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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


    blood in the water; Aquaria
    #1

    give my all just to watch you fall

    That cub-bastard never said anything about monsoon season on his nickel tour.

    Titanya sulks through the forest in her tiger skin, palm fronds and banana leaves battering her sides in the blustering breeze.  She could have never imagined weather like this.  In all the many places she’s rested her head, there has never been a storm quite like the one she now flees.  Sure, the Dale had had its hailstorms and Taiga had its drenching, soaking rains that sputtered down between the pines, but nothing like this.  One queen palm leans precariously over her head.  She stops to eye it warily, watching to make sure it doesn’t come crashing down upon her.  They are made for this type of violent movement, she knows, but she’ll be damned if she adopts a false sense of security just to find out that this one is an exception to the rule.

    When the tree slows its crazed motions, the tigress pads forward again.  She follows a trail she’s become quite familiar with during her extended stint in Ischia.  It takes a northern route to the heart of the island, bypassing thick jungle foliage and jagged rises until the lush waterfalls can be heard even from a great distance away.  She much prefers the innermost parts of the island, even without a possible hurricane bearing down on the beaches.  The majority of the residents seem drawn to the sandy shores, besides.
     
    Let them have the surf; she’ll take the dark, rich, secret jungle any day.

    Close to the waterfalls, Titanya noses the muddy path.  There are fresh hoofprints – a rarity on her other explorations – and she lifts her whiskered muzzle into the air to breath in the scent.  It isn’t Halcyon. It isn’t anyone she knows, and she frowns a little even as she moves forward to see who she will be forced to hunker down with. 

    Pushing through the ferns, she spots a pale mare beside the lake.  The roar of the waterfalls is loud enough to drown out any sound of her approach, though she’s not trying to be intentionally devious.  Well, not anymore devious than she always is. The other’s back is turned to her, and Titanya means to sidle right on by her without being noticed.  But her paw snaps a dried out piece of coconut shell as she goes.  Growling under her breath, she turns to face the stranger, her yellow eyes boring a hole into her.

    Titanya

    Photo by Keyur Nandaniya


    @[Aquaria]
    Reply
    #2
    aquaria
    - THE TIDE IS HIGH, IT'S SINK OR SWIM -

    Aquaria loved the storms. They wracked the island with wind and rain, brought down trees and flooded the low beaches and meadows. It was unequivocal chaos. That wasn't what she loved. It was the way the island recovered from each and every one with graceful ease. 

    New trees grew every year, the shorelines formed and reformed continually. New treasures were deposited on the sand by deep waves. The parrot colonies weathered the seasons as they always had, the fish migrated as they always had, and as she hoped they always would. It was her home, in weather foul and fair. 

    Where she rested today was by the broad waterfall spun into the earth. It was swollen with the rainfall, the banks swung broad beyond their traditional bounds. Aquaria watched the swirling wavelets lap at the mud where her hooves sank. Fat drops of rain spattered against her neck and back, trailing rivulets that ran across her body to meet their greater collective as it flowed. Her fins hung loose and relaxed across her shoulders and by her heels, shedding the rain as quickly as it fell. 

    The sound of a cracking shell did not draw her attention. It was the feeling of being watched that turned her head, ears pricked and eyes sharp through the curtains of water falling from the skies. Amethyst gaze fell on a striped coat that slunk towards her. 

    "Hal-! Oh." The feline figure resolved through the rain, and she knew it was not her child. A tiger, yes, but without her son's pattern, or his eyes. Even her gait was unlike Halcyon's. The mermare blinked at the approaching cat, he lips a delicate 'O' of surprise. 

    It was not her Halcyon, but there was intelligence in her eyes and the pearl woman suspected that their was more to the sodden feline than the surface would suggest. She cleared her throat softly. "Hello," she called, loud enough to be heard over the downpour. "I don't believe we've met. Would you like to get out of the rain?" There were volcanic caves she knew of that residents often used to escape the storms. They were not obviously placed, however, and a newcomer would not likely have heard of them.

    - MY ONLY RIVAL IS WITHIN -

    @[Titanya]
    Reply
    #3

    give my all just to watch you fall

    The mare starts to turn just after the snap of the shell punctuates Titanya’s otherwise passive, would-be passage.  She is increasingly disenchanted with the idea of having to socialize when it becomes obvious that she will be forced to.  It also becomes clear that she has well and truly surprised this stranger with her untimely arrival.  She’s not sure if it is customary for Ischian’s to draw out their “hellos” or if this lady simply is shocked into incoherence (though, to be fair, she’s certainly drawn enough ire in her day to warrant a similar reaction).  

    Her growl lingers a moment longer, though it is so low, perhaps, that the rain completely drowns it out. 

    The other woman clarifies the second time with a far more traditional hello, but Titanya can’t help herself.  “Um, hal-oh yourself?”  She watches the mare with her inscrutable feline gaze, searching for any sign of fear or discomfort at being so near a predator.  Finding none, she is nonplussed.  Usually, she can at least count on a whiff of terror scenting the air that she can use to her advantage, if the need arises.  But this one gives her no such indication of uncertainty.  Of course, theirs is a strange world and growing stranger by the day.  The tigress spares a longer look at the mare’s fins as if to confirm this fact for herself.  Strange indeed.

    I don’t mind the rain, is what she should say.  Instead, “I don’t make a habit of waltzing into caves with strangers.  Unless I’m utterly famished that is.”  She lifts one corner of her lips in a half smirk, revealing a single gleaming fang.  “Then it is rather a treat.”  She assumes it’s a cave of some sort, anyway.  There surely isn’t a tree big or canopy dense enough to keep their asses from hanging out in this weather, even if their skulls stay dry. 

    She rolls her shoulders and takes a step towards the waterborne-mare, but the motion is one of languid ease instead of the low and sharp staccato of the hunt.  The rain continues to pummel the both of them as it falls, the fast rate of it splattering mud up the tiger’s legs and belly.  She pays it no mind, however, as she moves closer to the waterfall and the woman framed by it.

    “Titanya,” she says by way of introduction, just feet away.  As the last syllable of her name fades away, so, too, does the feline skin she wears.  She rises and continues rising over the other one, finally looking down to meet her blue-violet gaze with her own amber eyes.  In this form, she is as formidable – if not more so – than as a tiger.  But she doesn’t think she has to worry about this stranger and any secrets she might have of her own.  She rather wishes she did.  She’s been scratching at the itch for a fight since the day she was born.

    Titanya

    Photo by Keyur Nandaniya


    @[Aquaria]
    Reply
    #4
    aquaria
    - THE TIDE IS HIGH, IT'S SINK OR SWIM -

    A ghost of a smile flit across Aquaria's mouth. Not Halcyon, that was certain. Too brash by far, even as sodden wet as this tigeress was. There was still an edge of unfazed steel beneath her feline features that struck the sea mare. For a moment it seemed like the striped creature was waiting for something. A sign or signal that Aquaria couldn't guess at. 

    The next moment she relaxed somewhat, and shrugged off her offer of drier lodging. To each their own. As scaly and finned as a fish, the Dame was more or less unbothered by the heavy rainfall. It was not being wet that annoyed her so much as the steady weight of drops on her back. The fanged maw of the tiger woman could almost be interpreted as a smile when she spoke words clearly meant to spur reaction. 

    "I'll count myself lucky that you're not hungry, then," she commented dryly, water dripping from the end of her pale muzzle. Truthfully though, she felt no reason to be afraid of the patterned female before her. Perhaps raising Hal had made her complacent of teeth and claws, or perhaps it was simply that she knew far more frightening things existed beneath the surf. 

    Her smile flowed more naturally when her companion at last gave her name, the twisting of bone and sinew that followed it a fascinating display. Hal shifted so rarely, his comfort found in the sleek feline body he'd been born with. To see this woman, Titanya, move so easily between one shape and the next was a curious thing. 

    A beat followed between Titanya's shift and Aquaria's response, the seamare blinking languidly at the now night dark woman. She was young looking, more so than had been guessed at by voice alone. "Aquaria," she answered in kind, head dipped ever so slightly. "What brings you to my island, Titanya?"

    - MY ONLY RIVAL IS WITHIN -

    @[Titanya] sorry this is so so late >.<
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