filled with ghosts as she’s haunted by her own personal demons. Quickly she bats her lashes as she looks to the black sea, the little sparkle of moonlight that hits the curve of calm waves. He was not Lion, he did not carry his sins. She knew that. But it didn’t seem to make a difference.
Amorette. No flicker of recognition flits across her facial features, merely considering his words as she shifts a dappled leg to stand more confidently. ”A daughter I presume.” It would make sense, the lady had been exotically named and had modeled her children’s names closely to it. Adopted daughter to Magnus? It shouldn’t be surprising, he had always tried to save others when who he needed to help first was himself.
It’s with pleasant surprise she hears of Offspring’s history with Magnus and can’t help but smile at the thought of them together. ”Magnus always seemed to find his way to ruling even when he didn’t want it. He can’t seem to accept his natural born talent.” A soft chuckle, missing him fiercely then. Wishing they hadn’t once more been crossing ships in the night. He does not ask why she questions for the buckskin stallion so she doesn’t explain. There was no point boring him with useless information unless he seeked it.
A faint pattern takes place before her, realizing the fatal attraction of the type of men that have taken a starring role in her life. Cross, Slaide, Magnus, Lion… Offspring. All formidable men with crosses to bare, brooding soulful stallions. None thinking they were worthy of affection. The lovers following in the footsteps of the father, she never had a chance.
She remains silent as he speaks of Gryffen once more and she looks up into the burning coals of his red, searching them intensely. ”You barely know me.” She whispers, cautious. Probing into him with a long gaze as if she might turn up answers beneath steaming rocks. ”How can you have so much faith in me?”
You're looking at an absolute zero; I'm not the devil but I won't be your hero.
The regret looming within the shadow of her gaze does not go unnoticed – she is elsewhere for a moment, with the weight of a long-buried memory settled heavily on her shoulders. He knew the feeling all too well. He had spent so much of his youth tucking away the wretched memories that had taken his heart and crushed it, burying each one as deeply into the dark crevices of his mind – if he stopped to contemplate the endless sea and its roiling current, he can still remember the way it felt to drown, for his lungs to fill up with the salty seawater while his body collided over and over with the jagged cliffside, leaving thick and gaping wounds across the darkness of his skin.
His immortality had kept him tethered to a life he had, once upon a time, so desperately tried to escape. Though he had inevitably fallen unconscious, he awoke hours later, sputtering the salty brine of the unforgiving ocean, while his grievous wounds oozed, leaving heavy scarring along his neck, his chest, his barrel. The only war he had ever truly lost was the war within himself, and it had left him disfigured, marred and marked by his failure, his heartbreak, and his feeble attempt to take his own life.
Some memories were best kept hidden away, locked away and left unspoken.
He is drawn away from his own reverie by the heat of her gaze steadied upon him, and when the glimmering fire of his meet the gilded gleam of her own, he is captivated – quietly, he glances from one eye, to the other, tracing the deep amber hidden within the core of her iris, highlighted by the fleck of goldenrod that is not unlike the warm glow of the rising sun.
She is committing him to memory – the broad plane of his face, the scarring beneath his right eye (Lagertha had left her hefty mark in the throes of battle; the pointed diamond of her armor left a thick and puckered scar beneath his eye), the darkness of his tangled tresses hanging long and low across his neck. He, in turn, is tracing the shadow of wariness above her cheek, where her graceful jawline lay, leading to the slender curve of her neck and the soft dappling of jaguar spots – ferocity defined, and the silence shared is deafening.
There is mention once again of Magnus, but he does not dwell on it – a lover, perhaps? He did not care to pry – should she desire to delve to him her history, she would, and his weary heart had learned patience. A surge of confidence and certainty seeps into his veins then, stirring his heart into a thrumming frenzy against the fiery inferno of the flame burning brightly within his chest.
There was a fleeting moment in which he wondered if he had been imagining the chemistry, brewing like a powerful tempest. As the warmth of her proximity far outweighs the temperature of his own fire, he can feel it longing to burst forth onto the surface of his skin (he does not allow it; he does not want to burn her – he suppresses it, forcing it down, swallowing it whole).
You barely know me, she says so softly, but he is so near to her, he can hear her more clearly than the tide lapping across the shore, more distinctly than his own heartbeat, pounding within his chest. How can you have so much faith in me?
”I can see what you cannot,” he muses softly, his lips tantalizingly close to her cheek, his gaze never leaving hers. ”when you have lived as long as I have, you learn to look beyond, to see between the lines.” He pauses then, studying her as the sweetness of her breath entangles with his own, and his whiskered mouth is so near to her, he may as well be murmuring against her skin, and not simply to her. ”We are not the demons we have faced – and we are not the experiences we have had,” (a sigh emerges, low and quiet – he is convincing himself of this truth, too) ”and I already see so much more than whatever secrets are keeping you. If only you could see what I see.”
OFFSPRING
another zealot with the weight of the fucking world
Each scar tells a story. Every fragment of puckered skin, every slice and scab. All pieces that make him who he is today. The trail of white flesh that lines beneath the unyielding crimson void (so familiar as the dark skin that had slashed it’s way over Cross’s red). Everything about him unnerves her, leaves her hungry and aching. And what an appetite she has built up, so many years being alone. Sheltering herself from them all.
The tawny pigment of her iris’s darkens as he closes the little space that remained. The heat of him is overpowering, as if flames may whip from his skin and engulf her, but she does not withdraw. Instead she is drawn to the heat, to the memory of what it was like to burn for someone. He does not want to singe her but she longs for it, to feel the flicker of his flame caress the svelte curve of her neck. To trace along her backside. She tingles with the thought but no blush finds her cheek. Every wanton desire overriding the glimmer of fear that holds her heart.
Their eyes are locked, never breaking even as lips extend to her cheek. Feeling them even as they don’t touch. A rush of courage, a blaze in the dilated pupils of gold, thinking of brazenly pressing her lips to his. She does not, weak to the wall that had stood for years. Weak to her fear. However, she is still brash. The unwavering gaze holding him as her dark plush muzzle rises to ever so slightly brush against the charcoal chiseled jaw line. He had ignited that old spark within her, a glimpse of the fearless jaguar she had once been.
Tell me.” Still the soft words laced with a hard edge. Needing to see what lines exactly he had read between. His breath hot against her cheek, as if smoke was escaping from his lips. ”What can you know of my demons?” Almost more a question to herself as she searches him, looking. What could he have possibly discovered? ”What do you see?” She breathes, exhaling slowly as the vibrations between them rise. The need for him gripping at her belly but unwilling to let go of the little control she has in this world. Reagan still lingers in the back of her mind, far from forgotten. Girls were probably a dime a dozen to a man like him. She would not be another notch in his bedpost.
