[private] I'm in the space between the spaces; Castile

[sochi]

SOCHI

Sochi has no reason to get involved. No reason to think her involvement would do anything but complicate an already impossible situation. Yet, there is something that pulls her back to Loess—something that drags her steps from going further and further into the depths of the forest and back to a place she had called home for years now. A place she had bled for and patrolled and raised her children.

It felt like a stranger now as she crosses the threshold.

Her face is neutral, washed clean, as she moves forward—looking for a form that was once so familiar. To her good fortunate, it is not difficult to track him down. After all, it is not difficult to find a dragon.

She approaches as a tiger and shifts when she is close, standing before him in her black and blue form. She presses her lips together as she studies him impassively, her silver eyes washing over him and head tilting slightly. “How dramatic,” her voice is dry, husky and she ignores the twinge of her heart—ignores the feeling of coming home, reminding herself that this is no longer home. That he is no longer home.

For a minute, she considers asking him why. Why he was in this form at home when he so rarely chose to shift but she ignores the instinct. It was no longer her concern. None of this was her concern.

“What you were trying to hide found me,” she finally says, her voice still empty and ringing without any emotion—any turmoil she might feel completely buried. “She’s in the forest giving birth to what I assume is your child.” This she is unable to keep the anger from rising up, her lip peeling back slightly on the acidic word to reveal feline fangs. “Rather, I assume she is still there. I assume still alive.”

She rolls her shoulder, frustrated that she was to be the messenger on this.

Was it because she wanted to look him in the eyes and tell him that she knew? Because she felt some responsibility to make sure the mare didn’t die? Because she knew how important it was to Castile to be there for moments like this in his children’s lives? She doesn’t dissect it, doesn’t dwell on it further.

“You should probably go check on that.”

She studies him for a second longer before she sniffs and then turns to leave.

she said a war ain't a war before both sides bleed

@[Castile]

[Castile]

and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left
a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was

Slipping.

The sense of it rises and ebbs like the tide. There are moments of clarity, but more often of obscurity – fleeting realization.

Awaken, the voice hisses each dawn. Hunt. Soar. It isn’t breeding season otherwise his thoughts would teem with the need to procreate.

His consciousness – the true Castile – is tethered while predatory instincts crawl over him like an army of fire ants, biting him and awakening what terror has always lied beneath his surface. It has always been suppressed, even if the world thought himself volatile and dangerous then. It was nothing compared to what looms like a storm overhead.

But not even he realizes the perilous situation he thrusted himself into when he confronted the faerie. For now, Castile embraces the power thrumming in his veins and takes hardly any notice to how his routine has changed or how his thoughts skew and race down darker corridors. Somehow, he doesn’t even consider how he so easily finds Sochi whilst his stomach groans for more or why there’s an urge to hunt when he glimpses her tigress body.

It’s what we used to do together… hunt.
(…)

It doesn’t respond, that malicious voice, because it knows the origins and the reasons for this change. It slips to the back, smug, waiting for this darkness to entirely swallow its host.

”Always,” his lips pull back in a toothy grin as Sochi comments the dramatics whilst her own body shifts. Castile watches her, recalls each night they curled into one another, how perfectly they fit against each other. Glancing back at his own immense size, he reminds himself what events have transpired and why Sochi has not returned to him since that fateful day. It hurts and his skin is frigid where she once folded into him, but rather than beg forgiveness or apologize, the heat rises inside him. She did not come home to be with him, to mend things.

Her words are salt in his wounds, reminders of his impulsiveness.

The muscles in his jaws clench.

(Break her)
(Rip her)

Yet only his wings twitch in reaction to her, his reptilian face impassive while restraining himself from lunging forward and erasing her from memory.

Why is that even crossing my mind?
(…)

Rocking his weight back, Castile sits and arches his neck. He stares down at Sochi as he wars with himself. ”Congratulations on your find,” sharply edged, clipped, ”let’s hope she doesn’t lose track of the child like you did.” Nikolaus, he remembers, but that was resolved so long ago, and yet the quip billows from him like the black smoke as though it happened only yesterday. That isn’t what he wanted to say, and yet the rage builds inside him and refuses to reveal even an ounce of kindness or understanding. Inwardly, he wants to apologize, and the softness glimmers in his eyes for a single heartbeat, but then the ropes and chains of his counterpart pull him back into the abyss.

”You left,” he knows why and yet the tone is accusatory and angry, unrestrained, ”Where have you been?” Possessive. Territorial. Volatile. The pieces are fitting together, obscuring the one thing that Castile embraces in his other form: empathy.

castile

@[sochi]

[sochi]

SOCHI

His voice stops her. Catches her. Enough that she pauses her walk and turns slowly around to regard him once more with that same cool expression, her silver eyes mercurial but her face otherwise unaffected. Her lips twitch into a cold smile. “I pride myself on hunting whatever I like but I was not looking for this one, Castile.” His name sounds like a weapon in her mouth and there’s a part of her that mourns that. That mourns that she cannot glory in the strength of him like this or that they cannot both turn to the hunt.

Mourns what had been.

But the sorrow turns to pain at what he says next although she gives no outward expression of it. She remains as still as stone as he turns the loss of their child against her and buries it to the hilt in her chest. She bites down and a muscle jumps in her jaw but she says nothing for a second until she is certain that she is composed and that when she speaks again, her voice will continue to be even.

“One can only hope,” she manages around an empty smile. “Perhaps if she does you will not fail in finding the child this time.” She throws a casual glance at his wings, studying them, before letting her gaze rest on his draconic face again, the message clear: of the two of them, a dragon would have had a much easier time flying North to locate their wayward son. Still, she shrugs, an apathetic gesture that doesn’t speak to the churning of her stomach and that furious need to find relief for the pressure.

“I hope your child with the lamb is strong enough to survive should that happen.”

Another pause as she makes to leave again, having no interest in prolonging this moment—no interest in squaring off against the only thing she has ever loved for the sole purpose in exchanging barbs. But, again, he catches her, anchors her with his demands and the barest hint of heat flashes in her eyes.

“Where I’ve been is none of your damn business,” a flick of her tail. “You’re not mine, and I’m not yours any longer.” She jerks her head in the direction of the common lands. “But she may very well be. I have no idea. Don’t you think you should go hoard that which you still own?”

she said a war ain't a war before both sides bleed

[Castile]

and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left
a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was

He has her attention now. Even as Sochi tries to walk away from him, his words are hooks. Slowly, she turns, and there is a nonchalance neutralizing her face. It unravels him more, and he cannot help to wish he could dive into her mind and thumb through her thoughts. Is she so far gone that anger drowns in her wake? Is this truly it – the end - , and she is a hollowed shell? The rhythm of his heart stutters – dare he say, fearfully? – as she threatens to take her leave, building the wall back around her heart and closing him out in the process. It all rattles him to his core, but he sits there, staring at her, defiantly. ”Part of me doubts that,” he growls, his voice trembling the ground beneath him as he tries everything to keep her here, even if it is by arguing still.

This will break her and destroy us… our family...
(Good)

Castile’s empathy gasps for air in its struggle to surface. ”We both—“ tried, he almost says. They looked for their boy, oblivious to where he could have been. ”I—“ there’s a softness in him that breaks the chains, but then it’s roped back down in a heated struggle between what is him – truly him – and what is monster. ”Perhaps your hunting skills aren’t as great as you think,” he seethes with a blazing stare that pierces into her while she observes the wings coiled against his sides. It obvious what she means, but Castile refuses to accept the responsibility as he is now.

He had accepted it initially, when it all happened. They searched, and they mourned together over their futile efforts. They were adamant, even after their failures. Castile is aware of that, the memories stabbing painfully through him. Alas, invulnerable threads of thought weave a blanket over what he knows. What his counterpart – what the creature – wants to think is what rises to the forefront, suppressing Castile’s better judgment and sympathy.

In front of her, the dragon falters with clashing effort, but it is the primal rage that spurs him forward and lands him in Sochi’s exiting path. ”That is where you are wrong,” he argues feverishly as the entire length of his body circles around her, the smallest of gaps left open between the edges of his tail and muzzle. ”It remains my business,” because you’re still mine, he doesn’t add with every ounce of his energy, tensing his jaw with the effort. ”Neither of us are letting go,” despite how tender that should be, how loving, the words are instead strained and aggressive, tainted by the tumultuous crash of emotions wracking his entire core. ”We are not done!” The magnitude of his voice claps the air like thunder, his eyes flash like lightning. An unyielding obstacle to her exit, Castile holds steadfast, smoke coiling from his nostrils, daring her.

”No,” he flatly demands, snarling and refusing to let her slip through his fingers.

castile

@[sochi]

[sochi]

SOCHI

Seeing him falter should be enough to give her pause. Enough to make her regret the callous edge of her words, but she is too far gone now to backtrack. He had been the one to drag Nikolaus into this. He had been the one to turn it on her. He was the reason that they were even in this mess and if there was fault to be shared among them, her arrogance keeps her from claiming even a piece of it. Instead she continues to walk away, only pulling up short when he physically moves to block her.

Fury tears through her, pounding against her chest and blinding her. She shifts without thinking, the body of prey melting into her more predatorial form. It’s not an even match. She knows that. Knows that a tiger can’t take on a dragon but she’s never been one to back down from a fight and she refuses to back down now. He would overcome her in the end, but she would do as much damage as she could before then—and the resolve flashes across her feline face as her lips peel back and a snarl rips through her.

“So now what, Castile?” She throws his name out again, leaning back to stare at him in his reptilian eyes, her face hard and impassive. “You shatter our relationship and then chain me here to make me watch the ruins? Would you like me to raise your young with other women? Play midwife to your latest treasure?”

Her claws dig into the soil beneath her, flexing with her anger.

Part of her wants to launch at him. Wants to sink her teeth into whatever scaled part of him she can reach but there is enough of her still rational enough to withhold, to stay still—vibrating with rage but not directing the inertia in his direction. “Do you think so little of me that you could have whatever you wish and I am not afforded the same?” She squares her shoulders. “You acted as a dragon. Hoarded your gold. Don’t walk back on it now. Go and claim your prize.” She ignores the ache that spreads in her, the weakness of her want—the pain that would turn her fury soft on her tongue. “Let me go.”

she said a war ain't a war before both sides bleed

[Castile]

and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left
a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was

Why is such a great part of him reveling in her anguish and fury? Her voice, crackling like a storm cloud, electrifies his body, and it vibrates pleasurably for a fleeting moment as Castile wars with himself. His grip on reality – on his sanity – fumbles, the ledge slippery. ”Sochi,” he says, the empathy in him desperate to find purchase, his tone oddly softer even as black smoke follows. Of course, he knows he is in the wrong, that he is the reason they are crumbling, but his pride matches her own, coming to a stalemate with eyes that furiously stab into one another. ”No,” he echoes, shaking his immense skull slowly while he gropes for answers to her. His heart screams to apologize, but his cruel, malicious mind refuses to fold.

”It isn’t shattered,” he growls, adamant to hold the remnants of their relationship in his arms to nurse it back to health. This act, this mistake, has ruined them, and he sees it in her eyes but refuses to let it go. ”Bent, but not broken,” he adds, considerably soft for his size and manner, but his voice is still strained through a filter. Feverishly, Castile tries to blot away the voice creeping back to the forefront of his mind. No, no, no, he thinks to himself, shutting his eyes and shaking his head to suppress the primal rage again. ”I’m not whole without you,” the confession spills, but it’s the last trickle of warmth able to escape until his heart wrenches and his neck arches.

Another flash of his eyes that smolders and dares her to pounce when he traces the outline of her feline body.

Another snarl.

A wave of emotions crashes against his consciousness, dizzying him as the hiss surpasses his own inner strength. ”I could break you, make it so you can’t leave,” his mouth opens threateningly, a firelight burning at the back of his throat in warning.

Burn her, the cold, venomous voice says, but Castile fights it again. Seeing her – truly seeing Sochi – is the one thing keeping him afloat, if even treading water, on the verge of slipping beneath the waves. It’s her that he fights himself for, even as she stares at him with steely resolve. He wants her to stay, but each passing second is increasingly perilous.

Don’t hurt her.
(She’s hindering us)
I love her.
(Weak…)

”I’m dangerous,” he spits as he arches his neck and slams his tail down, startling some rocks from their pits and rolling them down the hill. A labored breath burns his lungs and hisses through his teeth. ”I’ll find you,” but not even Castile is certain who is thinking – speaking – when he blinks and looks at her. Either it will be him when all of this has subsided, or it will be the monstrosity seeking an invigorating hunt.

castile

@[sochi]

[sochi]

SOCHI

She wars with the things that clash in her chest—with the things that threaten to tear her apart. The pieces of her that soften at his confession, that latch onto the pieces of him that she sees within the reptilian eyes. The pieces of her that grow infuriated that he would drag this out, would force her to argue over the love and life that he has so deftly killed, the carcass torn asunder before them. She snarls to match his own.

For a moment, she says nothing—does not bother to respond to the things that he tosses her way.

It isn’t shattered.

It is bent, not broken.

I am not whole without you.

The words ring in her ears and stoke the flames in her heart until they roar up her throat, until she tastes the ash on her tongue and mourns the death of it. Still, he follows them up with more threats and its enough to keep her resolve, to keep her growling and not softening, to stand off against him.

“Maybe,” she admits he says that he could break her. She knows that it’s true. Her arrogance is not so great that she thinks that she could take on a dragon and walk away unscathed, but her knowledge of such things has also never stopped her from trying. It didn’t stop her from yelling at Carnage, at thumbing her nose at the dark god. It wouldn’t stop her now. Even when it was Castile that she was facing off against.

She doesn’t flinch when he slams his tail, her lips pulling back over her teeth. “You’re not the only thing that’s dangerous here,” she snarls, flexing her claws. “And you better hope like hell you have your shit together before you do.” Like him, she’s not sure what she truly means. Did she hold onto hope that he would come back as himself? Did she hope he would be together enough to make it a worthy hunt?

It doesn’t matter.

Because her patience has worn thin and without thinking, she roars and launches forward, swiping her paws at whatever piece of him she can find. Hoping that his face is low enough that she can find purchase on the more delicate pieces of it—the eyes, the nostrils. Enough to distract him that she can jump over his tail and run forward into the shadows. Where she should have been instead of this fruitless encounter. 

she said a war ain't a war before both sides bleed

@[Castile]

[Castile]

and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left
a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was

With narrowed, angry eyes, Castile continues to observe the rigidity of  Sochi’s body. He cannot – will not – let her go. Not now, not ever. His heart, buried beneath his fiery pride and stubbornness, yells and reaches out for her, but she isn’t at all receptive. She locks him with a similar stare, one in which frightens him that this is very well the end of their life together.

”Don’t,” he mumbles as her eyes flash as bright as her pointed teeth. It would be unlike him to beg, but as he wars internally with himself, there is a sliver of hope that he will fold underneath her. It crosses his mind. Apologize, that inner voice yells, admit you were wrong.

(Revel in this)
(Solitary hunter)
(Freedom)

Castile’s head lowers to confront her, his snarl matching her own ferocity, but it rips into a bellowing roar as she pounces. Her claws swipe against his nostrils, down to his lip. Reactively, his head jerks away, shaking away the sudden sting.

(Kill her)

Without thought – his better judgment – he claps his jaws together near where he last saw her, but there is only cold air that rushes from between his teeth. No flesh, no blood.

She is gone.

He does not follow her trail; not even a glance is spared toward the direction from where she came. Pieces of his heart breaks, the pain rising in his throat as the feral voice recedes in smug victory. A slow breath of resignation, a sense of loss. A low growl reverberates through him in distressed finality before taking flight and ascending to his throne above the clouds.

castile