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    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


    lighting matches just to swallow up the flame like me, Ophanim
    #1
    The meadow was a dangerous place to be, but she goes anyway. Everyone is scrambling for a safe place, gathering their loved ones and seeking a sanctuary away from the disease-ridden lands, but not Starsin. Too used to being alone, she had found it hard to take up Ophanim’s promise of protection every night. As nice as it was to have a warm body to curl next to, and even though he had given her no reason to not trust him (hadn’t even thought anything, truthfully), the young filly struggled to maintain a normal connection. There were times she went days without seeing him — following the same pattern she had learned from her careless mother — and the onset of the outbreak had been during one of those spells. With the land in utter chaos, she had disappeared into the forests, leaving behind the sick and destruction, and deciding that she would seek him out when things had settled. 

    The snow that lays nestled across the gentle knolls is largely untouched, only a few hoof prints criss-crossing over it. Most were not risking the chance of falling ill, but Starsin was stubborn, and maybe still suffering from the youthful notion of thinking she was invincible. 

    Almost a year old, she is no longer the small, night-black filly she had been. Her legs were longer, her body leaner, and her black coat had already paled to a steel gray. Curious dapples laid across the side of her body — the light spots matching the stars in the night sky and their constellations. Her cobalt eyes scanned the mostly barren landscape, and she is surprised to find her target so soon. To her, he is easy to spot; he is the only thing in this world she can consider familiar. 

    ”Ophanim,” she calls, her honey-sweet voice hanging in the cold winter air between them, suspended by imaginary strings. She is at his side in a matter of strides, her dainty muzzle brushing against his shoulder and sliding back to where his wings merge with his back. ”I didn’t know where to find you.” Of course, it was her fault for disappearing, as she always did, but she wouldn’t say that. ”Why are you in the meadow? I assumed your family would have moved to one of the new lands.” She is nonchalant in the way that she says it, but she regards him carefully with her dark blue eyes, mildly curious as to whether or not he had had even an inkling of concern for her whereabouts. And she has a pretty surefire way of knowing what he was thinking.

    @[Ophanim]

    1) my html is showing messed up on my phone, even in previous posts 
    2) I pretended that Starsin stayed the night with Ophie a lot but also has a habit of just randomly leaving. Cause that’s exactly what she’s would do.
    Reply
    #2
    In my dark times, I'll be going back to these streets, promising everything I do not mean. In my dark times, baby, this is all I could be
    He had begun to fly more often, safe in the skies above the ill and the dying. He thought that he might be able to spot Starsin from up there but she eluded him each day as the plague continued to spread. Today he has decided to rest his wings, to brave the cancerous meadows long enough to graze and maybe seek out his companion from a different angle. His mother had left for safer territories after she kissed his forehead goodbye. Jenova knew he wouldn’t leave so easily, not when he had someone to search for in all this mess. It had been so hard to see her cry for the first time since he was born.

    He turns his red and white head when she calls his name, the sound of her voice lighting up his face as he smiles in her direction. Ophanim hurries to meet her, curling his neck over hers eagerly in an embrace while her lips search the slopes of his shoulders. They’re no longer the bony newborns they had been, especially with Ophanim growing more muscular and strong by the day. His wings have lost their newborn fuzz and turned to sleek feathers with more pronounced eyes all across their undersides. His smile is warm and charming without even meaning to be.

    He shakes his head no when she speaks and lets out a bit of a nervous laugh. To tell her the truth would mean exposing all those delicate emotions he kept hidden away but he can’t think of a lie at the moment. “No, my mom left for some other place but I stayed because uh…” he hesitates, fumbles with different thoughts before meeting her gaze with his. “You know, I wanted to be on my own.

    Starsin has hardly any need to peek into his mind when he gets nervous like this, honestly. He’s a terrible liar and the truth is spelled out across his face for her to see. It’s in the way his eyes find hers, the corners of his lips remaining curled into a soft grin just being here with her. If she pressed to him tight enough, she’d feel the way his heartbeat picks up whenever she’s close to him. But he tries his best not to speak on these things.

    I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner,” he says, sweeping the subject off the table. Ophie presses his lips to her cheek and relaxes in the warmth of her skin before moving to stand beside her. His wing stretches out and over her, sharing his body heat and serving to shield her from the snowflakes still drifting from the clouds overhead.
    ophanim
    @[Starsin]
    Reply
    #3
    lighting matches just to swallow up the flame like me, do you call yourself a fucking hurricane like me?

    She is pleased to see the smile that lights across his face, and the feel of his neck entwining with her own is enough to lay her suspicions to rest, for now. Starsin, for all her bold remarks and somewhat brash personality, actually suffered from decidedly low self-esteem. Even if she is strikingly beautiful, with her slate-gray skin and silver-white dapples in their enchanting pattern, she is not blind to Ophanim’s own handsome face, and his far more charming ways. She doesn’t think it would take much to be lured away from her; a pretty face and a softer personality, someone that could cradle that gentle soul of his and not disappear so frequently.

    But she is fierce in keeping what she believes to be hers, and there is something greedy in the way she presses so close to him and lets her lips caress the groove between his cheek and his throat. He is hers, since the day they had met, and Starsin never had been very good at sharing. ”On your own, hmm?” Her purr of a voice echoes his, silently calling him out on his white lie. Her silver lips are still curved into a smile, her dark blue eyes meeting his with a tilt of her refined head as she adds nonchalantly, ”And to rescue me, of course.”

    She was about as far from a damsel in distress as you could get, but she could play the part.

    More than happy to settle in beneath the weight of his wing, she curls against him, ducking her head beneath his own after receiving his sweet kiss. ”I can be difficult to find,” she says in a forgiving tone, nuzzling easily against his chest. ”Should we go somewhere too?” she is only half-concerned over being in the exposed meadow. Not for herself, because she is shocked she has been alive for this long, practically an orphan since the day she was born. She had reasoned with the death a long time ago, and didn’t fear it. But Ophanim, even if she doesn’t want to admit it, is someone that she cannot risk losing.



    @[Ophanim]
    Reply
    #4
    In my dark times, I'll be going back to these streets, promising everything I do not mean. In my dark times, baby, this is all I could be
    His heart is warm like summer rains, tender and velvet in her palms, but for others he keeps it high up on the shelf where no one can even see it. He keeps it encased in glass without a price tag so they all know that it is priceless and unattainable to the laity. No, only his broad shoulders and confident smile are within reach, only this body. But for Starsin, he lets her run her fingers through him and delights in how perfectly she plucks at his strings. Even if he is only some instrument to combat her loneliness, this is enough for him.

    His bright eyes cast a sideways glance at her when she echoes his statement. A soft, caught with his hand in the cookie jar sort of laugh fills him but he says nothing to add to her victory over him. Ophanim nods a bit when she tacks on the words she wants to hear him say and perhaps he should forfeit this much for her. He leans his head to mumble against her ear, warm breath spilling over delicate skin, “I’ll always come to your rescue.” But the idea of her finding her way into danger is something he can’t quite imagine. She’s smarter than him and he knows it, knows to concede that she is better than him in that sense. He, on the other hand, gravitates toward danger as though the chaos of it might complete him.

    And that is why he is the Icarus who flies so close to her sun. Lets the fire of her love melt him.

    His eyes close like a roosting bird when she settles against his chest and he tries to keep his breathing steady now that he knows she can hear it. Meanwhile, his heart thumps nervously against his ribs to have her like this. Should they go somewhere? Perhaps, but his plan to rescue her had only ever gotten this far in his mind, and whatever came after was simply irrelevant. Ophanim rests his chin against her temple as he tosses ideas back and forth in his mind.

    We can go where ever you want. Somewhere south, where it’s warmer, or far up north with the ice and quiet. Doesn’t make a difference to me as long as we’re together,” he says softly. But he knows she’ll come and go no matter where they decide to settle. Someone as celestial, as divine as his revenant lover could never be tied solely to him and he knows this. This realization of her supernal love used to catch in his throat and choke him but he has acquired an appetite for the agony.
    ophanim
    @[Starsin]
    Reply
    #5
    lighting matches just to swallow up the flame like me, do you call yourself a fucking hurricane like me?

    When she’s not careful — when she lets her guard down — he softens her in a way no one else can. With the weight of his body against hers, his breath tickling the sensitive skin by her ear and his lips occasionally brushing against her, she almost forgets to pretend to not care. For a moment, her dark blue eyes drift close, his warm thoughts rippling through her mind like a lullaby. Here, in the embrace of her safe haven, she is quieted, so much so that she loses grip on her frigid facade. ”I know you will, my angel boy,” She says in a voice that is hardly above a whisper, mainly uttered against his roaned coat. A voice that is for once sincere, without the cool undertones.

    Her eyes snap open when she realizes how transparent she had sounded, and even though her fluid muscles tense as a response, she doesn’t pull away from him.

    She has accepted that he is far too good for her. Someday, he will grow tired of her foolish games, and she knows she will be left alone. His thoughts of her are genuine and sweet for now, but she knows she hurts him every time she disappears, and yet for some reason, she cannot bring herself to stay. The idea of him seeing every part of her, every day, and perhaps still discarding her for someone kinder and prettier is something she would not be able to endure. She had learned to steel herself to the sight of her mother walking away countless times — the one she should have been able to rely on, the one living creature she actually needed at that point in her life to keep her alive — but she doesn’t know if she could lose Ophanim with the same sort of flippant disregard.

    She has been focused on toying with his beautiful feathers, gently of course, in an attempt to brush off how completely nice and sweet she had sounded moments earlier, not daring to look him in the eye. He mentions warm places, and ice, but once again he makes guilt spread from the corners of her heart as he leaves the decision up to her; always her. ”We can try them all and then pick our favorite. Or just take over every island and kick everyone else out and keep them all to ourselves. Just you and me.” From anyone else the sentiment would have sounded sweet and teasing, especially following how genuine she had been earlier. But beneath her lyrical tones lays something possessive, a desperation to keep her angel boy all to herself, and she lips playfully below his jaw in effort to soften her too truthful words.




    @[Ophanim]

    @[The Plague] can we roll for these two please :|
    Reply
    #6
    @[Starsin] is safe from the plague. For now. (rolled a 4)

    @[Ophanim] is also safe from the plague. For now. (rolled a 2)
    Reply
    #7
    In my dark times, I'll be going back to these streets, promising everything I do not mean. In my dark times, baby, this is all I could be
    The sincerity in her voice feels like electricity along his skin, makes him smile to himself. Did she really care so much for him? He doesn’t dare speak the question but it ripples throughout his thoughts all the same. Her rejection, he knows, would cripple his ego. But the words go unspoken so he can tell himself that she feels for him all that he feels for her, that his affections are requited. Ophanim peeks down at her when she suddenly tenses and he worries for a moment that this may be some symptom of the plague.

    Are you okay?” he asks, brushing his lips against her briefly as though he could ever sense some ailment that way. Or maybe it was simply an excuse to kiss her once again. (If she caught an illness then he wanted it too, wanted to suffer alongside her so she wouldn’t be alone even in that while he was around.) But then she’s already moving on to the next topic, always above the fears of simple boys like him. He supposes that’s part of why he likes her so much. She disregards her own regality enough to give him the time of day.

    Just you and me?” And the questions lights up his face as he smiles wider now, enough that it wrinkles the corners of his eyes a bit. He doesn’t catch that possessiveness lurking just beneath the sweet syllables he loves to hear. And even if he did, he might still dive headfirst into her promises and let her drown him. If any hands found their way around his throat, he would want them to be hers and hers alone. She could ruin him and he would say thank you. He would say please.

    He kisses along her neck and sighs pleasantly as he imagines a life on some remote island, just him and Starsin to watch the sunsets together. In his paradise, she never leaves and he never has to look for her or wonder. She would stay just as he did now for her. Maybe someday, he tells himself as he brushes her forelock from her face so carefully.

    I’m happy anywhere that you are. I’m happy just thinking of you,” he admits with a soft laugh that sounds like something out of a dream. How blessed he is to have met someone as beautiful and kind as her, he thinks to himself.
    ophanim
    @[Starsin]
    Reply
    #8
    lighting matches just to swallow up the flame like me, do you call yourself a fucking hurricane like me?

    Do you really care that much? His thought echoes in her mind, and she almost answers. She wants to tell him that of course she cares about him; more than she cares about anything or anyone. He is all she has in this empty, unfair world. He is her only source of happiness, when she dares to allow herself to have it. Her reply is there, formulating in her head, until she can taste it on her tongue, and yet she retracts it before uttering a sound.

    She is grateful, then,  that he doesn’t have the ability to read her mind, the way she can his.

    It makes it easy to push those feelings aside, to shove them to a far corner of her heart until they would begin to collect dust. It would only complicate things, if he knew the extent of how she felt. Of how she compares everyone she meets to him — no one is as handsome as him, no one is as charming as him, and no one is worth her time quite the way he is. Even though she leaves, and likely will always leave, he is the only one she will ever return to.

    ”I’m fine,” is her quiet reply, shifting her blue eyes away from his in an attempt to seem nonchalant. Of course he had noticed the way she tensed up. He noticed everything. Starsin often relied on her gift to gauge how others were feeling; she didn’t always understand how to read their subtle body language and silent words, but she was getting better at it. All it was really doing, however, was lending her the tools she needed to hide herself from the rest of the world.

    Her slate gray skin trembles involuntarily at his tender touches against her neck, the tension in her muscles slowly releasing and becoming soft beneath his lips. She doesn’t know why she can’t always steel herself against him, but she has found that sometimes, it is futile to even try. His last words make her tilt her head up at him, regarding him carefully from behind a thick veil of forelock. ”How can you possibly be happy with me when I always leave?” There is a clip to her words, though they are not entirely cold, and her jaw tightens momentarily as she turns her face away from him, not allowing him to see the guilt and confusion that fills her eyes. Her mother had always left and she hated her for it. She doesn’t understand why he is not the same, and if it weren’t for the fact that she could read his every thought she would think he was a liar.




    @[Ophanim]
    Reply
    #9
    In my dark times, I'll be going back to these streets, promising everything I do not mean. In my dark times, baby, this is all I could be
    His trust has never been betrayed before, which makes it easy to gamble away every bit of his happiness right into her palms. He’d pluck the stars from the sky and nose dive into smoldering lava if she promised everything would be perfectly fine after. This is why he believes her and begins to relax a little more when she assures him that she’s fine. Ophanim is greedy for her soft words but he’s content to have been given a pet name for now. He’ll hold the name tight to his chest when he sleeps tonight, thanking whatever powers may be for giving him someone to love like her.

    But her question temporarily plucks him from this hazy dream of things to come, makes him tilt his head curiously. He doesn’t entirely see into the question as a clue to her insecurities but rather that she might find him stupid. His expression visibly wilts a bit but he remains pressed close to her side all the same. Ophanim would need much worse things to pry him from her skin.

    Because I know you’ll come back. Even if you were gone a hundred years, all I have to do is keep waiting for you,” he says with a light shrug of his young shoulders. He traces his lips along her neck since he can’t yet kiss her face again. She is the altar at which he prays, the perfect star that guides him where he wants to be. A hundred years could pass like the blink of an eye if he had her to dream of the entire time.

    And even when you’re gone, I think of all the things you say and how happy they make me. How happy you make me.

    He leans over to lightly kiss the corner of her jaw. Angel boy, he’s lost the fear of exposing all those intricate little emotions that hold him together. They’ve grown too great to hide any longer and now they come bubbling out as soft words and warm promises.
    ophanim
    @[Starsin]
    Reply
    #10
    lighting matches just to swallow up the flame like me, do you call yourself a fucking hurricane like me?

    His lips slide along her skin, and she closes her eyes as a shiver races the arch of her neck and down the ridge of her spine. She wonders if he can feel the way her body reacts, without thought,  every time he touches her. She craves it, even if she won’t admit it. She craves everything he has to offer, from his soft words to his gentle touches, his companionship and his unwavering loyalty, but she refuses to acknowledge that she wants such things. She was born without them, and was convinced that she shouldn’t – and didn’t – need them. That she didn’t need him.

    It was currently the biggest lie that she was telling herself. She needed him more than she needed anyone or anything. He was her sanity, and instead she pushed him away, she forced him out every time he got close, over and over.

    With a tilt of her head, she turns so that her dark blue eyes find his. They flicker as they search his, but it was unnecessary for her to sit and wonder what he was thinking. He is sincere in everything he says, and there is a part of her that wishes she could be so open. That she could bare her soul to him, so that he could know just how she felt, despite the way she acted and all the ways she had already let him down. ”You make me happy, too. And I’m sorry I make you wait for me.” The sincerity is back, her voice quiet, leaning into his touch that he places against her jaw. I don’t deserve you, she thinks, but says nothing. Her resilience against him is weak today, as she flits between freezing up, only to soften again moments later. She was beginning to hate herself for it, wondering why she can’t just callous herself towards him the way she can with anyone else.

    She reaches up, her lips caressing against his cheek, before trailing down his jawline, her soft breath brushing along his skin as she murmurs, ”Remember every sweet thing I say to you. I promise I mean them.” She steps forward, lowering her delicate head to lay against his chest, finally giving in and letting her taut muscles go languid beneath his touch.




    @[Ophanim]
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