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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


    [open]  I never met a more impossible girl; any
    #11


    She is largely underwhelming, as magicians go.
    She had defended no kingdom, has fought in no wars, made no monsters. She is largely unknown in Beqanna, simply another brightly-colored thing with a handful of offspring who themselves have largely disappeared. She matters only to a few, and that number dwindles by the year, as they leave or die off and she remains. For some reason, she remains.
    She’d begged for death, once, but now she is perhaps too stubborn to die, or perhaps she believes it wouldn’t take, that she would try and would simply awaken again. So she doesn’t try. She lives, lightning over her skin, and she survives.

    She had not known she was a magician, not for a long time, not until another had taken it upon herself to show her the depth of the power in her skin. Still, she has not done overmuch with the magic, for the one thing she longs to do – bring her back – is beyond her abilities.
    “I have no desire to break the world,” she says mildly, though perhaps this is a lie, somewhat. The world has largely been unkind to her, and she thinks she might not mind seeing it crumble.
    “The lightning came first,” she says, unaware she was going to share this particular piece of history until it’s sliding from her tongue, “and it’s my favorite. But I can do more.”
    She takes a breath, focusing. She has not expanded it in any real way in quite some time, but she finds it comes easily, as if it had been lying in wait.
    The lightning thickens around her, shielding her, an impossible ball of light. For a moment the electricity surges, crackling thick in the air, and then it retreats, and when she is again exposed, she is ink-dark, shadowed and feral, a mimicry of Haunt, a shadow creature of her own making. Her eyes, bright and yellow, flicker like lightning. She smiles, pleased with herself, pleased this small trick worked.
    She continues, spurred on by her success. Darkness pulls around them, submerging the world around them in shadows, which she piles upon one another, thicker and thicker, laying the darkness until all that can be seen are two pairs of yellow eyes.
    “What do you think?” asks one creature to another, voice floating in the darkness.

    I’ll touch you all and make damn sure

    Cordis

    that no one touches me

    picture © horseryder.deviantart.com
    Reply
    #12

    we scream our very souls free

    Haunt had never found intrigue in the places everyone else seemed to. Had never been drawn to things stated boldly in the light of day and known by all. No, Haunt is a creature of the shadows. Of the unknown. That is where they live, and that is where they find the most intriguing things.

    There is nothing here that screams of greatness, and perhaps that is why Haunt remains. Because those that scream of greatness are, ultimately, incredibly boring. And boredom is the most certain way to be rid of Haunt.

    I have no desire to break the world, she claims. Skepticism tempers whatever belief Haunt may have held for that assertion. She wears her lightning too much like a shield. And those who feel they need such protection feel fear. And fear without direction has only one place to go. So perhaps the real question here should have been what it was she wished to break, if not the world?

    Time enough for those musing later though. Not now, when her admissions beckon with a subtle and irresistible finger.

    The crackling brightness of her lightning causes Haunt to pull further into the darkness, avoiding the painful light she wields with such intriguing carelessness. Moments later however, the light dies, leaving Haunt facing a mirror image of themself. Yellow eyes clash against yellow as the world around them dims, throwing them into a heavy, impenetrable darkness that is both home and haven to the creature she had chosen to mimic.

    A heartbeat of silence greets her question, until, abruptly, laughter rings through the air with the brightness and clarity of a bell. A blink, and the shadow creature is gone. Or rather, moved, brushing alongside her, the lost echo of their laugh still hanging in the air where they’d been. Their soft whisper is almost eerie in the unnatural pitch, spoken too close, through unfathomable distance. “I think,” Haunt begins, voice low and surprisingly lyrical, “you are trying to distract me.”

    Their smile, though invisible, is nearly palpable in the air. Then, on a breath of entirely unnecessary air, “It’s working.”

    Reply
    #13


    The new body is strange. Though she has the ability, Cordis does not often alter her appearance. She likes her silver, likes her lightning, finds no reason to change it.
    (Besides, should Spyndle, impossibly, come looking – maybe she wants to be easy to spot. A beacon, hollering her home.)
    But there is a certain pleasure in darkness, sitting in the gaping maw of shadows. The shadow feels thick on her skin, velvety, and though she itches for the lightning back, she does not want to sacrifice this. Not now, at least.
    Though when the creature moves, brushes against her, instinct is back, trumping any game Cordis might want to play, and lightning crackles over the ink-dark, snapping at the creature, who has already moved away, and then there is darkness again.
    “Don’t,” she says, simply, and her voice is flat, “or I’ll light this whole place up.”
    She is tempted to do so anyway, to punish the creature for its transgression, for the brush of her side in the impossible dark. Not to break the world, but to break something, maybe.

    “What am I distracting you from?” she asks, keeping her focus on those yellow eyes, ready for any sign of movement. The darkness feels thicker, and lightning itches under her skin, invisible to their eyes but oh, she feels it, one of the most integral parts of her, begging to be set free.


    I’ll touch you all and make damn sure

    Cordis

    that no one touches me

    picture © horseryder.deviantart.com
    Reply
    #14

    we scream our very souls free

    The crackle of lightning is a reminder of the danger with which they toy. But if Haunt had been a creature to heed the warnings of others, they would not have chosen to latch themselves, a silent shadow, to the lightning woman as she passed so quietly through the trees. Instead the warning serves only to broaden their toothy smile while simultaneously answering so many questions they had not yet asked.

    Speaking volumes of the fear so inherent in her instinctual reactions.

    Perhaps Haunt should fear too, but one could almost wonder if they even have the capacity. Haunt does not even know the answer to that question. Had never had reason to, and thus, it is as alien as the sun.

    “Everything and nothing,” Haunt replies, answering her question with the completely nonsensical truth. But she had reminded them so easily in the wake of her distraction. Haunt is not so foolish as to touch her again, but the distance remains small. An infinitesimal chasm. And after another moment of silence, the shadow finally breathes, “Why are you scared of being touched?”

    Reply
    #15



    It is not, exactly, that she fears being touched. Not in the same way she once did. For she knows now that she could set them ablaze for touching her, that she is stronger and more powerful than most, at least in this small way. She can make herself untouchable and enforce it.
    But old habits run deep, and when she feels others against her skin the memories that surface are sharp and painful. Touching has such a weight, for her, at such opposite ends of the spectrum – at one end, her tormenter, the dark god who kept her prisoner and ruined her a hundred times over.
    At the other end, a torment of a different sort – the woman who undid everything. The one Cordis never wanted to stop touching. Who is gone, and who she can never touch again.
    “It’s not fear,” she says, as if that was the point of the question, “there are only a few who I prefer to touch.”
    A short list, then, made shorter by death and disappearance. Her lover, dead. Her children, gone. Who else, then? That mare she’d met once, who had looked so like Spyndle? Well, she was gone, too.
    Perhaps there is no one, then.

    With no prompting, Cordis shifts away, back to her regular form, the comfort of silver and lightning. The darkness she had drawn about them dissipates, leaving only shadows, which now seem strangely bright after the jet blackness they had been in.
    “I’ll tell you more, someday,” she says. She isn’t sure why she offers this, or if the creature will even care, for Cordis is not very interesting. And then there is light, blinding, and she is gone.

    I’ll touch you all and make damn sure

    Cordis

    that no one touches me

    picture © horseryder.deviantart.com


    @[Haunt] feel free to start a new thread if you want!!! Cordis needed some time to think lol
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