[private] a war ain't a war before both sides bleed; ghaul / straia

[sochi]

SOCHI

She is glad to put the field behind her.

Glad to rid herself of the self-inflicted situation. She had recognized all too quickly just what a mistake it had been, what a miscalculation it had been on her part, but that hadn’t been enough for her to just walk out of it. Still, she is glad that she had managed to take the first step in achieving her goal—that she had found a pseudo-home, even if she had no real intentions of putting down roots there. She simply needed a place to serve as a base for a while. A place for others to gather to the idea before they took off again.

The fact that it was with the strange dragon-stallion is a comfort, although she is not sure why. They aren’t exactly friends by the most traditional standards, but she finds he is easy for her to read. She understands the things that drive him because, in part, they are the things that drive her. She knows the hunger and the primal urges and the fact that their friendship was struck by blood and fire, she is okay with. She is certain that it will not be the first or last time that they come to blows with one another.

Still, she walks quietly beside him until she reaches the Cove.

In her youth, it had been a part of the Hyaline Sanctuary, but she had not spent much time here. She simply knew of it as the off-shoot of that grandiose plan. She finds that she prefers it like this. The quiet wasteland of it growing beneath Ghaul and the East into something entirely different, entirely new.

When they arrive, crossing the border, she angles a look at him.

“I promised you that I would not come empty-handed.”

She wonders if she will still be able to uphold that promise.

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

@[ghaul] @[Straia]

[ghaul]

GHAUL

i can take you there, but baby, you won't make it back

He does not typically speak except to offer up grim riddles of a divine conquest, nor is he one for friendly banter. Their journey back to his nesting grounds is quiet until they cross the border. Whether the entity she promised was real or not, he is glad that she has chosen to follow him. Her strength would be squandered elsewhere. This world seeks to contain and muzzle their magpie eyes for greatness. He leans his head down to breathe a soft laugh over the crown of her head.

“The Cove will shelter you for as long as you like, regardless of your offerings,” he explains, turning his attention to the brood in his nearby nest. “My only law is that my clutch is to remain untouched. Anyone who goes near them will be torn apart and fed to them.”

He stares at them for a while longer, admiring the little buds of warmth in each shell before looking back to her. Though his expression is often hard to read, the flatline of his lips conveys a grave intensity. Ghaul would set fire to every cradle in the nation if his children were ever harmed. But Sochi is a predator with offspring of her own and so he doesn’t feel the need to expand on the matter. Maybe she could even be the one executing anyone breaking this law.

What a bonding experience that would be.

“What are your plans for this life, Sochi? I seek conquest, to enslave every master and destroy every crown,” he explains as his previous frown twists upwards. He has dreamt of a world on fire before ever tearing his way from his mother’s womb. It brings him a sense of comfort to imagine the kind of might that will be forged in the ashes he leaves behind.

[Straia]

is this the end of everything?

STRAIA

or is it just a new way to bleed?

”Everyone seeks conquest, in some way or another,” comes a voice, cool and smoky and unimpressed, before the black and white mare appears. There is nothing particularly remarkable about her. No horns, no wings, no strange coloring. She is simply a mare, though one with lifetimes in her amber eyes, one that holds herself in a way that screams of power. Something beyond the magic they know, something primal, instinctual, tied to this place they call Beqanna. She is a part of it now, shaped and made into something new.

Nearby, a tree grows from the ground at rapid-speed, a pine-tree that once belonged to the place Straia had called home. As it reaches its full height, the tree begins to burn. It is a tree made of pine needles and fires, though the fire does not consume the wood. No, it would simply burn forever. Her eyes turn to the two figures before her, and though she knows them both, she cares only for Sochi.

“This is where you have settled, for now?”

[sochi]

SOCHI

They walk in companionable silence and she only bristles slightly at the feel of his touch on the top of her head. Her silvery eyes are sharp when they slant upward, her smile tight. “You should know better than anyone that I do not require sheltering,” her voice is soft as she practically purrs it, her head leaning up to brush against the scars she has left on the more sensitive parts of his flesh. She does need what he offers though—she knows that—and so she doesn’t push the matter. For now, her pack does need a home.

When he gives her his one warning, the one thing she can’t touch, she makes a sound in the back of her throat. “I have little desire to go after your offspring,” she muses. For all of her flaws and questionable morales, she has never truly desired to go after the completely vulnerable. There is no thrill in the hunt when the prey cannot fight back—when they cannot draw her own blood or put up a defense.

Still, she understands the need to protect and she rolls her shoulder.

She can accept those terms.

“I seek freedom,” she says simply, knowing that it is a direct contrast to his need to conquest. “I look for a new way of living—a chance to form my own rules and create my own world.” A more natural order, in some ways, but she knows that it will require sacrifice to get it. “I’m willing to do what it takes to reach that. I do not mind supporting one conquerer should I think they will turn a blind eye to me.”

Her thoughts are interrupted when Straia arrives and there is something like familiarity in the way that her lips quirk upward. “In one way or another,” she echoes in agreement. That her idea of conquest is over the current status quo matters little to her. Instead she shifts her weight, holding the others gaze for a moment before glancing around. She watches as the tree expands, its roots reaching deep into the earth.

She glances back with the reflection of fire in her mercurial gaze.

“For now.”

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

@[ghaul]