"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
06-06-2018, 02:16 PM (This post was last modified: 06-06-2018, 02:17 PM by Crevan.)
Our skin gets thicker, living out in the snow
CREVAN
A leader grows by listening, and Crevan believes that Modicum had listened well enough. When the call for Sylva’s inhabitants to gather echoed through the summer woods, the wolf shifter had shown face and added some new ones to his repertoire. Astarael - Modicum’s new Queen - was a bay mare with a very distinct look about her, just like himself and the following horses Morty names after. Maugrim and Lokii, respectively the Finisher and Ringmaster, had seemed to both pursue their own agenda post-meeting but the bay … she had descended directly afterwards to give him information.
It would seem that there was at least one other shifter, aside from himself and Merida, living in these woods. A slave (his nape had bristled at the thought, but he’d said nothing,) who’d come across a chance encounter between two interesting horses. A one Wound and her companion, Belgaer, had been discussing some matter or another that Astarael found intriguing and she more or less desired this so-called Wound to be brought in for further questioning.
Crevan likes that she doesn’t care so much about how this will be achieved. He only cares that she requires he work in tandem with the Finisher, as this was the lichen-colored stallion’s area of expertise. “Less effort on my part, all the better.” He’d thought, leaving Astarael from there to settle on plans. Blissfully those came quickly too; Maugrim was neither chatty nor interested in a wolf that could breathe fire, and those were two things Crevan could appreciate.
All that was left was to wait.
Crevan spends the time traveling. He shifts to horse, preferring the anonymity of his natural form as he passes first through Taiga and then into the common lands. No one is perturbed by the sight of a raw-umber colored stallion with a navy mane and tail. In this shape he’s practically nobody, which is exactly the somebody he’d like to be. By the time his chocolate-toned hooves are sinking into the shoreline of the Field, no one has stopped him and twilight is just beginning to fade to black.
He’ll never admit that Maugrim’s powers unnerve him, but all the same Crevans still a good few feet away from the water’s edge as he calls out, “Quickest way to find and get her to you?” He doesn’t doubt for one minute that Maugrim beat him here, or that he’s not out there lurking. Not after what he’s seen that horse do. “You could ferry me across as a wolf. I could track and chase her out to shore.” He shrugs, ears tipping backwards to pilfer through the crash of waves for any other sounds.
They seem to be alone, then. “Or I could go as this. You could find her for me and I’ll approach as a recruit, a newcomer. However you want to do it I’ll get her back to you, sir Finisher.” The shifter whuffs in amusement. He wonders if some day he’ll be able to disappoint the notorious drowned god, but for now he reigns it in; a blank look settles over his face. He’ll take whatever recommendation the waterlord suggests, jokes aside, because it meant a chase.
ummers in Tephra bring about entirely unattractive heat paired with breathtakingly painted sunsets. Wound will never be able to get over the way the sun drowns itself in the ocean and how the dying light reflects into the sea. It’s one of her favorite natural sights, along with the reflection of the constellations shining into the ocean.
While any other evening Wound would find herself along the western coast of Tephra (feet dipping into the lazy, tired waves), instead she is on the eastern side. Everyone in the volcanic kingdom has been on-guard, patrolling the borders with such unforgiving fervor that Wound often wonders when they will all drop down in exhaustion. The tension that lies across Beqanna is thickly-slathered, bringing dense and shadowy thoughts to Wound’s mind whenever she might look across the canal to the mainland.
Such thoughts cling to her mind as she looks now, peering into the oncoming darkness as the sun weakly unfurls its final rays of light. There is a stallion just on the other side of the canal, the twilight catching on the deep blue of his mane and tail. At first, terror grips the silvery mare — she nearly darts to run off screaming “Danger! Intruders!” — and her lungs cease to work. But she collects herself, watching for another moment as the stallion seems to speak toward the water before him.
She’s often spoken her thoughts aloud to herself (mumbling words against the volcano’s face or into the steam of the hot springs) and thus a tender smile finds her face and she decides he’s likely a recruit trying to cross.
Thankfully, the tide is low. In the twilight, the sandbank that rests across the channel is invisible. Wound stands just at the edge of the water, the waves only barely licking the tips of her front hooves, and calls across the expanse. “Welcome, stranger!” Her voice is smooth, falling from her mouth in feminine harmonies. “The tide is low… Please, it is safe to cross.” She would offer them more, but the hush of the waves and the whisper of a humid summer breeze against the trees dampens the strength of her voice.
06-08-2018, 01:49 PM (This post was last modified: 06-08-2018, 01:51 PM by Maugrim.)
god make me pay like the devil i am
He does not know the stallion very well, or the canine-counterpart. All the water-god cared for was another victim, and following the wolf would allow him to do so. He had to admit that he had begun to rather enjoy the hunt, as Crevan would call it, and though he had always been a rather powerful being, Maugrim lacked the organization and the skills to execute cleanly, or to understand the importance of keeping them alive, and using them to benefit the kingdom. Not that he truly cared for the kingdom in a way that would be honorable (he would choose his own life over another’s any day), but the logistics of it all started to rather appeal to him.
The trickery, the stealth, the power.
The beasts that have come together in the darkness of the forest were some of the most powerful that he had ever come across, and it excited him.
He swirls aggressively in the water of low-tide before Crevan’s hooves, churning wildly in the day-warmed saltwater. The feeling is delectable, and the ocean water nearly hums with the life that Maugrim gives it. It hisses and spits in response to the stallion’s suggestions, splashing Crevan’s legs idly, already imagining wrapping himself up into the one called Wound and restricting her to nothing but a body with blood and bones and muscles, no longer able to make decisions for herself but to bend to his will much like the water so easily does.
Crevan’s suggestions do not need an answer, because the target has already so easily presented itself to them. The water before the stallion now calms, allowing himself to become still and silent beneath the soft ripple that naturally occurs from the night’s wind. He is hidden, and hopefully forgotten beneath the murky shallows of briny water.
Please, it is safe to cross.
Wrong.
So terribly wrong.
He comes to her, like a crocodile pedaling towards its prey - unseen, save for the gentle ripple of water from his purposeful movement against the otherwise normal current. Barely noticeable, especially in the light of dusk, and especially unnoticeable to one who is fully encompassed with another stranger on the shore. He hopes that Crevan keeps her attention (possibly luring her into the water even further so that taking her would be all the more invigorating) so that her eyes would not fall to the unnatural current that presses hard towards her, intention and foreboding stirring beneath its starlit depths.
The water that she stands before suddenly brims with life, rippling and billowing like the powerful waves that crash on the blackened shoreline. It pulls angrily and rapidly at her legs, licking with cold and powerful tongues of saltwater that come from seemingly nowhere, intent on dragging her into the shallows.
Not safe.
It is then that he rises, a wavering equine-form of frothing saltwater, transparent beneath the now-moon washed landscape. Slowly he becomes solid, the splashed pearl and emerald of his coat emerging as he allows the water to drip from him, focusing all of his power into keeping her right where he wanted her. He is not completely harnessing her just yet, for he revels in the realization of the imminent capture. Dark, bottomless eyes stare into the soft coffee-brown of her own, wanting to taste the fear that would be hiding in their irises.
Perhaps she would try to run; he is sure Crevan would find that most delightful. Maugrim was rather curious to see what the wolf-man could do.
m a u g r i m.
@[wound] @[Crevan]
Let me know if anything needs changing! <3
t should occur to her that there is no escort for the stallion to cross.
It should occur to her that no recruit would try to cross in the darkness.
It should occur to her that Sylva could come to Tephra, even when there has been such silence over the past month.
None of it occurs to her though, and so (though her thoughts were filled with tension only moments before) she invites the devil — devils — into her very own, warm bed. Perhaps it is the characteristics of trust Wound has built up. Her brothers always frowned upon this very incident — speaking to strangers, inviting them home — and, after hearing it for so long as a child, the possibilities of such a thing ever happening had quietly slipped from her mind.
Coffee-brown eyes squint into the growing darkness, ignorance blinding her from the shifting of the currents just before her feet. Wound wonders if he will cross or if her words had been swept away by the whispering of the waves and the hush of the evening breeze. Her mind is distracted from these thoughts when the tide before her suddenly writhes and spits. Before there had been simple, soothing summer waves but now the ocean is powerful and angry as if a storm were destroying the volcanic island. They remind Wound of Nerine’s powerful northern ocean, rising to fall roughly against the granite cliffs and gray beachfront.
Their strength is dragging as well, seawater pulling at her heels as if trying to whisk her out to sea. She’s experienced this sensation before, swimming in Tephra’s sea, when a riptide had nearly drowned her. She’d managed to push herself out of it, but these waves feel fiercer, more dangerous, than those before. Wound scrambles backward, heart springing into her throat as she backpedals, and suddenly the twilight glow is shadowed by a form.
A water-horse form, in fact, seawater dripping from tangled locks and dark eyes so intense Wound wonders if they will drag her into the sea with their sheer force. Fear grips her — and this fear is more real and suffocating than the fear of her anxiety — and a deliriously-desperate cry leaves her mouth. There’s no denying what this is now — there is no recruit waiting on the border, but rather a simple yet perfectly planned piece of a plan.
The salt-soaked waves still pull at her legs, but Wound manages to drag herself free long enough to clamber away and onto the shoreline. Everything feels slower now, in her desperation to escape, and the sand sticks to her soaked legs as she begins to turn and run. There’s no call for Warrick on her tongue, knowing he had left earlier in the day to meet in Ischia, and it brings about the emotions of dread and hopelessness even stronger.
All she can do is turn and hurriedly race away, struggling up the beach and hopefully into the foliage, if she will even make it that far.
Precarious banter, harmless at best, suddenly becomes the inspiration both had been searching for. “Welcome, stranger!” a voice intercedes, causing Crevan’s unassuming head to rise and his eyes to narrow. A simple adjustment to his vision gives him aid: it’s a mare, dark in body but rimmed with the glow of an unusually pale mane. From across the channel she beckons, “Please,...” and with the sound of her voice so goes the tide. The shifter waits a hairsbreadth more, just to be certain, and then his gaze is taking in that unusual and so very unmistakeable right leg of hers.
Without further delay he wades, knee-deep, into the warm ocean froth. The current is forgiving (most likely due to his talented new friend,) and in the mere span of a few strokes he begins to close the distance. Around him, Crevan could feel the tug and crash of Maugrim’s power as he watched, wide-eyed and fascinated, to see the creature take shape from the depths he commanded.
Wound had every right to be afraid. There was something even respectable in the flash of her terrified eyes as she cried out uselessly for help, but all the same it wouldn’t - couldn’t - stop them. Scrabbling to shift and drag himself up on land, Crevan watches her intently. A thrill of excitement surges through his now-changed body when she breaks free (such fight!) and with a renewed burst of energy he rockets after the hopeful escapee.
From behind her, the wolf laughs. He gives her a few strides of last effort, more so that she’ll wear herself out in the process, before the game’s inevitable win isn’t fun to draw out anymore. His forelegs stretch long and his hind legs dig deeper into the sandy loam, and then the two are running tandem while Crevan effectively cuts off her ascent to the waiting forest. (I’d find you there too, he thinks.)
He lunges, dives like a mad dog for her legs, and with his unusual girth it’s not an easy thing to avoid. The crack of his jaws closing together is a brittle Snap!Snap! that comes whenever the crippled Tephran tries to stray away from the surging waves. He’ll run her ragged if he’s got to, but with every wrong step she makes they move closer towards Sylvia’s Finisher.
His intentions grow increasingly more aggressive. The wolf stops aiming for air and beings to assault her rightly, with tooth and brute force. If her strength hadn’t begun to wane before, she would bleed it out now and for the better - at this point he’d have given the mercy killing, had she been his next meal. It’s not until he hears a possible hitch in her throat, (exhaustion?) or feels the shuddering stumble of her uneven hooves, (defeat?) that he grows relentless in his attack and all the more savage.
Best to end this quickly, quietly, while they still had the chance.
A frightened sound falls from her lips and Maugrim’s eyes shine with anticipation. A smile - however dim and barely there - begins to twitch onto the dryness of his pearlescent lips, as the moment of realization washes over her. It truly is his favorite part. The shallow water of low tide continues to sickeningly pull at her legs - loose enough to allow her freedom, but persistent in the way it continues to suck at her skin, as if attempting to coax her into submission. She frees herself clumsily and frightenedly, but Maugrim does not move. A mere smile is fastened onto his dastardly face, the water spitting and hissing frantically as the escapee heads for the mainland.
The wolf is beside him, the laughter that spills from his open jaws sending one of Maugrim’s ears tipping towards him. The smile widens on his lips as the behemoth form leaps from his side, his dark eyes watching the classic scene of cat and mouse as it unfolds before him. It is riveting. The sweet tinge of blood begins to intermingle with the smell of sweat and fear, and suddenly Maugrim is not keen on being patient any longer.
The moment that Crevan’s growls and assaults bring the mare towards the water again, he surges it forward. Like a flood it finds her with cold, gripping hands to cause her to trip or fall, ready to catch her with a welcoming splash; to tighten around her flailing legs and slow her quickening heart with a tightening grasp to her throat, to calm and quell her until she is where she needs to be. There is no smile on the stallion’s face now. Only a serious expression of concentration and need, the sight of red in his waters bringing him to the point of no return.
