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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


    walking on sunshine; balto
    #1
    As much as she loved their ragtag band of her cougar-mate and their beloved roan friend, she longed for something else to fill her days. Not that the days of looking on as the babies grew and played and came into their own was not interesting enough. Her own daughter was some prehistoric mix of mother and father that Keeper adored and admired. But something in the wild blue yonder kept calling to her.

    So, Keeper answered it.
    Not as the lovely dunskin mare with the wind-knotted hair but as the lumbering grizzly bear that she had come to favor so much over her horse shape.

    The bear knew what it wanted and sought it: salmon in the river, plentiful and deep; honey in the forest, buzzing hives and happiness; mushrooms beneath the moonlight and a cave that was visited often with vines at the entrance to it. She’d slumbered there once or twice just to be near his scent. How or why it still lingered was never asked just assumed as part of memory and magic. 

    Keeper covers a lot of ground until the forest comes into view. Her piggish eyes squint as her mouth opens to let loose a happy roar. Honey, and more, lie in this forest and she is happy as can be as she barges into it. There was no grace in this form, just brute strength and little stopped her as she found a hive to bother. She swatted at the bees with a big paw and knocked the hive loose, barreling off with it until she found a clearing near the familiar cave to settle into.

    The grizzly sat down and leaned back against a tree with her prize. It didn’t take long for her to get sticky or sleepy, and before she knew it, the bear was stretched out asleep and snoring. The snoring woke Keeper sometime later and she wasn’t all that surprised to find herself back as a horse. That happened often during sleep, the shift as subtle as the blink of an eye. All around her lay the smashed and broken remnants of the hive, honeycombed and a few lifeless bee-bodies.

    She climbed to her feet and felt honey on her lips, delicious of course and knew that she’d be just as sticky in this shape. Keeper almost turned her head to go home until she sniffed the air - something on it shook things loose from deep inside her. Before she knew it, she was standing before the vine-covered mouth of the cave with her breath caught in her throat and a single name trembling from her lips, “Balto?”

    @[Balto] so I did a thing ❤️
    Reply
    #2

    i’ve been both a saint & a viper

    It had been a long time since there had been movement at the mouth of the cave.

    It has also been a long time since there was movement inside of it. The nights bled into days and time was never ending, looped and twisted into only darkness and stone. He stands like a shadow himself, swaying in the pitch of darkness to the drones of whispers and distant howls. His head is low to the cold stone of the cavern’s floor, mumbling and murmuring to himself, finding comfort in their panting voices, the delicate and evil whispers that plague him day and night. He’s wasted into nothingness; mere bone with sagging blue mottled skin, eyes sunken and nearly closed. He prays for death and he is only met with wicked laughter - you’ll never die!

    He’d left the corpse rotting in the pits of the cavern and it is nearly only bones now. Sometimes he swears there is a voice murmuring to him from its jaw; sometimes it comes to life and rattles as it drags itself towards him, cursing him with its ghostly breath. Death and darkness and demons darken the cavern’s doors, though from the outside it is merely a cave mouth with dark, swaying vines across its entrance like teeth. Hell awaits anyone who dare venture inside - where a crazed man locked himself in with the monsters that haunt and torture him.

    “Balto?”

    The trance is broken and despite his weakening body physically, the stallion’s head is thrown upwards. His brow furrows, confused. Who is that? they ask him, even though they know the answer, sniggering in his ears as they begin to weave around his legs, purring like cats as they rub against his weary body. He blinks ferociously, shaking his head and squeezing his eyes shut. Tell them to leave. He snorts, shivering as one of the demons runs its warm tongue across his cheek and then into his ear. He does nothing, merely stares at the entrance where sunlight spills in, frozen.

    Tell her to leave. They order him again, more firmly this time. Snapping at his brittle bones, pulling at his mane and forelock. Balto swallows, taking a single step forward. Their voices clash in his head, rumbling with a mixture of anger and pleasure. To the visitor outside, she would only begin to hear the clattering sound of hooves against stone.

    He is still far from the entrance when he halts. They are howling and whistling and purring, pricking at his skin and biting his ankles. Tell her to leave! they order, tightening in close to him, squeezing him until his breath runs ragged. “Keeper?” He barely gets her name out, but he knows it's her. It’s always her.

    They swarm him and try to bend his bones in anger for resisting their requests. His blue eyes burn as the light cascades through the entrance, attempting to peer through the thick vines to see her familiar shape. As he strains against them, short clattering steps are taken with each ragged exhale. Then, suddenly, they release him. He is met with the cold, damp air of his cavern and the silence that accompanies it. Their demands have changed; they whisper to him, then vanish.

    Tell her to stay, tell her to join us.

    Balto




    @[keeper] 
    yay!!! i have no idea what's going to happen but I'm so glad you wrote to me and to Balto! <3
    Reply
    #3
    Horse or bear, she never retraced her steps to places she had known before except here. She’d always come down this particular forest path and poke her nose in this particular cave just to sniff the air and think she still smelled his scent on it. It was the one link she had to him besides her memories and those couldn’t be trusted because they tricked her heart into feelings she knew she had but shouldn’t. Then again, Keeper always knew her heart was too big to love monogamously. 

    She has gone on to be a lover and a mother and settle into the bliss of days that are always the same with a small herd and children underfoot. But that never stopped her from leaving in the dark to run to a place and a time that made her heart palpitate in such a way that the pain of it was exquisite. It was like when she found her mushrooms and gorges on them, or swiped a big paw through a hive to get the delicious honey inside. 

    He was like a taste she couldn’t get enough of - a wine, dark and mottled with notes of dusk and shadow. Keeper wanted to drink him down as if he was the last drop of pure glacial water running down the inside of that cave that had always been the dividing line between them. She couldn’t explain it and didn’t bother to figure it out; she just felt the emotion and let it control her and refused to think of the consequences later. All of that could be damned, this was Balto! - and his name rang through her like a song that could never be forgotten.

    Keeper is unaware of his torment; of the demons that coax and cajole in his ears and plague his spirit. She could not combat them anyway, lacking any magic but the bear inside her and unable to take such pains away from him. If asked, she would do anything she could to make him whole again and less damaged, had she been aware of just how changed he was. She’d had an inkling of it not long after he came back from a quest but never really knew just how different he’d become. 

    In the meantime, she hangs in the grasp of sunlight and vines at the cave’s mouth; half in and half out like she usually does, never fully intruding on his space. Her ears cane forward at the sound of hoof on stone which confirmed all her hopes and lifted her heart up from its interrupted beat of nerves and fears that it would be someone other than him. It still could be but scent and sound told her otherwise and she chose to believe them, as her senses had not failed her yet. Even the bear gave a throaty rumble of pleasure from somewhere deep inside her.

    “Keeper?”

    Yes, oh yes! She wants to shout out her joy to him but this cave has always been a place of hush and secrets and she honors that by answering him back with a low whicker of confirmation. Emotion takes hold and chokes her anyway, so she probably wouldn’t have even been able to say all the things that came to mind in the first place. Chiefly a plea to don’t go and a desire to beg him to stay. Except a strange thought occurred to her then - she was always the one coming and going, as if even the wind couldn’t keep her in one spot.

    “It’s me,” she finally manages around a thick lump of emotion because she wants to bulrush the cave-mouth and press every inch of her to him until there is no telling where one of them begins and the other ends, just a jumble of horseflesh and them, them, them. Her heart knows better than her brain and she is breaching the vined threshold to be nearer to him, his scent a beacon as she sniffs and blinks at the sudden darkness. Her eyes adjust and she finds him, he looks different but then she imagines, she does too. Time does that but it doesn’t matter to her.

    Just him, Balto. She smiles and offers him her nose before deciding that’s too shy and she skims it across his jawline before she can stop herself. “Oh I’ve missed you!” she breathes out, in confession and relief and happiness. Other things come to mind that she wants to say or ask but the timing doesn’t seem right, Keeper has never been one to pry and she just wants to be there, for him and with him. She feels like part of her has come home, and he’s always been a reason to haunt the forest in either shape in hopes of stumbling across him like it was an unplanned accident. 

    @[Balto] me either but I couldn’t resist! Can’t wait to see how this goes lol. ❤️
    Reply
    #4

    i’ve been both a saint & a viper

    He hesitates. 

    The familiar whispers (devilish, simpering voices that he’s come to find almost comforting) remain silent after their final decree, their grip on his body and mind relinquished. He cannot help but fear how long this moment will last - a semblance of peace and clarity - and at the same time, feels a lurch of excitement in his stomach that flutters up through his heart and into his throat. The sense of foreboding still clings to him like a fog, hovering over him as a heavy cloak, thick and unmistakable. It is easy to ignore, though, for the time being because at the mouth of the cave is freedom: Keeper. 

    Her scent is glorious against the smell of stagnant water and still air; it makes him feel truly alive, despite the monsters that keep him beneath lock and key. His hooves click carefully on the damp stone, finding purchase expertly as he weaves himself through the twisting tunnels, eager to find her standing at the entrance like a shining beacon. It’s me. The sound of her encouragement allows him to leave the demons and the shadows behind him, feeling unafraid in this moment of clarity, wondering solemnly how long this bravery could possibly last. 

    It’s as if time hasn’t passed, suddenly, as the dark of his nose peeks out from beneath shadow and glistening stalactites. All those lonely and terrible years inside the stone of his cave seem to fall away into nothingness, almost as if he cannot even remember the torment that so rottenly plagues his mind. The sun meets his skin - even though it is meters away as it spills through the open mouth covered in thickly strewn vine - and he immediately shies away, that same fear and helplessness clouding his eyes. He can’t find the will to move further forward, towards her, and he feels as though he might collapse at the idea that he may only get to catch a glimpse of her.

    But his fears are quickly put at ease as she confidently comes to where he is, a shuddering sigh of relief audibly leaving the onyx of his mouth. Her touch sends his body shivering, suddenly craving the intimacy of another more than he could even dream of - even just a shy brush of her mouth against his jawline is enough for him to melt, to relax, to find himself dreaming of different circumstances.

    “You know I’ll always be here,” he murmurs back, his voice disgruntled and dry with disuse, yet somehow so warm despite the cold blackness of his cave. He cranes his neck to embrace her, ignoring the terrible chittering that echoes in the deep chasms behind them. You’ll always be here, they chant and sing patronizingly, keeping their distance but reminding the stallion that they are never truly gone. His eyes squeeze shut almost painfully and he takes a sweeping step towards her to keep her close, relishing the warmth of her supple skin and the safety it brings to him. “Just like I know you’ll always find me.”

    Balto

    Reply
    #5
    She longs to meld her form to his, to make the seams of them fit together in perfect harmony. That one touch wasn’t enough for her and a hunger built for more inside that poked at the pit of her belly, making the sleeping bear grumble just a little. Keeper swallowed back the noise that threatened to leave her throat like a mix of grizzly rumble and equine whicker. It would have been a noise caught somewhere in between a sob and a shout, something that knew of sadness and glee.

    Around his smell is the cave air that reeks of stagnation and dampness. There’s stone and moss on it too, and it has never been a scent to curdle the stomach but there’s something off-putting to it now. Almost like a sweet underlying stink of rot like death lurks in the back. It is enough to raise the hackles on the bear inside her but Keeper refocuses all of her attention on the blue roan stallion, on Balto because in the end, he’s all that matters. 

    None of the things that lurk in the deeper dark scare her. Perhaps they ought to but she has always had an unshakable trust in him that no harm could befall them as long as they were together. That somehow, as a pair, they’d combat all the ills in the world that came for them. It’s probably a silly notion, the kind that fills the heads of moonstruck fillies more so than grown mares but being around him always made her feel happily reckless and outside of the restraints of time.

    His hesitation the moment the light touches him is heartbreaking. It makes her wonder when the last time was that he stepped outside the cave. She hopes it wasn’t that night when she coaxed him outside into the moonlight, and at the same time, does hope it was that secret sacred moment that they shared together. But it’s a selfish thought and she has to push it out of her mind because she’s not an altogether selfish creature until it comes to him, then perhaps she is.

    She hears him sigh at her coming, at how the dark doesn’t scare her from him and sees the resulting shivers that course across his blue skin from her shy touch. Keeper wants to touch him again, not to make him shiver but to make the shivers stop until her touch is as welcome as the shadows are. She wants so badly to be the light in his darkness and hold the shadows at bay for just a little while. 

    Then he speaks and she’s lost in the warm disuse of his voice as it surrounds her and fills her up with the familiar sound of him. He embraces her then and she leans back into it, relaxed and happy as her heart gains wings and begins to soar right through her. “Always,” she echoes back with a smile on her lips; it might be his cave but she’ll always be able to find him here or some trace of him to give her unending hope.

    She remains close after their embrace, especially as he lurches toward her for more of that comforting closeness as the dark creeps in. Keeper hugs his shoulder with her own so that nothing can between them; their barrels and hips will touch in small intimate brushes of skin to skin so that it will be hard to tell where one of them begins and the other ends. It keeps the smile fixed to her face to feel him this close, to know that she can nose his nose or tug on the inky strands of his forelock. 

    Her head bobs in laughter as it spills out of her mouth in an exultant rush of assurance, “I’ll always look for you here and I’ll always find you. How could I not?” Indeed, how could she not? The very idea seemed preposterous that Keeper would not seek him out - he was her true north, and like the needle of a compass, her heart pointed her towards him. 

    Even as a bear, she sought out this part of the forest as if the bear knew the roan stallion and would still love him. Not that she was a stranger to interspecies love, but that she knew even as a bear she’d seek him out because the heart wants what the heart wants. It screamed inside her that it wanted him, beat its wings bloody against her ribcage just to say those three precious words that meant the world to her, that stayed quiet and pent up inside.

    “Balto…” she began before trailing off, not quite able to meet his eyes until the grizzly swiped a huge paw through her and she felt the claws undo all the fear and hesitation. “I love you,” she murmurs into his ear because that’s where her mouth has climbed before sliding back along his neck, trailing heartfelt touches and little sniffs of his scent until she just stops, drops her head back to its original position near his nose and waits for which seems like an eternity building up in that suddenly small cave. 

    @[Balto] omgerd she said it finally! lol
    Reply
    #6

    i’ve been both a saint & a viper

    She somehow sees past the brooding darkness that surrounds him, a feeling that cloaks him not only physically. Her heart is so enraptured with him that perhaps she refuses to see what truly lies before her: a broken man with a broken mind, where his will and his intent do not matter. The devils in his mind truly control him and as she curls into him he grimaces visibly, wondering why they would allow such peace and happiness to thrive in their darkness - what do they have planned for him? For Keeper?

    But he is selfish; he swathes himself in darkness and with her warmth, allowing both to mingle among each other. He knows he cannot have both - how can he? - but the mortal part of him is greedy, pulling her into his shoulder with his blue mottled neck curling around hers, brushing against her body like it is life itself (and it is). She smells of rich earth and open air, of freedom and peace, and he swallows her whole - engulfing her despite the shadows that watch with hidden, cheshire smiles and haunting howls of delight.

    She is so innocent, so perfect; how is it that he stands in her presence as he is now? A broken shell of a man, a puppet on strings for the darker parts of his own mind - one that has committed sins that he would not dare confess to her. He is darkness and she is light, and he knows he should keep her away, flush her out and force her away from him, but he wishes to drown in her presence despite it and pretend he is still that man she remembers - a quiet, introverted cave dweller with a heart of gold.

    Perhaps he is still that man, but they would never let him remember it.

    Her beautiful mouth speaks his name and he trembles, ready to bend before her and do whatever she asked of him. His own lips have already peppered her neck in ferocity, soaking in the warmth of her and the scent of her, greedy and unrelenting. I love you. The confession sends him reeling.

    They howl with laughter in his ears; the hot and putrid drool from their gnashing jaws click beside him. The stallion pulls her in close, tightly, holding onto the peace that Keeper brings him by her presence and confession alone - loved, of all things - clinging to her for hope.

    They are suddenly overwhelming in the way they drag themselves across his haunches and ribcage and he cannot ignore them any longer.

    “Keeper,” he begins, but his voice is not the same. It is dark and twisted, full of regret and deep sadness. I love you, are the words that wish to spill forth from him, hanging tightly onto his bated breath, desperate and true. But it is not what leaves his mouth. “It should not be me.” It’s all he tells her, still stroking her with such affection and longing that it proves his words false, heated and desperate kisses littering her neck and jaw. 

    Balto




    @[keeper]
    Reply
    #7
    Keeper cannot see the darkness engulfing him from the inside out. She is ignorant of it or chooses to be ignorant of it; recognizing instead, how he makes her feel which is luminous and light like a combination of sunbeams and air dancing together in the dark spots of the forest that they find and try to brighten. That’s Keeper - trying to bring brightness back to him however she can.

    He pulls her to him and it feels like coming home. Even the grumbly bear inside her murmurs in sleepy contentment at how he holds them, skin to skin and heat to heat. Like their bodies are two furnaces in the dark of that cave, futilely warming it up or at least, each other. In that moment, he can’t seem to get enough of her like gasping for air and she lets him have all that he wants - every snuffle and touch.

    She likes to think she’d never believe him capable of the dark things he’s done. That he treads water in the grasp of demons that oversee all that happens around him and to him, like now - how they hold one another close with unspoken promises to never let go. Keeper would believe anything he told her because he’s never lied to her, no one has. She has no true familiarity with lies.

    His kisses though, are the kind of distraction she wants to lay forever. The kind of kisses that linger and make one pine for one more taste of them because the memory is just that sweet. Tenderness be damned, she loved the fierce way he kissed her neck like every kiss was a mark or a warning to everyone else. It sent a little shiver all the way right through her because she liked that notion entirely too much.

    His, all his.

    All because she has finally said the words she’s been longing to say since that first night together. Or was it morning? Her memory makes the two nearly indistinguishable as there have been quite a few moments together in this cave or almost outside of it. Then, it doesn’t matter as he pulls her in close again, and she fits against him that embrace so very neatly like it’s what she was made for. 

    He says her name but not in a recognizable tone but the bear inside strengthens her, keeps her from flinching at the dark twist of his voice that slams against her ears and echoes in the cavern dark. He doesn’t say those three little words back. Or cannot, and it doesn’t matter because his love for her is there in the hot desperate kisses and the affectionate touch he gives her. All that says enough despite the words that tumbled from his mouth like ugly stones unwanted.

    Keeper doesn’t care; she clings to him like moss on the stone all around them. It would take a lot to scrape her off due to her sudden and inexplicable tenacity but she knows she isn’t going anywhere. Not for tonight at least, and not for as long as she can help it. Unless he asked her to leave but since he hasn’t, she feels a small sense of triumph despite what he’d said - that it shouldn’t be him but it is, it has been, and how could it not be?

    She gives him an unshakable smile and a laugh that is light and dismissive of his words; “But it is you and it will always be you!” Keeper is certain of that and her faith in her feeling is like a mountain, mostly immovable because even she knows that mountains can crumble - it just takes eons to wear them down to small simple rock. She’ll love him until the end of time, demons (unbeknownst to her!) be damned!

    @[Balto] late but ya know! ❤️
    Reply
    #8

    i’ve been both a saint & a viper

    He feels as whole as a broken thing like him could possibly be. In a desperate, fleeting moment he grasps hopefully at this feeling of normalcy, of clarity. It’s like she has brought the world into focus, chasing away all of the demons into their dark crevices and reminding him that he simply is, not a puppet on strings. She has no clue how much her presence means to him - or perhaps she does know, in the way he caresses her and greedily presses his mouth against her, swallowing up her electrifying presence as if his life depended on it.

    Maybe it did.

    “I’m a broken man,” he confesses through trembling lips, a deep sigh falling through his dark mouth as he continues to embrace her, “I don’t know if I can be fixed.” He breathes her in desperately, seeking solace from her presence selfishly like he’s always done, knowing that his darkness could hurt her but refusing to force her away, unable to pry himself from her.

    He finds himself pulling her deeper into his cavern, using her to cause the darkness and demons to flee; reminding himself that he is deserving of a good woman like Keeper, of her affections and her care. “Keeper,” he says her name again, this time as he has done in the past - with warmth in his voice and an almost trickle of laughter within it as she takes no heed to his warnings. He wonders if he were to run head first off a cliff if she would follow.

    The thought rouses them and he becomes still for a moment, ears tipping back and flickering behind him carefully, wondering if they were ready to pounce at him once again. He hears them rustling within the confines of the damp stone and rock, sharp claws and hunched, terrible bodies moving fluidly between the shadows. But they do not come at him, not yet, so the fear in his eyes falls away as he presses his gaze into her once again, drunk off the love and adoration in their familiar depths.

    “And it’s always been you,” he finally replies, his breath warm as it pulses hotly against her neck. He inhales, a bated breath that hangs precariously in the air, before quietly adding: “Do not leave me tonight.”

    Balto




    @[keeper]
    she is so cute 
    i just can't!
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