• Logout
  • 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


    [private]  I won't let you choke on the noose around your neck, sabbath
    #1
    so make your siren's call and sing all you want, I will not hear what you have to say --
    He was not like the rest, and he stayed quiet because of it.

    On the island where he had been born, he had often kept to himself, isolating himself away from the rest of his father’s kelpie brood. Despite sharing so much of the same characteristics, he could not relate to them. He lacked the seemingly inherent arrogance that was bred into most of them, and he found the overconfidence challenging to deal with. While he knows he has a cruel streak somewhere – beneath the layers of those hard, frosted scales – he was slow to anger and even more reluctant to strike. 

    He is maybe one of the few that has never killed anyone – not for a meal, and not for sport.

    He was not like the rest of them, and he could not deny the relief that washed over him when Ivar disappeared.

    He slipped into the ocean one night, and without a backward glance, he made his way toward the mainland.
    He leaves behind his mother and younger brother, and if there is guilt in this, he swallows it away.

    The moon was still high in the sky when he reached Tephra, and he shifts completely into his equine form as he emerges from the water. The silver light of the moon glints off the frost of his scales, and with a vigorous shake he sends water flying from his sapphire mane and tail. The wet tendrils cling to his neck as he pauses to survey his surroundings, his eyes lingering on the volcano that smolders in the distance. It is a sound from the opposite direction that causes him to turn his head, though, his bright blue eyes sharpening on a nearby figure.
    VARICK



    @[Sabbath]
    #2
    SabbatH
    i'll let you play the role. i'll be your animal.
    Some people are able to distill their pain into something beautiful: a scarred fragility that survives in spite of the wars it has withstood. But Sabbath is not one of these creatures. She cut her teeth on agony, and it shows in the way she slinks along the shadows. The canopy overhead keeps the jungle darker than some areas but she sees just fine with help from the thick heat. Her forked tongue slips from her mouth and catches the scent of salt-water a little closer inland than normal.

    Slowly, her head turns in his direction and she studies him from afar - scaled and sharp-toothed, like her. A monster, like her. Some primal rage festers in her gut and she stalks closer until a twig snaps beneath her hoof. Sabbath pauses only for a moment when he turns to face her. She does not cower, though, and instead rushes forward with her fangs bared. She will taste his throat and be rid of him before he makes it further into their home, she thinks.

    But those frigid scales are harder than hers and she winces when her fangs are deflected. A dragon, then? Father had told her of the cousins to the east. She bristles at the thought and her scales raise in a primitive threat display as she steps back.

    Why’ve you come from the sea? To sneak in where you were not invited?” she snaps, tail twitching irritably. Those sage green eyes remain trained on his just as her ears remain pinned back.
    @[Varick]
    #3
    so make your siren's call and sing all you want, I will not hear what you have to say --
    He only catches a glimpse of her before she is suddenly rushing at him.

    In that glimpse, he manages to deduce that she is lovely, with crimson dapples and scales across her face. He has never seen scales on anyone else besides the others on the island, but this is not what interests him. It is her eyes that he notices the most; sage-green and so sharp he might cut himself on their edges.

    And then her teeth are at his throat, and though his ears flatten into the wild tangles of his mane and he throws his head up, her actions do not incite anger from him. Her teeth meet the hard frost of his dragon-like scales, and after taking a step back, he cannot help the low laugh that rumbles in his chest. “Easy there, viper,” he chides her, his voice rolling from his tongue like water as he tilts a far too handsome head so that he might observe her better.

    She is still standing there, glowering and defensive, but he has already lowered his head and settled into a relaxed stance. The ocean breeze tugs and pulls at the strands of hair that have begun to dry, and he cannot fight the lazy smile that curls at the edge of his lips when he answers her, “I wasn't trying to sneak anywhere. If I were, you wouldn't have found me.”

    He does not address the fact that he was, in fact, uninvited. He supposes she is correct on that point but is unconcerned by it. “My name is Varick,” he tells her, and he catches himself tracing the curve of her cheek with his eyes before they are again drawn back to her green ones. His face remains placid, bordering on the edge of unreadable, but the relaxed lines of his face and the easy curve of his lips suggests he does not intend to challenge her. “Do I get to learn your name, or are you just going to kick me out?”
    VARICK


    @[Sabbath]
    #4
    SabbatH
    i'll let you play the role. i'll be your animal.
    A toxic blend of shame and fury wash over her when he laughs at her vain attempts to choke the life from him. She has not yet learned to seek out the soft scales of a dragon’s throat, she now realizes. But then he calls her viper and she spits a few flecks of venom toward his eyes anyway. Not many men ever got used to that trick, she’s found. Sabbath doesn’t make another grab for his pulse, though. She settles a few strides away from him to observe the frost-covered stranger with disgust.

    Varick fancies himself clever and cunning, she supposes, rolling her eyes at his claims. “Why are you introducing yourself like we’ll be friends?” she asks, her wild green eyes still narrowed in his direction. The anger begins to fall apart when he asks her name though. It isn’t replaced by any kind of happiness or warmth but rather a bit of surprise. He really did intend to stand here and chat with her, the fool.

    I’ll kick you out later, so don’t get too comfortable here,” she warns as her eyes trace the scales along his shoulders. There is something like envy in her stare as she wonders how she could get her own skin to be so armored. “My name is Sabbath. So what brings you here, if you aren’t trying to sneak about?

    She steps closer once more, reaching out to lightly touch her fangs to his shoulder curiously. Sabbath continues down his back in search of some weakness in his scales, tracing up his neck with no concern for his comfort. For now, he is little more than an object to be studied at her leisure. What he becomes after depends entirely on what she finds in her search.
    @[Varick]
    #5
    so make your siren's call and sing all you want, I will not hear what you have to say --
    He doesn’t know why he finds her anger endearing. He has no doubt that she would, in fact, kill him if given the chance. He thinks had it not been for his scales that she would have killed him already, and instead of feeling threatened by it, he is intrigued. She is different from the kelpies that he grew up with. She is a different kind of vicious – just as lethal, but the difference seemed that for the most part the kelpies killed and turned someone into a meal. He was nearly certain that she would kill him and just leave him to rot on the beach, his carcass picked apart by scavengers.

    He had half a mind to let her, just to see if she’d actually try.

    “Who says we have to be friends?” He says with another amused smile that reveals a glint of sharp teeth. “I promise, after tonight, you never have to see me again.” He then gives a rolling shrug of his golden shoulder, cocking his head as he adds a bit too casually, “I mean, unless you change your mind.” I could make you, he catches himself thinking before he can stop himself, and the thought is enough for the smile to falter just briefly from his face.

    He hated realizing that he could not run from who – what – he was. He hated realizing that if it came down to it, he is almost certain he would hypnotize her into complaisance.

    He clears his throat, straightening himself, watching her with his blue eyes as she steps closer. “I was born on an island off the coast of here,” he tells her as her fangs run across his back, the frost of his scales marred just slightly be her touch and by the warm breath that fans from her lips. “I’ve never really been to any of the mainlands,” he continues as her touch reaches his neck, and something dark and wanting starts to coil in his gut. “I just wanted to see what was here” He subdues the feeling for now, swallows it away and buries it into the far recesses of his mind. “So far, I have not been disappointed. Even if the welcoming committee isn't very welcoming,” accompanied by another careless grin.

    He levels his calm gaze with hers as she draws closer to his face, after she has inspected nearly every scale, and he asks her in a tone that has dropped a pitch lower, “Did you find what you were looking for?”
    VARICK


    @[Sabbath]
    #6
    Sabbath has always lived by one singular law: do unto others before they do unto you. That’s why she always left before the others could. She went for throats so hers would be spared. This is why she finds herself so unhappy when Varick, with sharp teeth of his own, is impervious to her bite. Will he try to bite her the moment she lets her guard down? Would he drag her to the sea and drown her while she thrashed and fought? She’d seen the kelpies do it to others.

    He suggests they don’t have to be friends, though, and she wonders what his endgame is to this whole encounter. After tonight? She tilts her head and studies him. Her mind is so fixated on blood and clashing that she doesn’t think of other primal needs. But she doesn’t shy away. Instead, she lifts his mouth from his skin to look out in the direction he came from. Larke and Father had visited the islands for a short while, she remembers.

    Sabbath leans in toward his face as her lips hover near his. Did she find what she was looking for? And she smiles with all her fangs. The expression is almost loving as it settles across her face.

    Yes. I’ve realized I could bite your eyes out and fill you with venom that way,” she says with a sigh of relief. Sabbath traces her lips from the corner of his and up along his cheek as though she might tear the eyes from his face now, thrilled with her clever thinking. She pauses as her teeth hover there near his brow to see if he fights back or if he will lie down and die the way she’s always dreamed someone would.
    may my enemies live long                                  so they can see me prosper.
    sabbath
    @[Varick]




    Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)