• Logout
  • 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


    the ocean never sleeps or dreams, eight.
    #1
    you've got to move slowly, take and eat my body like it's holy.
    Everyone around her is either angry, sad, or lost somewhere between the two emotions these days. But each time she asks why or tries to help, they tell her she’s too young to understand. Adna is only a year older and yet they trust her with whatever secrets they’re keeping amongst themselves. She snorts lightly and takes that first step beyond the borders of the pampas, into the quiet kingdom of Loess that her parents had told her about. She vaguely remembers it from their journey home but it’s essentially new to her as she wades through the untouched grasses.
     
    There’s a distant sound of birds chirping contently to one another in the distance but otherwise only the wind greets her. She snorts, unimpressed by this supposedly dangerous land. Her legs are still thin but her hips have begun to show the promise of maturity in their growing curves. The boyish slope of her shoulders has begun to make way for something more feminine, a more delicate form to match her soft voice. She’s got her mother’s sweet face but her father’s impatience.
     
    Maybe that’s why she hurries toward the forest like it’s some kind of salvation from all the trouble at home. A smile curls across her lips as she ducks her head to avoid knocking her horn on a low hanging branch. The snow here makes a crunching sound beneath her hooves that delights her, further distracting her from all the chaos Leliana and Adna has promised was out here. Truth be told, she didn’t believe her sister could be so much wiser simply because she was a year older. And her mother was too busy staring at the horizon while she prayed for some kind of hope to fill her heart again.
     
    But Sabbath is far more clever. She knows that the only way to find peace is to go hunting for it.
     
    Except peace is a fleeting thing. It slips so easily from her grasp when she realizes that every tree looks the same as the last. She swallows the growing lump in her throat and presses forward, bright red against the perfect white snow and the dull black-brown of the naked trees. Her breath leaves her soft lips in little panicking puffs of white air while her chest begins to feel tight.
     
    Stay calm, stay calm,” she mumbles to herself. Her scales catch the last rays of the setting sun and paint her gold and orange in its dying light. Night looms on the other side of the horizon, promising colder temperatures and all the monsters she flees from in her sleep. A shiver runs up her spine but she keeps her eyes trained on what light remains.
     
    I’m lost..

    @[Eight]
    Reply
    #2

    no matter what they say, I am still the king


    Interesting, isn’t it? How running from something can be so easily hidden as ‘hunting for something’. They’re very similar, don’t you think? WHen you run from something, you’re going towards something new- hunting for something new, perhaps. Are you hunting for peace, or are you running from the placating boredom you have always known?
    You are so lost in your thoughts, a squall of emotions inside your head, a determination detonating inside your mind -- You are not so young! You are not so naive! The world is not so treacherous! You can move freely without trepidation! The long grasses of Loess, the bubbling of the river fighting hardening ice, the crisp cracking of snow, the scratching of tree limb on tree - the world is not so scary!
    Except the world melts with the sun.
    There are snakes in the grass, fractals of freezing ice waiting for you to crash through, snow banks daring you to drift too far close, branches bare of bark beckoning you further and further into dark forests. The world melts into a different monster when the sun sways lower and lower. Your bravery could be mistaken for brashness. Your lackadaisical approach to new lands can turn into a loss of your way. Perhaps you are younger than you thought, with your foolishness for traversing so far from home.
    Is this the peace you were looking for? That sunset- so soft on the horizon, those chirping birds- caressing you with a goodnight song, the soft snow - sinking you deeper into the woods. Peace can so quickly turn to peril, when you least expect it. The melting wax of the night mixes into these small gifts of peace; and no longer are they quite so gentle. Instead, they will come careening down on your calm little world; your mission to hunt down peace will end with the night hunting down you.
    He watches. He surveys your serpentine body from the recesses of the forest.Your scales catching the last of the light flickering in the forest, an S.O.S blinking in the dark. Is He hunting? No - perhaps not yet. He is just watching for now. Watching you swallow down the unnerving thought swirling inside you saying that yes, perhaps you are lost. Perhaps that target of peace you so readily stalked has escaped into the dusk. He can feel your beating pulse, quickening in the thick of the night. Your chest constricting like a snack around its prey, tightening with the knowledge that yes, you have lost.
    He moves. Silencing his steps on the crust of snow, he moves closer through the forest, as silent as a snake in the long grasses of Loess (remember that place? Where you were so close to home?). He emerges from the copse of trees, stepping towards your ever-diminising space of peace; uncloaking his dark body, moving through the jail-cell tree trunks with unnerving quiet. “It’s awfully dark out for someone as small as you to be here alone. There could be dangerous things out here.”

    Lost, an adjective, denoting something that has been taken away or cannot be recovered. Yes, you are lost, my scarlet scaled girl, you have stepped into the night, into the maw of a magician; and what you will lose here cannot be recovered.



    and now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in

    Reply
    #3
    you've got to move slowly, take and eat my body like it's holy.
    She turns abruptly, ears flat against her head fearfully when he reveals himself in the dying light. Her eyes quickly examine him as she stumbles backwards in an effort to put some distance between them. The horn growing from his head looks somewhat like her own but she doesn’t think he can be trusted. The hammering of her heart against her ribs demands that she remain wary of this one. Maybe it’s his magic, hanging like static in the air, that sets her on edge or maybe it’s the eerie quiet that surrounds him. Even the birds and other wildlife watch the scene unfold with their breath caught in their throats.

    Sabbath lets out a snort at the idea of being called small. Vulgaris had told her, when her shoulders were a little more bony and immature, that she was greater than any she might face. She takes a slow breath and releases it as she lifts her chin. If she cannot be brave, then she can at least feign the kind of strength she needs to defend herself here.

    I am dangerous things. Maybe you’re the one who shouldn’t be out here alone,” she says with narrowed eyes. Now the young serpent moves closer, shoulders back and eyes narrowed slightly as she dares him to challenge her strength. She’s too young to know that strength comes from more than just physical strength but Vulgaris, of course, never taught her about the magic others can have. All she sees are blunt teeth, vulnerable flesh, and a single horn to keep Eight safe. The naïve girl thinks he would be easy prey.

    She’s too young to know better but she’s certainly old enough to learn.

    My name is Sabbath. And I’m not small, I’m nearly grown,” she insists, stepping ever closer until they’re so close she could reach out and touch him now. (And a part of her wants to explore his skin, wants to gather all that electricity crackling quietly around him, but she refrains. She will only imagine what it would be like to sink her teeth into the meat of him for now.) The serpent girl watches him, waits for him to make the next move. The last blazing sliver of the sun finally sets and leaves them in the pale moonlight. Sabbath’s red and black scales turn to purple and blue, but her eyes remain a stubborn sage green.

    Can your wings change?” she suddenly asks as she nods at the appendages. Leliana’s always did, she knew, but perhaps his are always feathers. Always to be plucked like common fowl. Sabbath licks her tongue across her fangs without realizing, suddenly ravenously hungry at the thought of devouring a pheasant or quail.

    @[Eight]
    Reply
    #4

    no matter what they say, I am still the king

    There are things that you can sense - can feel in the thin air - can smell when you breathe in heavy - can taste when you open your mouth for more. Fear is one of these things, and you, my bay little basilisk, are rife with it. Your heartbeat pulses waves through the dimming night air - a hark and call to your rapidly writhing worries. The scent of trepidation seeps from your skin and mixes with the jarring pierce of winter cold. You may feign all you want, shedding a snake skin of worry to relieve scales of security - but He can tell, you know. Fear is palpable, cracking through your aura like alabaster bone, wiggling it’s way from the inside out - spoiling your (attempted) smooth demeanor. Fear is something you can sense - although it would not take much to pick apart this moment and see the fervent fear inside your mind.
    There are things that you can sense - magic is one of these things. You say you are not small - you are a dangerous thing (to yourself, perhaps) - you are greater than they all surmise. But you do not know, do you? You feel that singe in the moment, the webbing of electric hum leaping from his skin into the darkdark night. You can sense it (you must be able to; as you draw closer and closer like the small ship in the mouth of the whirlpool) - you can feel it, smell it, taste it. But you do not know - you are barren to the knowledge that there is something greater than you. Something sharper than those fangs (felt tipped, in comparison), harder than those scales (sinewy and soft, in comparison), something more mellifluous than your voice (vulgar, in comparison). Magic; magic; magic.
    He watches, unmoving, the sun slipping down, the moon rising up - a milk bath in the night, a watery reflection of your scales in starlight. You lay wait, an attempt to stalk prey like a creature of the night. But oh, my little serpent, it is far too difficult to feast on the prey that burrows into your mind. Your bared teeth and ears back, your sneer and grimace and rough and tumble act - looks at the side of the coin that you choose to show. But when there is magic, that web weaving through your mind and soul and thoughts and desires and daunts - what then? How can you hide behind the idea that you are one of the dangerous things.
    You speak, bold and assured - a young pearl in the cracked world of an oyster. “Sabbath - while nearly grown, you do still seem quite small.” He looks down at you, the dark skin of his body a sinister mix next to your indigo hues, you are small in the face of it all. Perhaps you just do not know it yet. Silence envelops, and He withholds an amused smile as he picks the thoughts you fling so carelessly out into the universe. Hungry, you are hungry - but for what? You yearn to pierce His skin like the ice across the water, your mouth salivating at the thought of flesh to bone. Hungry, hungry - and yet, that is not what you ask for. Instead, your question is simple, fleeting and innocent - His wings. An afterthought to Him, really. Born with wings that He has no need to use. Born with a horn pierced deep into His skull, but an unnecessary accoutrement. Why does He bother with either? Why bother at all.
    “What an interesting query. Why don’t you find out?” He shifts imperceptibly, a small change in His height - shrinking His bones just so, just minutely enough so that your small mouth could reach to ream the wings from his bones - for your fangs to sink deep into his feathers, chip away at the structure, and taste what magic feels like. He jerks his head upwards, a go ahead motion, daring her to follow her desires. “I don’t bite.”


    and now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in



    @[Sabbath]
    Reply
    #5
    you've got to move slowly, take and eat my body like it's holy.
    There’s a perfect little hole in her heart and he slips right in like he was cordially invited. Roll out the welcome mat, don’t bother to wipe your feet. He’s all calm and collected like she dreams of being and this fact wraps around her throat tight until it nearly chokes. Has anyone ever been so grateful for a noose to hang themselves with? Eight’s foot is poised on the chair keeping her alive but her eyes are daring him for that one good kick. She hasn’t learned the hard lessons yet and it’s plain to see when she just curls closer to that wild energy radiating off his skin. God, she wants to be taught.

    The sage green eyes narrow slightly when he insists on calling her small but she just keeps standing tall. As tall as a quaking little fledgling can, she supposes. Sabbath has never known whatever this feeling is and it makes her want to crush the life from him. She could snap her jaw out of place and swallow the limbs whole, leave the torso to the birds that’ll come after. He could never plague her with this monsoon of Want if she just tore the light from his eyes, she tells herself.

    Her dark head tilts when he invites her to his wing and she watches him as her legs carry her the last step – slow, bracing for some trick. But the hunger is a howling beast that refuses to be denied even in a serpent as young as her. It drives her mouth over that delicate joint while her lips tremble. This moment tastes like Vulgaris never left, like her mother never woke her up with the sound of her crying. Her teeth hovering over his soft flesh smells like her family is whole again.

    So she takes it.

    Her fangs sink into him and his blood floods her mouth, almost too hot. She manages to hold back her venom but her jaws refuse to release their grip on him now that they finally have him. Kick the chair or cut the rope, she thinks as she begins to swallow the bits of feather and blood pouring down her throat. He tastes like copper lullabies and the empty black space between the stars above them. Empty and yet so wildly alive with something she has never known before. Sabbath wants to stuff it all into her mouth and keep it to herself, tucked safe in her belly where no one can pry it from her.

    But something in her pulls her back. The girl stumbles back, her face a mess the color of cherries. She dares to meet his eyes again but she can’t feign her defiant bravery this time. Her shoulders shake visibly and it takes a while for words to find her lips again.

    What are you?” she finally asks, suddenly so full without a single bite of meat.

    @[Eight]
    Reply
    #6

    no matter what they say, I am still the king

    There’s a perfect little hole in the universe; the size and shape of exactly serpentine you.
    How pleasant it would be if we each had a small pocket of the universe to call our own. How delicately perfect it would be if we fit like grains of sand, falling in against one another - each selecting a small little hole in the universe where nothing once was. What happens when that chair tips -- that noose tightens -- that hand tugs just a bit more at your throat (can’t you feel it, a pleasant pressure). Where does your soul-section of the universe disappear to? Do you give it up - other grainy lives shoving and tumbling to pick up where you last left off? Who will take your place when you are gone -- whose place are you taking now that you are here.
    You should know, He never wipes his feet. He never shuts the door (except to lock you in). He is reckless (and calm and cool and collected and complacent) in His motions - He will not knock, He will not pleasantly request to come in -- He will sink through the cracks in the walls, permeate through the porous wood; He will transude into your terrain (the place you thought was safe, secure, a home tightly tucked into the universe). He will not be invited - but you will want him there all the same.
    Again your thoughts explode into the space between (loud, so loud that he does not even try to find them) - you are confident in your carnage, that you could maul Him like a machete; that you are the apex predator, the dangerous thing. Your thoughts are vivid, vicious, a painting made at midnight while freebasing - smeared blood black, bits of bone stuck in the crevices of your mouth. He is unphased- regaled, one may even say- as your thoughts flow into His mind. You are a small scaled thing with dreams so dark, a hole in your body where His flesh and flourish should be. You seem to know this - that there is a gaping rip, a space between your growing ribs, cracks to be filled in the chambers of your heart - there is something missing here (missing like your mother, your father, your meaning to life; missing missing missing.
    But now! Oh now! Now you have an unprecedented possibility; a gift left at your doorstep by the monster who just walked in. You are wary (so you have learned something in your young age-- beware the things presented so placidly to you. And yet, you come -- pulled towards that sweeping vortex, the tug at that tabernacled heart; you cannot step away, you cannot say no (even though there’s that warning, that indecision, that concern that yesyouaresure that something may not be right.)
    What does magic taste like.
    He could not tell you -- it is simply a part of Him. He can only imagine, as the tarpaulin of your face transforms- no longer a canvas swept of emotion (because oh, oh you must be brave) - but another picture all together. You have tasted something beyond yourself, and now there is no way to hide it. Are you the dangerous thing? Or have you just dined (none so delicately) on the most dangerous thing.
    You speak -- oblivious to the blood following the rivulets of his wings, spooling from the skin you splintered, downdowndown to spatter lightly on his shoulders -- “Eight.” He speaks it crisply - short but solid in the dark that has crawled across you (not very much one for words -- he is shaking off the dust of eons away.) Eight - the symbolism of the perfect meaning, regeneration, completion of all possibilities, the neverending serpent.

    and now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in

    Reply
    #7
    you've got to move slowly, take and eat my body like it's holy.
    Sabbath has never wondered what comes after or even before life but rather focuses on the here and now. Still young, she knows things but fails to see the significance in all the little facts she knows about her world. She knows that Eight offered up his wing like a feast, like a banquet and never stopped to wonder why someone would do anything like that. But now her instincts have taken control and they tell her that now is the time to fear what she does not understand. They push her back from him in clumsy steps that nearly make her fall.

    But the hunger still looms in the rafters of her mind, watching with greedy magpie eyes every time his artery twitches there beneath the tender flesh of his neck. The singularity black patches of her soul say that if he offers a bite, she should take the whole wing. Kick the chair yourself if it means being within reach of that vulnerable throat. He has offered up his skin and there’s still so much more to take from him!

    While her instincts battle her greed, though, she hears him speak a single word for her to cling to. Eight. Sabbath remains in place, muscles shivering like its still the dead of winter all around them despite the forge of spring slowly waking up. She doesn’t know the meaning of her own name or why Vulgaris chose it. He spoke it like his favorite prayer over her newborn skin and then Leliana said it like quivering salvation when he didn’t come home.

    But now no one says her name like anything. They don’t speak it at all.

    I’m lost,” she finally repeats after what feels like centuries for someone as young as her. Her ferocity climbs back up into the attic and hides away for now, biding its time until the opportunity presents itself once more. Tears swell to the very edge of her eyelid and the delicate eyelashes there. Her sage green eyes go soft and she wants to run from here but there’s nowhere to run to that he can’t find her. Something in her bones knows that easily enough without ever being told. Some ancient part of her blood saw the eternity in his and recognized all that magic.

    What should I do?

    Sabbath doesn’t know why she’s asking him or letting him have any say in shaping who she will become someday. But there are no alternatives here or there so she finally steps off the edge of that chair herself to surrender any control she might’ve had before. Maybe being with a monster beats beating alone or maybe she’ll pay the price for this decision. Either way, it’s only polite to return his offering of his body with one of her own.

    @[Eight]
    Reply
    #8
    @[Sabbath]
    Basically - we goin' to Pangea. HAVE FUN WITH THE PLAGGUUUEEE! You can reply here - or post there!

    no matter what they say, I am still the king



    When you live so long - the here and now is all that matters. Life stretches like a never ending serpent - mouth to tail, day in and out, ageless fury folding in on itself. There is no way to die (is there?) - there is no need to fear (that is an unknown taste in His mouth). He knows the feeling, though. He has stirred it into the depths of too many - he has crawled into the caverns of their mind as they have roiled in the aftermath of his actions. He has felt how fast the chambers of the heart furiously push. He has felt the waveuponwave washing through (run, fear, escape, stop, fear, fear, fear). He knows that trepidation that causes a tremble in your step - you are battling something (instinct versus desire?) - you are afraid, but you are aching with desire.

    There is hunger deep inside you, roiling over to the tiptop of your throat, your teeth, your gums, spilling out and onto the floor. You are sohungry (-- for the world? For Him?) A nip is not enough - you want a mouthful, you will be unsatiated until you are hanging by your neck, writhing for more (just a taste, please - just a bite a sip a nibble). The battle inside you is too easy to read for Him - and he can see that there is no way out of this for you (not this time). You have tightened the rope in your feasting on magic - the chair is wavering, the wood splintering (your fate is calling).

    You change - a swarth of sadness crawling on your skin where ferocity used to be. You are soft, wavering on the edge of uncertainty (oh my, what a change from just moments ago!) - lost at sea, and reflecting in the waves your actual age. You are just a child - a lamb with wolf teeth - an imposter in this wide, wide world. You are lost; and you say as much (as if He could not tell; could not read that worrypanicloss on your face - in your mind). You seek direction (oh why would you seek it from him?!) But you seem to know that monsters are better than being alone. Befriending the dark things in the night is the best option when they are coming to hunt you.

    He is quiet, unanswering your plea that peels out in the dark. What should you do? (You should run - but you know that, don’t you?) You are tied to the noose, you can only go so far before you are dragged back down. You do not know how trapped you are, little one. You have plucked the apple from the tree; you have bit into the sacred fruit - you have tasted magic, and now you will never be able to go back. You will always lust for that effervescent taste. Nothing will be the same again.

    You are waiting, looking upwards for Him to show you what is next - how to find yourself again. You have waited for so long -- you do not have to wait any longer.

    He heals - His skin pulling over the bones He is mending, feathers sprouting where blood and ripped skin once was. In moments, your handiwork is gone - your taste of heaven (of hell?) has sealed shut, and he is whole (physically, at least) once more.
    “You will come with me.” There is no question nor challenge in His voice, it is a statement, simple and forthright. Your snakeskin body belonged to you no longer.

    and now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in

    Reply




    Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)