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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    let the dream pull you below; Vulgaris
    #1

     Even in Autumn the river water was warm, deep, and somehow dark. Leaves spread across the brackish and muddy surface, their golden and yellow coloration spattered with brown and for a few moments in the glimmer of the sun they looked like fire.

    Each hoof stirs the silt and soil of its bed, and the mud clouds it in such a way that peering into the depths gets you little more than shadows and foggy bits of an irritated bottom. The sounds from the land stretch across the vast reaches and the hoofbeats rattle the water in a way that almost sound of drums well below and throughout. 

    At first his steps are loud, and then silent, and then absent.

    She finds this intriguing, and she listens again to hear them picking back up: to hear the closeness and drift, and the way he lingers near the edge. Bubbles float to the surface and ripple across it, a jet stream that has left her mouth.

    Yidhra, however, remains well beneath the surface in the murky depths and wades herself closer and closer as she listens to these familiar and yet stranger, steps.

    Peering up she can see his shadow on the water’s surface and she waits until he paces or walks closer, her body remaining and a single fleshy appendage reaches out from her shoulder. Elongated and blackened the barbed talons are retracted and the suckers pulled in on themselves: the Kraken’s tentacle lifting from the water and rising gently beyond the bank.

    She reaches out, tentative at first, and the paddle-ended appendage finally makes its move… grasping or seeing to grasp his leg: to tug gently as he head lifts from the water. 

    Yidhra



    @[vulgaris] here we go...
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    #2
    VulgariS
    take me, take me back to your bed. i love you so much that it hurts my head.
    say, i don't mind you under my skin. oh, let the bad parts in, the bad parts in.
    Comfort breeds weakness, his father used to tell him. Being around Leliana had soothed the hunger and the insatiable need for violence in him. Without even realizing it, he had let her trim his claws. He pauses to rest a moment as he makes his way toward Tephra, eyeing the shell-shocked eyes of those who have yet to find shelter from the plague. They are all fretful and timid in their movements while he remains self-assured, as always. Vulgaris is content knowing that he is an apex predator, even in these times. There is nothing to hunt him.

    When he lowers his head to drink, he doesn’t concern himself with the idea of anything lurking beneath the water’s surface. He simply watches the strangers mumbling to one another on the other side of the river. If the water was only a little quieter, he could make out what they were saying. He lifts his head slowly, water dribbling from his chin to be swept away in the gentle current.

    But then something caresses his leg and his instincts are reignited once more. His jaws open wide and snap shut, all the little constrictor teeth sinking into something tough and rubbery. Vulgaris releases the odd appendage and yanks his leg from the water’s edge, moving backward as an airy hiss spits from his lungs. A single drop of venom drips from a fang, too late to be injected into his assumed assailant.

    If only the water didn’t hide her warmth, he could simply reach down and clench the creature in his awful jaws. Would it have bones to crunch between his teeth? Would it squeal like a stuck pig or would it screech like a little pheasant? He watches, waits with eager eyes trained on the river’s surface as the hunger comes bubbling back to life. How awful, how delicious to feel the hunt flowing through his veins again.
    @[Yidhra]
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    #3

    Pain roars through her nerves and floods each synapse with agony: fangs penetrating and digging deep into the porous and fleshy appendage, and the paddle-shaped edge is swiftly withdrawn and snapped back beneath the surface. Rippling and wild, bubbles form and where there had been one before: a second rises and the pair of them are waved and sudden as they crash upon the river’s bank. 

    The tendrils along her neck surface after that, the ears and writhing mass giving horrible shape to the reality of the Kraken and her physiology, and Vulgaris can soon see the same tendrils covering the end of her face: the whole of them stretching and exposing the dark chitinous beak that clatters and clicks as she hisses. More a slither than a graceful step, she climbs the back and the tail… the dark mass of further tentacles: seems to cling and stretch: grasp leg and ground as she stands amidst the detritus and soil.

    “Quick to bite,” she purrs, holding up the tendril he’d snapped at: the blue blood dripping from the wounds and her dark gray and black form is spattered with blue and white. Yidhra’s honeyed voice shrill, but, growing husky and deep as she purrs and stares at the other. “Not a sea serpent, land- ah, yess.” she hisses, in playful mockery or sincerity it is hard to say but her voice is strange and the accent in her words is ancient and strange: something out of time and from the reaches of the deep.

    Settling and studying, Yidhra watches him with her maw slowly folding into a vaguely equine shape: her teal eyes and their barbell shaped pupils wide. The Abyssal smiles, drawns the faux-lips and folds those tendrils on her shoulders well in front of her chest. At full height and elegant posture, she lingers and waits: tries to gauge if he might snap again; but she speaks in the interim and there is something decidedly warm in her words.

    “I had hoped to get your attention, but, not with this result: my fault for assuming you were less nippy I suppose. I am Yidhra, you seemed… interesting: particularly with the way the sun reflects on those very pretty scales.” to the point she tilts a tendril and gestures to the reflective light on his skin.

    Yidhra



    @[vulgaris]
    Reply
    #4
    VulgariS
    take me, take me back to your bed. i love you so much that it hurts my head.
    say, i don't mind you under my skin. oh, let the bad parts in, the bad parts in.
    He steps slowly back from the water’s edge with his head still lowered, watching the water as the tentacles make their ascent. When her full head finally emerges, he licks the blood from his teeth and tries to decide if it’s worth pursuing a hunt. But the texture of her meat displeases him and so he supposes that he would not enjoy trying to devour her. At least not today. But then she issues a hiss at him and he opens his jaws wide to reveal all the glimmering teeth lining his mouth as he replies with one of his own, slow and guttural.

    His lips slowly meet once more when she speaks and he tilts his head warily at the observation. He’s never been a fan of the seas and so her words confuse him, coupled with the accent laced over them. Distrust blooms like a night flower within him but he remains in place. Vulgaris is the apex, the king of the hunt and all who would try to consume him. He lifts his gray head and the scars lining his face shine pink and pale in the sun light.

    Yidhra. Your blood is overly salty and it disgusts me,” he explains rather than offering up his own name, as though he’s insulted that she isn’t exotic and delicious. “My name is Vulgaris. I don’t take kindly to surprises.

    His sage colored eyes observe the writhing tentacles trying to masquerade as something still equine, squirming and squelching. Would it at least be satisfying to pluck the appendages from her and see what lies beneath that pulsing mass? No, he needs to focus more on selecting smaller game so Adna can begin to learn how to hunt for herself. Such strange prey as Yidhra is simply a distraction to that task, although she’s entertaining at least.

    Do you normally touch people before or after introductions?” he asks as he shifts his weight.
    @[Yidhra]
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    #5

    “Salted is the blood, I could the say the same for land dwellers.” she shrugs at the commentary about her blood: her posture maintained and presence on display as she seems unafraid of the fangs and their venom- of the sharpness and danger. “Vulgaris,” she mimics: sounding it out and allowing the word and name to hang for a moment before pointed down the fleshy tendrils of her mouth into an almost triangular shape and mass.

    The black chitinous beak is hidden but the infernal clicking exists when she speaks: even in her husky voice and its smoke, with the accent so ancient and old that time has work it into little more than a thing of dreams and nightmares. She considers with her teal eyes, his shape,  and the barbell-like irises become blackened paper-thin slits while the orange flecks glisten and glimmer.

    Porous and flesh, her watery skin gleans and stretches herself on the land as form of orientation and direction: the til and its writhing mass grabbing and curling freely- folding in on itself as she lays the unbitten tendril on her shoulder atop the paddle-shaped top of the other and rubs where the wound is still stinging and fresh. Like hands, wringing and grasping onto one another.

    “Where you might sniff, feel the heat…” she recalls sea serpents- the kraits whose thermal vision and smell often brought them to fish. “Perhaps hunt in other manners, I lack certain abilities without use of centuries old methods. My tendrils are how I… smell, taste- how I recognize something for what it is beyond eyesight: which is deceptive when dealing with prey on land. That poke was to confirm my thoughts: you are not prey so much as a type of predator.”

    Shrugging, she continues. “Efficient on land, but likely not at sea: differents ground for us.” had she the ability she might’ve laughed but instead her beak clatters beneath the tendrils and clicks in what represents the attempt at it.

    A flicker of silver in the water does, however, catch her attention and with lightning quick reflexes she shoots one of the tendrils into the river and brings out a fish. Pale green and silver, scaley and flopping wildly she curls around it and blood drips from where the barbs near her suction cups dig into it.

    Holding it out she eases it towards Vulgaris: the bloated belly evident. “Roe inside, salty; but sweet, a treat in a way. It seems there are more and more monsters in this place- something admirable and intriguing.”

    Yidhra



    @[vulgaris]
    Reply
    #6
    VulgariS
    take me, take me back to your bed. i love you so much that it hurts my head.
    say, i don't mind you under my skin. oh, let the bad parts in, the bad parts in.
    He has deducted that she is not food except perhaps in the most dire of circumstances, both for the taste and the texture of her meat. His head tilts when she speaks his name, the sound of it strange on her tongue as she attempts to mimic the sound. Her voice is the foreign depths of trenches long forgotten by time while his is all campfire and warmth, a false promise that he is tamed and domesticated. Each of them might inspire wonder in someone trusting enough to believe creatures like them could be benevolent in any fashion. Each of them is a hunter, in the end.

    She explains why she poked and prodded at him but he doesn’t seem forgiving, judging by the stern look of his eyes and the curl of his lip. The thought of him ever becoming prey is revolting to him, a slap in the face of his abilities and strengths. After all, hadn’t she been bitten because of her methods? Vulgaris had been courteous enough to deliver only a dry bite.

    You could have just asked, saved us both the trouble,” he says as he spits the last taste of her blood from his mouth. But then she spears her tentacle into the river and retrieves a frightened, flopping fish from the icy waters. It dies in a far more dramatic fashion than the creatures he hunts. No, his prey all scramble upon first impact, but their kicks and cries quickly weaken when they surrender. The venom stills their heart quickly enough that there is hardly any fight to most of them. The nerves in the fish, however, fidget and fight even when it is gone.

    His wrinkles his nose at the smell of it and takes a step back. Vulgaris has no appetite for sweetness, only the copper tang of mammal blood and, occasionally, the soft flesh of pheasants or turkey. The fish smells no different than pond scum to him and so he turns his attention back to Yidhra herself.

    You think monsters are admirable?” he asks with another tilt of his head, eyes narrowed in suspicion as he speaks the words. Perhaps something as beautiful as his daughters could be considered as such, but things like Shiya or himself were worthy of no praise. They deserved no sort of kindness as being called anything other than what they truly were. But he falls silent now, quiet compared to her as she vocalizes her thoughts as though they are each a new discovery for her.
    @[Yidhra]
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    #7

    “Not in my nature,” she quips almost immediately, though there is a pause and Yidhra finds herself bring the tendril to her own face. She tugs and arranges the others: rubs in the mass and scratches her own break in an idle fashion. “Besides, as I said- I do smell through them, and I cannot do so unless I touch something.” matter of fact and pointed, she reaches out and grasps a leaf: rolling it between the barbs and suction cups. 

    “Earthy, wet, but cold- almost metallic. There is a sweetness, but, it is subtle and overwhelmed by the dirt staining it.” dropping the items she crosses both tentacles over her chest and blinks: studying and waiting- noting the nature of his body and his make.

    Though, she nods at his question, impassive to his reaction of the fish: reaching for it, she does retrieve the corpse, curling her tentacle around it and minding it close to herself.

    “My belief when it comes to the monsters is that anyone can become one; but a monster truthfully is above all an admirable thing. It takes a particular person to stare into the abyss unblinking and plunge into it: to succumb to the darkness, all for greater purpose.” she sighs, but considers the realities of the world: contemplates the bitterness and soured taste it leaves in her mouth.

    Continuing on she is slower now in her speech, tired or just weary. “Consider this plague, it was brought upon by our own actions. We raised Pangea to the surface, we allowed blood to flow on its soil, and we all suffer as a result of events that could have been ceased; but no: here we are. It won’t be the brave and bold, the naive and tender hearts that save us… monsters will save us. You, and I- others like us. We will what is necessary and what must be done. In the end they will congratulate others; but it is our doing.”

    Looking sidelong, she mulls over her thoughts.

    “I will not ask for thanks, not when my work is done. Regardless, yes, I do. I also believe that we have started off badly, I do apologize.”

    Yidhra



    @[vulgaris]
    Reply
    #8
    VulgariS
    take me, take me back to your bed. i love you so much that it hurts my head.
    say, i don't mind you under my skin. oh, let the bad parts in, the bad parts in.
    Sometimes he tries to remember what he was like before the curse found a home in him. Was he kind? Was he genuine when he smiled, back then? Or has he always been a monster, since his formation in the womb? His parents certainly greeted his birth as the Arctic Circle greets the sun after months of night, with light and hope and joy. He was the embodiment of their love for one another, back then. He had surrendered to the night only because he had no other options with this body. It craved blood in order to survive and so he fed on the weak, the young and old alike. Such is the nature of a monster.

    He can only shake his head when Yidhra says that creatures such as they will be the ones to pluck Beqanna from its tribulations. No, not him. There is no duty, no sense of obligation within him to cleanse the sickness from the heart and so he will not rise to the call. But Leliana, the bright burning star around which every piece of him orbits, she is the tender heart who flourishes in the face of the challenge. Vulgaris believes it will be the people like her who tear their bleeding hearts open to find the cure, the salvation of their people.

    If it were up to monsters like me, then we would all be doomed,” he says with a dry laugh as he watches her tentacles fold across her chest so strangely. “My wife is the one who will save us all.

    His voice goes soft around the mention of her, relaxes against the memory of her kind face. This makes it easier for him to shrug when she says they’ve gotten off to a bad start. Vulgaris shifts his weight and looks back at the waters from which she rose up. If he was a wildfire, then Leliana was a cleansing rain sent to calm him down to weakened embers. Her love is peaceful as a winter morning after a long blizzard, perfectly quiet with untouched miles of snow, pristine. And yet she is the warmth of a hearth to keep him content in the longest nights.

    It’s alright. I suppose I’m on edge whenever I’m away from my home.

    He smiles faintly now, a sign that all is well in the world with them now. Or, at least as well as it can be, given the plague and death surrounding them.
    @[Yidhra]
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    #9

    Home is a sentiment she knows well of, the pull of safety and of comfort: the knows that family or others linger and wait. She cannot disdain him this fact, not begrudge his behavior when truthfully: this is a simple matter of comfort violated and the awkward space between. She sighs, in a way that rattles, and Yidhra nods her head affirmatively. 

    “No one is comfortable now, all the world has been shaken by the rise of this plague and the forming of the world around us.” she is calm, serene and impossibly relaxed: a creature of lacking fear and intrigue.

    Still, she considers his address about his wife: about the monsters they are, and where he lacks duty- she herself feels noblesse-obligations. Her ears flick and she notes the sound of the water and all the river, of the leaves and spring branches: her teal eyes more evident as the barbell irises become simple lines and slits. 

    “Then best of luck to your wife and many like, after all, it is a brutal shame how this all began and how, now, it continues. Admittedly my… tentacles have been tied: you see, Pangea is currently in a state of unfortunate establishment. Any who enter are infected immediately, and I have seen the sickened beating heart of it: enough to have known that to purge the land one must purge the heart.” she shrugs.

    Sighing in a frustrated manner, but now allowing such a thing to affect her tone. “I have been trying to secure the borders, to prevent any from coming lest they are sick already and wish to join me on my hunt for a cure; but it seems in the wake of Carnage’s appearance and all this chaos that I have seen those rising who would seek to destroy all of us. Spread the illness and rot the bodies while the victims yet live… again it is an effort but, if your wife is prepared for such a daunting task than by all means- do inform her that Pangea is its source, and that the plague will continue until the heart is cleansed.”

    Knowledge is her weapon, and the pedagogue-kraken grumbles at the thought of the Cult: at the chaos and impulsivity of them. “You should relax, however, the world is slowly coming back to center. To be in a state of lashing out so easily is dreadful.”

    Yidhra



    @[vulgaris]
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