• 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 don't mind you under my skin.
    #1

    no matter what they say, I am still the king


    Time drags; something languid, like slow honey dripping. The space that has grown between them aches, like dust and bone. It’s a thrum in his throat, a calling in the distance between his spine; Sabbath, Sabbath, Sabbath. Something to keep holy and hold on to. Something he did not think would hold space between his teeth, but turned into a light that kept rewinding in his mind. There is a stuttering remembrance of something once holy.

    It is not boredom that brings him (no, never a complacency, but a curiosity). He tastes her on his tongue, his skin crawls with the call of her. It is easy (almost, too most). Her scent is a thing to bathe in; the air sweats with it. Each of her breathes heaves a cloud of calling. There is nothing keeping them apart.

    And so he goes .

    Foolishness’ A word that comes to mind- something he should call it, but cannot bear to. For her to hide in the land that he has made with his own skin - it is a silly thing. For how could she ever know? How would she ever know that she is being hunted? For all of her jagged teeth and callous clashing of her teeth - she is none the wiser. He is something too far gone - something meaningless and forgotten, a wisp of whimsy.


    But he will never (can never) rest. And so he comes.

    ”Sabbath” It is a request and a command curdled into one. He is asking, he is requiring. His throat raised to the bright sky, his blood singing a song to call you close. Come, come, little thing.
    There is too much left unsaid.


    and now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in






    @[Sabbath]
    #2
    Leliana did not give birth to an angry daughter. Sabbath had been like many girls - a soft, timid thing with a heart just yearning to plunge itself over the edge for someone. She had to be taught to hunt, to bare her teeth and take a life. It's hard to believe that it had, at one point, not come naturally to her. But being cast aside time and time again only sharpened the knife of her rage. Now her viper heart beats in perfect time with the war drum of her curse.

    She stalks the jungle idly, wondering if Varick will come surfing in on the tide once more to see how she fairs after his spell. His magic left her dizzy and confused of what had even happened but his name lingers clearly on her tongue. Sabbath assumes, then, it is him that summons her with the tug of some invisible string. Her wild green eyes narrow as her skin grows hot. The serpent woman slinks between the trees to the source of the call.

    But it is not the kelpie's handsome face that awaits her. Instead, it is the magician who tasted like broken promises and pipedreams. For a flickering second, time grows still and her anger vanishes. She studies the shape of his ink black wings. (How strange, that she had almost hoped to see her latest suitor.) And then it all comes rushing back like a typhoon as it knocks the air from her lungs.

    Sabbath clenches her jaw as she approaches him. The fiery red scales across her hips and shoulders catch the freckles of sunlight that find their way between the canopy, casting her in an angry glow. She takes him by the throat for old times' sake and floods his veins with her venom. He'll survive, just like he had before, but it makes her feel better to have his blood smeared across her lips. She holds him there between her jaws a while longer before she releases him.

    "You taste like the emptiness between the stars. I don't miss it," she tells him, spitting the flavor to the ground.
    may my enemies live long                                  so they can see me prosper.
    sabbath
    @[Eight]
    #3

    no matter what they say, I am still the king


    Some things are taught, some things are learned, some things are prayed for (on your knees, swollen and red like the bee stings from so many summers ago). .

    He wasn’t a knife (he did not think so, anyways) - he was not a scythe made for reaping, he was not a causation for destruction. He just wanted to still see you breathing. He just wanted to see your teeth bright and bared in the night. He just wanted to see that a sacred space was still holy.

    His mouth tastes of salt - waves rolling over his tongue. It is a thick and dastardly thing; an ocean of distaste roiling like hate. A spool of magic unraveling, inundating through what he knows true (teeth and maw and bone and blood). This is not what he had composed, and he tears through it with the vengeance of a man wronged. Forget the sea, and forget the salt, and forget what was missed. There is only him, there is nothing but the black escape before you.

    And whether or not you have tasted the rampant darkness flooding your throat - you are here none the less. Your ophidian heart and your split tongue and your teeth of fury - you have returned.

    It is almost a relief. A sigh escaping his jaw as he feels contact- someone, something that will touch him again. (And it has been so, so long). She could lick the spread of sand along his skin, crack the space between his bones- she is the only thing to be a part of him. And so she tore - through the skin and through the bone and through every blinding piece of magic. Her teeth declare a home, and her tongue makes a space in between what should be his skin. It is beautiful, and it is devastating - and it is the only thing he needed.

    The pain paces through him as your mouth claims a piece of him. (Keep it, please. Own anything of him, claim something, make him yours). And just as easily, you spit it out. A poisonous thing, his skin. Something unwanted and bare. A curse that was not meant to be given- something barren (and you say just as much).

    But you are just as beautiful in the shadows as you are in the light - with your serpentine teeth and all. With a crimson cut where your mouth should be - a call to the devil (where is your church now?) You are a sight to behold - a reckless thing in the face of might. Your words cut the silence like a scythe, and your bitterness is palpable.

    “I was never meant to be missed.” And it is true, if nothing else is so. “I was meant to be torn apart into all of my lies. He steps closer, the tictoc of blood from his throat slows, and the bright white of his deep cut spine seems to dim by every second. ”What happened to you?” And it is not facetious, it is not teasing - it is the truth.


    and now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in



    @[Sabbath]
    #4
    Her brow furrows when the thoughts of Varick are picked apart and discarded by his magic. A flick of his wrist, and the fresh bud of her new emotions are misplaced. It feels much like walking into a room and forgetting why she'd come here in the first place. Her hatred always come running home any time it gets cast out from her, though, and it shows in the way she scowls at him.

    She hates how content he looks at having her touch him, any part of him, colliding with any part of her. How dare he ever make her regret an act of violence against him. Her satisfaction at having a mouthful of his skin is already swept away in the breeze as she shifts her weight. Sabbath almost wishes he would bite back just to replace her disappointment with something else. But he never gives her anything she wants from him, and instead dismisses her words.

    "I could tear you apart, if you'd like. The night is young and I've nothing but time," she offers, grinning with all her pointed teeth still stained the color of his blood. There is a glimpse of happiness for her then, imagining the wild birds picking at his bones here on the jungle floor. Sabbath even finds the breath to laugh softly before his question destroys her smile. What happened to her? She wonders if he actually wants to hear.

    "Everyone left. Some of them came back," she explains with a shrug. She keeps all her hurt bottled up and tucked away, safe from prying eyes or prodding questions. And besides, what would he do if he saw the bruises he'd left behind? Even Eight's magic could never repair the pieces of her that had broken when she watched the ligt fade from her child's eyes. Sabbath takes a step back, worried he'll just slide his fingers through her memory and see the aching empty in her. So she changes the subject.

    "What about you? What happened?"
    may my enemies live long                                  so they can see me prosper.
    sabbath
    @[Eight]
    #5

    no matter what they say, I am still the king

    There will never be a time he pleases everyone. His magic will never deign to be the deciding piece in happiness. He erases what should be, to only replace it with what should not. He can do no more, and no less. Your distaste is palpable, something to roll along his tongue (and bask in the enjoyment, should he be a man of that honor). He cannot say he is happy with this- he was simply waiting for your smile.

    Yet, it will never come. There is no need for magic to feel the distaste that treads from your tongue. Your smile has washed out with the shore, there is only the languid dissatisfaction. The recoil of wretchedness. The realization that once was, will never be. You have grown into something spiteful - you are all teeth and sharp edges, a call to the nightmares and stench of death.
    You offer him a solace - a happy ending if there weren’t magic thrumming through his veins. Tear him to pieces, if you could. Give him the finale that the universe has begged for. Lick his blood from your lips and flick his flesh from your teeth. He has no bark nor bite left - his lunge for the throat has been left in the back room, as his heart yearns for nothing but the ever-shifting pitch black of the universe.
    You are a smiling disaster - a universe of tinged teeth and curved lips. You are shattered just as easily (and he thought this was something that was long left behind). But there is truth in your words, as your dastardly facade fades away. The monster inside you melts - his blood drying on your lips as you deign to say what you truly feel. It is a rare occurrence - but there is a stretch in his feelings, the heavy drift that he knows what he has done wrong. (Such a vague word - wrong- but one so palpable). There are things you cannot undo, there are moments that cannot be taken back.
    Your voice wrecks upon his memories, and the shadow over his heart clears - everyone always leaves. Mostly, they never come back. Your head is hardly shrouded, it is all too easy to pick through like the carrion birds that should have been feasting upon his bones. For once, he is too kind to pry. Instead (for once) he only listens.
    “I came back.” It is a quiet statement (not an apology, but something still serene). What would it be like to never be able to leave, when others have left? He had always been able to create a rift between here and himself - he had never needed permission to leave this plane and enter another. But you - you had no choice. ”Nothing happened. I got bored.” And the sweetness of him fades - and the fierceness follows back, the truth that will never truly wash out. “They could have stayed, no?” Because everyone has a choice, right?
    ”Now what?” And he presents her with a future - a possibility - a moment that stretches into time.

    and now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in

    #6
    She has often wondered what it’s like to be the one to leave, rather than the one left behind. Bethlehem didn’t seem to mind waking up to find her gone, nor did Ivar. Was she so easily forgettable? It carves a knife right into her heart and bears a new hurt for her to hide in the way she blinks her eyes quickly. How mortifying, to still be the sad little child after all this time. But she clenches her jaw and she doesn’t flee from this moment despite it.

    He reminds her that he, at least, came back. And he’s right. Sabbath isn’t sure if this makes her happy or if she’s angrier at him for returning. He even has the nerve to summon her to him. Once upon a time, it would have delighted her to no end.

    You did,” she agrees, watching him carefully as her bruised heart lingers just beneath the surface. Eight says he got bored and she imagines it would be easy to grow tired of being here when infinity called his name. She can’t blame him, then. “Given the option, I would have followed you, back then. But you would never ask, would you?

    And she hates the question the moment it leaves her lips. The answer is already there, pressed into her palm no matter how she wants to refuse it. Sabbath can only shrug when he asks if the others could have stayed. Death had given her daughter back to her out of some kindness, but Prayer never had the choice to begin with.

    I suppose some of them could have stayed. But they didn’t, and I’ve spent enough time nursing my heart,” she says more to herself than to him. “Now.. Now I’m afraid to ever let someone stay. I’m afraid to not be in control. That’s why I got so mad when I saw you here.” And she pauses as she traces the whirlwind of emotions that lead to these words. She hates how talkative she’s becoming but her mouth refuses to be silent again.

    I can’t control you. I can’t make you leave, I can’t make you go. I just have to brace for whatever comes.” And at last, she stops speaking. Without even using that god awful magic, he reduces her to this fragility once more.
    may my enemies live long                                  so they can see me prosper.
    sabbath
    @[Eight]
    #7

    no matter what they say, I am still the king


    He cannot remember the last time he has been embarrassed- the last time he has felt something so devastatingly fatal. He cannot remember the last time he has felt much at all. But here you are - a wreck o a web of emotions. And what can he do? He can slide inside that space between your bone and the knife (but why?). He could quell the heavy emotion that wrests over you. But to what end? When he leaves again - it will all just remain the same.
    Your resilience tastes like char inside his mouth - you refuse to cry, you will not be afraid of the dark. You swim in the inky whirlpool of your sins; you cannot find a wall to hold on to and keep your head above. It is pleasing, in a way - how he can feel the difference between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ inside your head. The battle of what you were, and what you are, and what you should be.
    He does not remember when he tired of what he was. He cannot pinpoint the moment when being hardened and heartless was so appealing. Nothing is bruised - nothing is bleeding - but something is missing.
    “I know you would have.”, he agrees. And your eyes are clearer now (but perhaps not your heart). The softness in his voice is a rift between what he was and what he should be. But he does not necessarily control it - how can he anymore, after decades of loneliness? There is an achingly long hallway before him, with so many doors (any, really - should he decide upon them). “I don’t ask.” And again, he is wrought back into the reality of who he is and, and the life he lives. ”I believe I only command.”
    Your metallic taste is not overlooked - your heart tastes like metal. Something unforgiving and unwanting. Your weakness caves in at the bones and your soft spots bruise- like peaches. For once - he does not seek out the rot, but presses gently on skin.
    “Kill it.” It is sudden, and a bright explosion in the midst of a dark conversation. His head jerks to your body - still so lithe (but nothing goes unheeded. There is salt in your veins and he can taste it.). “You’re in control now.” He says, as he steps closer. He threatens nothing of you, but his request is forcefully towards you. You have the choice.
    “For once- you can control whether I stay or leave.” And he is not quite sure why he allows it of himself. Perhaps it is the years spent alone, perhaps it is the boredom, perhaps it is the fact his heart has never before been capable of love.
    And closer still; his now-healed neck placed across your nose (a tease? A beg? A blessing?).Even closer (perhaps even the apex of where your bodies have been- where does his start, and yours end?). His chest is nearly to yours- his black heart beating nothing, but the tendrils of his magic reaching out to say please.
    “I will stay with you, if we kill it.” And here is the stretch that even you may not reach.

    (now, the storm is coming in)



    @[Sabbath]
    #8
    Sabbath barely remembers what it was like before she was always so angry. It feels as natural as her breathing and yet she wishes she knew how to be soft again - soft like Mother, soft like Prayer. But what has being soft gotten them? She reminds herself of this and bathes in the black water of her rage. Being cruel has kept her alive, kept her safe from the troubles the others have faced.

    And it’s left her alone.

    She doesn’t expect the gentle tone when he agrees with her. But he curls back into his usual self when he speaks again. He commands, he says, and she laughs softly at the idea of him trying to command her without the help of his magic. For all his strength, he could never make her yield of her own accord. Maybe that’s why he’s here today.

    Kill it, he commands, and her laughter stops. Her eyes narrow as she goes cold toward him. There is so precious little of her kindness left anymore, and she spares every ounce of it for her brood. Eight has only ever wanted to touch her where it hurts and only where it hurts. He never seems to marvel at her eyes or the softness of her lips. He likes to trace the outline of her scars, her bruises, and leave her empty when he’s done.

    He presses closer and she doesn’t step back the way she thought she might have before. His neck is there at her lips and the claws of his magic scratch at the door of her heart, pleading and pining. This might have brought her to her knees when she still carried Prayer, when her child was hardly more than a whisper on her lips. But she has held her newborns close to her and tasted the perfect heart of love.

    What have you ever given me to warrant your request? Your blood? Your attention, for a while?” she asks and this time her voice does not falter. “My children are all that I have. They come when I call, and when I tell them I love them, they always say it back. You want me to sacrifice even one of them for you?

    Sabbath steps forward then to press the warmth of her chest to his as she lifts her mouth to his ear. She lets him feel the pulse of her fractured hear that goes on and on despite how easily it breaks in two.

    In the beginning, you were the sun of my entire universe. Everything revolved around you. But all stars die and I mourned you for as long as I could.

    And then she kisses the corner of his jaw with the last embers of her affections for him.
    may my enemies live long                                  so they can see me prosper.
    sabbath
    @[Eight]




    Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)