[private] even angels have their wicked schemes

[Euryale]

Crash, crash, Burn, let it all burn
This hurricane's chasing us all underground
Darkness settles in the forest, made of bones and blood.  The scent of spring is fresh, and earthy, lacing decadently across the fern-overgrowth.  It is dreadfully silent beyond the taiga forests; save for the stirring of rabbit-heartbeats, and the kiss-and-tell petals, that whisper their ghost melody through the earth, with their many reaching tendrils.  The forest flowers bristle, like furs upon a ghoulish wind.  The trees sway to the rhythm of the cool wind. Against the blooming forest-light, Euryale purrs, too; slipping like a leopardess beneath the shadowy-penumbra with each delicate, feline hiss.   Moonlight pours along her back;  moonlight descends her curves, dancing along her slender spine and hips. Dipping her in silver soot, in silver blood.  Her arrival to Beqanna had been a silent one.  She laughs like sin and dances to the curling music of a wild breeze.

Euryale dances with blood, with carnal motive; like the feral wilderness flowing in her veins; the dark laughter touching her silk throat, like saccharine venom and honey on a succubus’ whispering lips. It’s dawn shades, blood shades – all vicious and lupine – pooling into a wolf’s body made of unholy lust, made of lightening beauty.  When Euryale moves, twists and turns; all the red blood moistening her skin glistens, wetly, too.  The blood on her body, wears like a dress should; dawning along lascivious curves, and hips.  A vermillion kiss, deep as any rose, just as wicked, just as sweet.

When Euryale dances, she dances like thunder and hurricane; full of spiraling, pale tendrils and powerful, slender limbs that waltz; lightening-white, dangerous, across the velvet earth below.  She dances with hunger in her heart.  She dances with violence in her blood.  She dances with passion.  Passion flows through her sleek body, made of storms and wrath and violence.  Her storm-skin, so wrapped tightly, around a turbulent soul, as hers’.  Euryale dances like she breathes; full of want, beauty and wretched desire.  She dances like a Reckoning; like damned queens, with thorns for crowns.  When only the thirst for blood, could ever sate her bottomless appetite.  And it is always blood.  Always souls, that Euryale thirsts for, endlessly.  Euryale so loved possessing people, places, things.

@[Star]

There is a fire inside of this heart
and a riot about to explode into flames

[lilliana]

I WAS KISSING STRANGERS \
I WAS CAUSING SUCH A SCENE \
OH, THE HEART \
IT HIDES SUCH UNIMAGIMNABLE THINGS \

Leonidas had appeared one dusk, and much to Lilli's chagrin, had stayed.

As the sun vanished behind the western horizon and night had started to creep along Taigan trails, Leonidas emerged not far from the grove where Lilliana kept her youngest set of twins. Oren and Roselin had been thankfully fast asleep the first time that Lilli had spied the faint glowing orb dancing between a pair of uncharred Sequoias. She had thought it might be one of those fables from her youth brought to life; a will-o'-the-whisp. And if it was, well, had Lilliana been in better (brighter) spirits, she might have laughed.

The chestnut mare had kept her distance from the eery glowing orb but night after night (so long as it was clear), there it was. Lilliana had taken to moving away from her sleeping foals so that when it did appear - whatever it was - it was kept well away from her children. On this particular evening, she has left her children with their sire, Leilan. The Freyr had been on his way back to the Isle after the Alliance and she had left the trio tucked away in the northwestern corner of Taiga. (The Dragon King had been lighting up the eyes of their son and daughter with stories about the Borealis.)

Lilliana has learned that it doesn't matter where she goes. No matter where she is, the little ball of light appears when the sun sets. Some nights it stays longer than others and some nights it only hovers, as if it was waiting for the Taigan mare to decide something. To decide what, she still wasn't sure. If it was a whisp, well, what more could happen? The legends of her ancestors said that they had enjoyed mischief and loved leading weary travelers astray. And that had been one the first thing she thought to the glowing entity: I get lost just fine on my own.

And then the remarkable happened. The ball of light beamed at her before drifting closer to the flame-marked mare.

Surely a child of Aletta knows a star when she sees one.

She had stopped and stared, stunned into silence by the thought that echoed through her mind. A voice - gentle like the summer wind rustling through leaves, calming like a babbling brook - rippled through her mind and Lilliana stared at it - at the star. "Why?" she asked in a whisper. And because this star had a sense of humor, it flickered before floating up towards the tree canopy. The spring branches - still somewhat bare - illuminated and then the star brightened, becoming a beacon in this dark forest that could be seen by other horses in the area.

"Stop," Lilliana said, her voice raising to reach it. "Stop it. Somebody will see you and-." And what? The star thought back. I am glorious. I am meant to be seen. Why should I hide in the dark when I am meant to shine? The star came down and lingered before her, coming to float directly in front of the Taigan. It's (Leonidas) brightness blinded Lilliana to what gracefully came to this part of the wood. It's the scent that hits her nostrils first - something familiar and yet unknown - that makes the slender mare crane her neck around. Peering through the darkness, she sees the shadow of a shape.

Leonidas rises a few feet above the chestnut to reveal a lovely woman dressed in all the colors and glamour that Beqanna is known for. Lilliana's blue eyes aren't unkind but she has no reason to trust strangers. And that reminds her she has no reason to trust stars, either.

But maybe Lilliana senses another hurricane heart like her own and so she goes against her better judgment that says to turn tail and leave the stranger and the star behind her. "Forgive Leonidas," the Taigan says. "It seems he thinks that he is the sun rather than just an ordinary star."

sky full of song - florence + the machine
image credit to footybandit