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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


    [mature]  we wrote our own story; brigade
    #1
    KENSA
    we were golden. we were fire. we were magic.


    She has a coast of her own but there is something about this one that has always appealed. Once upon a time she used to wander down here and look for ways down to the water but never found any.

    It has been a very long time since she last came this far, last stood on a nameless ledge and let herself be no one.

    The waves break themselves against the grey-black cliffs. They cast spray up over the jagged edge on which she stands —a fine cold mist that clings to the hairs on her face and neck. The sky is the soft grey of a certain pair of eyes, and cirrus clouds all but obscure it. Their underbellies orange with the rising sun. A sun that crawls into the sky somewhere behind her left shoulder.

    The forest is still night-dark at her back, but is waking on circadian rhythm and the disturbance of her passing ten minutes before. Kensa likes the forest at night, the close coldness. She has always known it to be a place for monsters and secrets but its only now that she understands why she's always felt so at home. It isn't easy to make peace with herself. A long walk through the forest in the small hours has pushed away the self-loathing that keeps trying to cling to her. Now she can stand on this rim of stone with stubborn stringy grass whiskering out of the small cracks at her feet and think with clarity.

    At first, understanding how unworthy she was of Litotes' devotion had been difficult. Kensa's pride had created in her a certainty of her own perfect irresistability. Of course he wanted her. Of course he loved her. Of course.

    Of course he doesn't anymore.

    An empty room resides where he once dwelt inside her. A room she looks into again and again each time as though she has forgotten he has gone. No one waits in the leather armchair that sits behind that door. No one looks up at her with eyes as yellow-gold as her own, full of the loving devotion that she had never deserved. The room is empty, and cold, and still she opens the door on accident, or to remind herself to hurt.

    There is no one to blame but herself. She the most honest of liars and the cruelest of sweethearts. Even Starsin's part in things is small and meaningless beside Kensa's selfishness and blissful omissions. She knows this, has sat with it for a long time now and just wants to feel clean again. Kensa lives with the pain, makes it a part of her, but the foulness of her own she wants washed away.

    In the end it was for the best that Brigade had left. She should never have said what she had, especially so fresh from her break with Litotes. Even though it had felt as real as anything, all the filth of her mistakes clung to the words and made them into something else. It is good that she is alone these days, finding her way back from her own failings.

    Pale nostrils flare and she fills her lungs with the smell of the sea, brine and dew. The wind takes away the other scent, pushes it from her so that she remains unaware of any other soul nearby.




    @[brigade]
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    #2

    Sleep does not come to him easily these days.

    Not that he was ever the type to sleep soundly through the night, but now, he rarely sleeps at all. Instead, he runs to exhaustion. He takes to the skies until his wings can no longer hold him. He does anything but let the dreams come because when they do, he finds her again. She is there with her golden eyes and that fierce way she lifts her chin and all the ways that she would find to tear him apart again.

    So he tries to outrun sleep.

    He tries to outsmart it.

    And, in the end, he tries to simply pass out instead of dream.

    Today, his efforts take him to the forest. He has no rhyme or reason for his patterns or where he chooses to go and is, instead, often just as surprised to find himself as one spot or the other. So he has no reason to think differently about the tug in his belly or the way his feet drag him forward at a breakneck speed.

    He does not think anything strange at all until he sees her there.


    The wind is to her back and the cliff yawns open before her, leading to the ocean that churns below. It is beautiful, he thinks, and his tired heart cannot defend him against the instant ache that spreads through him. He cannot deny the way she is lovely, the way that the starlight catches the ribbons of gold on her.

    He should leave, he thinks, but he makes no move to step away.

    He should leave, but instead he takes a step forward.

    This time, his wings are as red as sunrise as the flare and then settle across his back, and his neck is darkened to nearly black in spots with the shadows and the sweat that drenches it. But he doesn’t mind. She has seen him like this before, and he still hopes that she will not see him at all.

    Except he doesn’t leave.

    He doesn’t go.

    BRIGADE

    when I was a man I thought it ended when I knew love's perfect ache
    but my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake

    Reply
    #3
    KENSA
    we were golden. we were fire. we were magic.


    The morning wind has a bite to it, and the rich flavor of night. Her eyes close against the drying cold as the gusts change directions again and she realizes she's forgotten to blink. Too mesmerized by the glowing savage edges of the waves clawing at the rocks. Kensa's lashes are heavy and sweep down to her cheeks, dark against the white and gold-dust that frames them. They remain that way for several breaths, so that the waves become louder, crashing, rushing, whispering. Like feathers.

    Orange and black, abalone and grey. The sky and the sea coming together and pulling apart as the sunrise shows her where the horizon has been hiding. It is new again even though it is probably the same as yesterday. Or maybe it isnt, maybe that rounded edge of everything is just a little closer today. A little more in reach. She could go out there.
    Just send herself into the middle of that line between sea and sky and see...

    Its doesn't make her sad that she'd just want to look at this spot from out there. Home. Absently she turns her head to look over her shoulder at the city of dark trees, to imagine how they would seem from way out there.

    Brigade is a blued version of himself, dark with sweat and not yet illuminated by the creeping morning light. Their world is still dark enough, the brightest of the stars winking through the crumpled clouds. She knows the color of him better than she knows her own, but she likes him in this half-morning light. Kensa does not look away from Brigade, she knows her shame belongs only to her and she wont give it to him to clean up. Her gold trimmed ears are pricked but otherwise her posture is relaxed. She does not go to him but stands as she has been, giving him room to join her or continue on his way.

    "Good morning, Brigade." Her silvery voice is soft but not whisper. The wind pulls her mane across and about her face, twists her tail around her cannons, and drags her words out to sea. I've thought of you... they say, but she does not. He's already gotten free and she cannot bring herself to trap him again. Even though seeing him again gives her a strange drunken feeling, unreality and longing settling together in her in her belly and joints so that she is sinking and adrift.



    @[brigade]
    Reply
    #4

    Perhaps if he was a wiser man, he would have thought about what he would do once he got here.

    Perhaps he would have come up with everything that he wanted to say. Everything left trapped in the back of his lungs. But Brigade is not a clever nor a wise man and the only thing he has found that he is good at is compartmentalizing. So he has no words for her. He has nothing to prepare him for this moment.

    All he has is this marrow-deep ache that spreads through him.

    All he has is the longing that tears through him like a wild beast.

    His face remains impassive, save for the eyes. Those are as stormy as the water that rages against the cliffs before her. They burn in his slack face, studying her intently, watching the way that she is tossed about the wind like some pearl. When she greets him, she is calm, steady—like he was a stranger.

    It sears across his belly but he just bites down on his jaw to ignore it. “Hello, Kensa,” he greets and does his best to not let his voice soften her name like it is so won’t to do. Instead, he keeps it neutral—just the formation of syllables and nothing more. This is just two strangers greeting themselves one dawn.

    It is nothing, he tells himself.

    Nothing.

    He ignores that which flares to life in him and rolls his shoulder, feeling the beginning feeling of nerves set on fire. Something that stirs in him and begs him to take to the skies although he is far too exhausted to keep himself aloft. Instead he stamps a foot, flicks his tail—lets loose of energy in small ways.

    More words threaten to come but he chokes them down.

    BRIGADE

    when I was a man I thought it ended when I knew love's perfect ache
    but my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake

    Reply
    #5
    KENSA
    we were golden. we were fire. we were magic.


    A smile wants to creep across her face, to laugh. To laugh herself into the tears that she has gotten so tired of shedding. She must have wanted him to move on, she thinks now as she wets her lips to work the hysterical twitch out of them. Shouldn't he hear her voice now and know it for poison?

    Brigade is instead staring at her with his still and emotionless face. He cannot help the way his visage is carved from stone but this morningeven with the shadows of tiredness and antlers on his facehe shows her nothing but smooth granite. His eyes glitter at her, but she cannot read what lives in them.

    Its okay to talk to him. If he isn't going to leave.

    "You look tired. What are you doing out here?" She asks, because it seems like a conversational thing to say... even though she knows he does not sleep wellon his ownand always seems to be roaming. Her body follows the turn of her head to curve herself around toward him, her hooves so near the edge but she does not seem to notice. 

    Brigade rolls a shoulder, she recognizes the gesture, the tension he tries to bleed off. Kensa stops, draws her head up and her chin in to make herself compact and unobtrusive. To stop herself from reaching out to comfort him. Certain that would be like putting a sword to a knife wound, for him... not for herself. "I just like to come here. I didn't think I'd see youanyone." God she hates all this fucking honesty that keeps trying to burst out of her. "I never meant to see you again." She's already started now and cannot stop. "I wanted to I mean, but I" Her lashes drop once more over her gemstone eyes that seconds before were catching the sunrise glow.

    Stop now, you stupid girl.




    [brigade]
    Reply
    #6

    The last thing that he wants to do is laugh—although, to be fair, he rarely wants to laugh.

    Perhaps he is overly serious as he ages. Perhaps he spends too much time looking for the bad things in live or, perhaps, they simply find him. Regardless, there is no humor on his face as he stands there, watching her, wanting her, and doing his very best to look like he is doing neither.

    She begins to talk and it is so fast that he can barely keep up. “I was flying,” he answers quietly, unable to tell her the real reason. Unable to tell her that he was actually trying to exhaust himself so that maybe he could get an hour or two of sleep. Maybe he would pass out so deeply that dreams would not come.

    But it doesn’t matter because she is moving on like a rock tumbling through a stream.

    He angles his head, continuing to watch her curiously, amused by the way that the words seem to pour out of her without any provoking—the way she can barely hold them back. “I didn’t expect to see anyone either,” his words blunt, that wild river of his voice steady despite the churning in his chest.

    It is her last words that catch his attention.

    His grey eyes narrow, focusing in on her, his pulse rising just slightly.

    They dig in under his skin and he can feel the mistake forming within him before he even has a chance to fully realize that it is a mistake. It is just a breath, a moment of time, a quick inhale, and then:

    “Do you mean that? Did you want to see me?”

    BRIGADE

    when I was a man I thought it ended when I knew love's perfect ache
    but my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake

    Reply
    #7
    KENSA
    we were golden. we were fire. we were magic.


    Flying. She wonders if that helps, if it brings a more complete quiet to escape without even your footfalls there to give rhythm to your thoughts. She has always longed for wings. They have always teased a seemingly unattainable freedom, and are now too a persistent reminder of Brigade. If she wore them herself she already knows how they would look, he has painted his feathers to be like her body though they aren't now. Maybe only when she agitates him... though agitate seems an insufficient descriptor for how Brigade must have felt those times he'd turned his wings into a reflection of her.

    When he speaks to her his voice provides little inflection. Alternatively, Kensa's words pour out too quick, jerk back, start again. Compared to what he'd said and the way he’d said it her cascade of speech sounds overwhelming and she is sorry for it but even then she cannot stop. Until he stops her by answering back so suddenly that Kensa almost steps back, a hoof shifting against the flinty ground. A flush travels down her neck, blood rising to the surface with a sensation of prickling warmth. Its difficult to tell if he is pleased to hear it or if he wants to tear her to pieces for saying it. There's a anxious twinge between her shoulders.

    “Yes.” Of course I did, she could continue, and she wonders if she should leave. Didn’t she just tell herself not to trap him? To not even allow the appearance of guile. Kensa is so tired of herself.
    She tries to deaden her feelings for him and find some way to just talk to him without being a pitfall. To just say things and not bleed herself.

    “I wanted to see you, but I did not know what you would want. I meant to let you decide.” This is clean, an honesty she prefers, without carefully selected margins to keep out pesky complications. Now neither of them have decided, they are just here.

    “I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

    This last is soft and she regrets it a little the moment she says it. Kensa doesn’t sound petulant, but for the first time she is actively trying not to seduce Brigade and so the comment seems unnecessary.






    @[brigade]
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    #8

    His bastard heart swells painfully in his chest, and he wonders if she can hear the way that it pounds against his ribs. She has to hear the ocean of it as it swirls and as it churns—louder than the ocean that is now at her back. But he still says nothing, because he is not sure that there is anything to say. There are no words that come, no words that find their way to his lips, and he stands silently, just watching her.

    She says that she never says things she doesn’t mean, and he can only think of the last time that they were together. He can only think of the way she had said that she had loved him; of how desperately he had wanted to say it back—how desperately he had wanted to whisper it back to her.

    But he didn’t then and he doesn’t know.

    Something shifts on his face though, something almost imperceivable. It is a quiet shifting of tectonic plates beneath the red-wine of the skin stretched taut over the cliffs and valleys of his face. It is something that opens it up just slightly, pulling back the curtain to the emotions that always storm within him.

    Brigade angles his antlered head for a second, tension throughout his body.

    She is beautiful—he has told her that before. He is sure that he is not the first and he will not be the last to say such a thing to the lady of Hyaline. But her beauty has never interested him in anything more than a surface attraction. It was always her spirit. Her fierceness. That wildness trapped beneath the filagree.

    It is this that catches him on tenterhooks.

    It is this that finally makes him say, “Come here, Kensa.”

    BRIGADE

    when I was a man I thought it ended when I knew love's perfect ache
    but my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake

    Reply
    #9
    KENSA
    we were golden. we were fire. we were magic.


    He is the most baffling man she has ever known. Some might think that part of the attraction but if Brigade were just a little easier to figure out it would do nothing to dim what she feels. Though perhaps its best he frustrates her a little, she does not deserve to rest easy within herself.

    Come here, Kensa.

    Its a vexing and terrifying sentence.

    Fearing Brigade is as natural to her as wanting him, though she never fears him for the reasons he would probably think. In that moment she is not afraid of further rejection or being called to answer for her evils. Kensa isn’t actually sure why she is afraid, not at first.

    There is a fruitless refusal on the tip of her tongue, some attempt to reason with him that dies before she even puts any breath behind it.

    She can’t even hesitate, but goes to him, and beneath the proud beauty there is a meekness, a gentle yielding. Before him, close again but not touching she can hear the sound of his breathing and smell the warm, masculine scent of him. Her heart stutters in her chest, and she angles her face away from him slightly, her chin pulling toward her own shoulder. Her blond locks drift forward to fall against her freckled cheek.

    Now she knows what she’s afraid of. The merlot bulk of him, the sweetness of his sweat and the richness of his skin, the muscle and bone and beauty. The glimpse of him beneath the fierce outer armor, the gentleness beneath all that steel, the ferocity woven through it all. Knowing she wont have it in herself to resist. Even if they should know better than to even touch.

    Reply
    #10

    She comes, reluctantly, and he can feel the sharp edge of the storm within him begin to dull. He can begin to feel it start to turn—start to become something else. He should know better by now. He should know that this is a dangerous road to walk and they have no right to it. He should know that they have proven to be too volatile to ever work, but he does not stop. Not this time. He doesn’t run away.

    Instead, his eyes just grow more intense. The light burning a little brighter.

    She turns her face from him and he reaches out to run his mouth down the familiar curve of her cheek until he can dip under her chin and nudge it, pull it back toward him. She tastes as familiar as he remembered and that does not stop the electricity that sparks and flashes in his veins. It does nothing to stop the way his body grows warm and then sets on fire, It does nothing to quell that growing ache in him.

    He takes a step forward to bring them closer together and there is a growing thunder in his chest. It is a pulse he can’t drown out. “Kensa,” he says her name again and like all of the times before, he feels his throat threaten to close around it. He feels it like the pressure growing within him as he kisses her neck.

    He lingers there for a second, pressing kisses soft and slow and exploring over the curve of her neck.

    “I wanted to see you too,” he whispers there, his voice a touch huskier than usual, the gravel making the edges of it darker. His teeth graze where his lips had been. “I do not sleep well when you are not there.”

    BRIGADE

    when I was a man I thought it ended when I knew love's perfect ache
    but my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake

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