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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


    i'm always in this twilight, varick
    #1
    She surprised even herself when she momentarily gave in to Varick’s gentle charms. Naturally, Sabbath blames her raw heart on seeing their son ill and the kind way in which his father doted on him until he was well again. Honest affection toward her children was always such a weak point of hers. And, if she’s being entirely truthful with herself, she only regrets it because of the pain in her ankles right now. The twins have gone mostly still the past several days, with so little room to move within her belly. That, coupled with her lack of appetite, cues her that it is time to retreat to the quiet of her den.

    Crowns has grown so much, though he remains lanky and slender in his youth, and he still pokes his head in every hour to tell her something he’s learned or seen. He can’t empathize, she reminds herself. Sabbath finally sends him on an errand to find her father and learn one of his tired old stories, or perhaps her grandfather can regale the boy with the horrors of war. They’re always delighted to drone on about those things for hours, which will buy her all the time she needs. And maybe he’ll learn something.

    Shortly after he’s promised to seek them out, her contractions build from occasional pangs to rolling waves of aching hips. She snarls at the pain and bares her teeth. Her wild green eyes focus on the entrance to her den where she assumes Varick is lingering just outside. She wouldn’t blame him. She would probably try to eat him again if he came too close right now, but only because of the pain this time.

    With gritted teeth and heavy breaths, their second son slips from her. Sabbath lifts her head and stares at him for a moment. He’s a perfect blend of them both, with his father’s scales and a little nub of a horn on his forehead. It draws a smile to her tired face even when her body plunges through another contraction. Their daughter arrives easily, angrily crying at the cold and the sound of her own voice. The serpent woman laughs and stumbles up onto her unsteady legs.

    You both have your father’s scales. How beautiful,” she coos gently as she begins to clean them. She hadn’t cared for the way her own body glowed and grew beautiful overnight, but she’s thankful for it as she admires their daughter. It contrasts the annoyed look in her eyes perfectly. “You look like a Katarine, I think.

    And then she kisses the colt’s temple with an airy delicacy.

    But what to name you, little twin?"
    may my enemies live long                                  so they can see me prosper.
    sabbath
    @[Varick]
    #2
    so make your siren's call and sing all you want, I will not hear what you have to say --
    He did not think it was possible for Sabbath to get more fearsome but he was, of course, completely wrong.

    Sabbath that was close to delivering was almost an entirely different breed of terrifying, and yet all it did was fuel the guilt that chewed away inside of him. She was irritable in a way that made him wish he could help her, that he could offer her any kind of relief, but he also knew that he was the last creature she wanted to see right now.

    And so he gave her space, again, though he was sure it was not nearly as much space as she would have liked. His worry overpowered his actual fear of her, and he could not risk drifting too far and not being there if something happened.

    So he lingers outside of her den, fidgeting and restless. The humidity in Tephra suddenly feels overwhelming and choking, the thick air seeming to fight for room with the anxiety that has taken root inside of his chest. He can hear her, and he fights the urge to go to her side, knowing that would do nothing but cause her stress. So he waits, quieting the panic as time seems to drag on.

    Eventually, he hears her voice, soft and murmuring in the way it only is when she speaks to her children. He should wait longer, he knows, but instead he lowers his head and steps inside.

    He had not thought it was possible to ever replicate the feelings he had when he had first seen Crowns, but he is, once again, proven wrong.

    There are two of them, small and trembling in this new air that they found shockingly cold. The girl, dark and purple and glowing, with a face that is already so impossibly beautiful, just like her mother.  And then the boy, a rich mahogany bay with bright blue and gold, like him. Even from where he stands he can see they are both covered in his frost scales, and all the previous worry in his chest is replaced with pride.

    His steps are slow and cautious, and his dark blue eyes look to Sabbath in a questioning way, as though he is asking for permission although he thinks he has, hopefully, proven to her that he loves their children just as much as she does. He lowers his head to touch the filly first, exhaling a warm breath across her neck, watching as the frost on the scales melts away only to reform moments later. A smile touches his lips, and then he runs his nose down the back of the colt, tilting his head curiously at the sight of the peculiar tail. It was decidedly snake-like, with a small, button-type end to it – the promise of rattles eventually to come.

    “They're perfect,” he says to Sabbath as he reaches to touch his nose to the side of her neck, while deftly avoiding any snap that she might send in his direction. He has, in his opinion, become fairly good at the art of showing her affection and then dodging her retaliation, although the twins lying curled at their feet were proof she didn't always pretend to hate him. He looks back to the colt, who is now trying to organize his too long legs underneath him. It takes a few attempts, but eventually, he is standing mostly upright, wavering and unsteady though he was. Instinctively Varick uses his nose to steady him, and the colt flicks his rattlesnake tail in appreciation or irritation, he's not quite sure yet. “Do you like the name Riptide?” He asks her a little hesitantly, not entirely sure if she feels as though he has a right to name one of their children.
    VARICK


    @[Sabbath]
    #3
    She doesn’t like the way her body flinches when Varick finally reveals himself. Still, her head turns to him with those pointed teeth bared and ready to strike out at his face. At least this time she manages to uncurl her lip and turn her attention back to the newborn twins blinking into the fresh new world around them. Sabbath had always cursed magic, but she can’t deny the splendid mystery of how her heart swells without bursting when she sees her children’s faces for the first time.

    Katarine curiously bares her gums in an effort to mimic her mother’s fearsome expression just moments before. On her, however, it is clumsy and awkward. “You are a great and fearsome thing, little one,” she whispers into a laugh as she kisses the girl’s nose. Pleased enough with the flattery, she begins trying to stumble up onto her trembling purple legs. The girl stumbles but seems to draw encouragement when her father breathes over her frosted skin, finally standing on her own.

    Sabbath’s gaze follows Varick’s to the colt’s tail - a curious thing, but the serpentine nature of it leaves her staring for longer than she means to. None of her other children had carried her curse, she thought, and she worries for him now. She can’t help but think of Gospel, of herself. But Varick says they’re perfect and it would be a lie to say she disagrees. The corners of her lips turn upward and she doesn’t snarl when he touches her neck.

    I fall so in love with each one,” she says, and then she deigns to lean against him, her body exhausted from its labors. Katarine observes, wide-eyed, and tucks herself against her brother before searching her parents’ faces for further approval.

    I do. Do you think Crowns will be jealous that he isn’t the baby anymore?” she asks with a grin. Their older son had only shrugged and dismissed her when she asked how he felt. He remains ever secretive toward her, playing his cards close to his chest. Sabbath supposes he will reveal his emotions in due time, though.
    may my enemies live long                                  so they can see me prosper.
    sabbath
    @[Varick]
    #4
    so make your siren's call and sing all you want, I will not hear what you have to say --
    He can’t help the way that he smiles at Katarine’s attempt to mimic her mother, but he simply lowers his head to touch his nose to the tip of hers. “Am I going to have two girls trying to kill me now?” He has no doubt that the filly will grow up to be like Sabbath – fearsome and beautiful, though he hopes to protect her from all the hardships that he is sure played a role in building the wall Sabbath has fortressed herself behind. He had understood after Crowns being born why his mother had been so protective, but something about the twins – Katarine specifically –  had amplified that feeling almost tenfold. 

    Maybe because when Sabbath leans into him he feels that pang in his chest, the one that often interrupts the usual want and affection. The pang that makes him wonder what had happened to make her so vicious because he finds it hard to believe she had been born that way. He thinks there could have been a version of her where leaning against him would not have felt like the monumental moment it was since usually, all she wanted was to rip into his throat.

    His neck curves, only slightly, his nose hovering just above the top of her head, and he still thinks that even if given the option, he wouldn’t trade for a tamer version of her.

    There is a moment where he almost touches her, the blue of his lips so close to the warmth of her skin. He lingers there, before drawing back, thinking better of it. His eyes trail back to the twins at her comment, and his lips lift into a smile when he agrees with her quietly, “Me too.” Because he has, and it still finds it unbelievable that he has children at all, much less three. There is a short laugh, low and rumbling in his chest, when she mentions Crowns. “I think he might be at first, but I think he will also like being an older brother. I’m sure he has all kinds of things he wants to show them.” His face pulls into a brief frown then, glancing towards the exit of the den and asking, “Where is he, anyway?” 
    VARICK


    @[Sabbath]
    #5
    There is a part of Sabbath that wonders if Varick is right, if their daughter may come to hate the men of her family as she does. But she remembers that he is not like the others she has met in her life. He is kind and patient, even when she goes for his eyes or tries to bite through his scales as he sleeps. No, she thinks Katarine has a fine example of what a husband should look like. A frown creases her face, though, as she realizes that she considers them to be bonded for life. At least she didn’t say it aloud.

    She sweeps the thought away to dissect later when the conversation turns to their older son. Sabbath likes the idea of him bonding with his younger siblings, as Eucharist had when he was no longer the baby. But Crowns lacks whatever darkness has fit itself so perfectly into her middle child. Instead, their boy is kind and gentle, always striving to mimic the most admirable parts of his father.

    He was getting himself too anxious, so I told him to find his grandfather and ask for stories,” she confesses with a soft, tired laugh. “Vulgaris will bore him to sleep with history lessons.

    And she is careful to call her sire by his name, only ever saying Father when she was spitting it at him. Her lips begin to roam the length of Varick’s neck as she delicately searches for some soft spot for old times’ sake. What would she even do if she found it, after all they’ve been through? Maybe she could prick his skin and hold the venom back, a quiet reminder that she could end him and chooses not to. Sabbath doesn’t pledge her love to him, but she could vow not to kill him.

    It’s more than she’s given anyone else.
    may my enemies live long                                  so they can see me prosper.
    sabbath
    @[Varick]
    #6
    so make your siren's call and sing all you want, I will not hear what you have to say --
    His blue lips quirk into that crooked smile of his, and this time his laugh is just a sharp exhale. “I don't think Crowns will let anything be boring. Vulgaris maybe got more than he bargained for,” he  says with a fondness reserved for his first born. He replicates her way of never referring to her sire as her father, and it's difficult to say if he's actually that observant, or if it's something that he never would have noticed to be considered strange. He did not consider Ivar to be his father; the word did not fit the kelpie man well at all, and he could not remember a time that he had ever called him that. He was his sire, and not really anything beyond that. There was a reason that Varick had completely separated himself from everything that was kelpie-related; he was not like them.

    His skin shivers involuntarily at the way her lips start to trail down his neck, the frost of his scales melting beneath the warmth of her breath. It is easy to mistake the touch as something tender, but he can feel the exploration to it. He lets her look, even tilts his head just slightly to let her trace down the length of his throat, and then says in the low gravel of his voice, “You should know by now there isn't a weak spot.” His dark blue eyes catch the sharp green of hers, the same edges he has cut himself on a hundred times already. He lowers his head, pulling her momentarily into a brief but tight embrace as his mouth drags down her neck. “But you can look all you want, viper.”

    He steps away from her, knowing he had likely just crossed all the boundaries that she hates him to cross. The rattlesnake colt had curled himself back onto the ground at the feet of his mother, seemingly exhausted from being born, and standing and nursing. Varick blows a soft breath across the colt's frosted scales and then presses his lips to the top of the filly's small head. He looks back at Sabbath, recognizing the fatigue still in her eyes, and the previous mischief from earlier fades and is replaced with concern when he tells her, “You should rest, Sabbath. I can wait outside while the three of you sleep.”
    VARICK


    @[Sabbath]
    #7
    She briefly wonders just how Crowns and Vulgaris are getting along or if her child has already driven her father to the brink of madness. They are entirely opposite from one another - Crowns thrives on the strange and unusual while her sire is repulsed by it these days. Sabbath wonders why she didn’t unleash her son on him sooner, then. “As long as he has fun,” she says with feigned innocence.

    He lifts his head to give her better access and she knows he recognizes this sort of touching from her. When Varick speaks, Sabbath glances up at him to stare through the thick line of her eyelashes. A wild shiver runs down her spine at his touch, then, and she bites down harder than she means to as a reflex. Naturally, it doesn’t pierce his armored scales, but it sends a clear message. She carefully gathers her venom across her tongue and spits it with a careful aim away from his eyes.

    Her pulse still hums in her veins at his touch. There is a piece of her, somewhere in the tangle of her rage, that enjoys the cold of his skin against hers. It extinguishes some of that inferno that she always keeps burning in the kiln of her heart. When he kisses their youngest children, it only serves to soften her further. Maybe she’d slowly begin to regret her cruelties toward him.

    The wild green of her eyes studies him as he speaks, narrowing in thought rather than malice this time.

    Crowns doesn’t like it when you sleep out there. He likes to have us both near him. I imagine the twins will feel the same,” she says as she steps closer, seemingly forgiving his previous overstepping of her boundaries. Her voice does not soften but she avoids his eyes as she lowers herself beside Riptide, pulling him close to her.
    may my enemies live long                                  so they can see me prosper.
    sabbath
    @[Varick]
    #8
    so make your siren's call and sing all you want, I will not hear what you have to say --
    She bites his throat, her teeth glancing off the hard, frost-covered scales, just as he had expected her to. Sabbath was predictable only in the sense that he could usually count on her reacting aggressively to most everything he did or said. He is not sure why that had never deterred him; if anything, it was why he had stayed. She was captivating in a way he had not expected her to be, and the ferocious snap of her jaws only further fueled that fire in his gut. He sees the venom that flies from her mouth, and he cannot stop the crooked smile from crossing his face again.

    But truthfully, he hated pushing her buttons. He did not want to risk angering her to the point he never stood a chance of breaking through any of her barriers. He didn't want to push her so far that he never saw that occasional softening of her otherwise sharp face, especially when she looked at their children.

    It was impossible to resist reaching out to touch her, sometimes, just to see if she will let him -- just to see if maybe today is the day she finally softens and realizes that he is not going anywhere, that he is not out to hurt her or leave her, but he can see today is not that day.

    He does not hold any of it against her, though. She bites and spits her venom and he is unfazed, letting it roll off of him the same way water does his scales.

    There is a noticeable pause, though, when she tells him to stay here. He turns his blue eyes to her face, unable to meet her downcast gaze, but he stares at her all the same. She says it's for the twins, and he doesn't doubt that part of it. Sabbath would do anything for her children; it was one of the things he loved most about her. He wonders, though, if she truly despised him as much as she appeared to, if she would still ask. He decides not to comment on it, remaining silent as she settles herself to the ground and pulls Riptide against her. The colt willingly obliges, burying his small face happily into his mother’s chest. Varick steps carefully to Katarine, gently nosing the filly towards Sabbath and Riptide. “Go sleep next to your mom and brother, love,” he murmurs as he lips softly at her cheek, waiting to make sure that she gets herself safely into place. “Maybe when you wake up your big brother will be back.”
    VARICK


    @[Sabbath]
    #9
    Sometimes her heart feels like a wildfire she lit the match to and never managed to control the flames. The smoke burns her lungs and she’d like to extinguish all that anger built up around her sternum, but she can only let it consume her now. Maybe in another life, she never learned what it is to be engulfed, and in that life, she learns to pronounce the word love without making it into a knife. She could tell Varick she cares for him as easily as she tells her children and still be able to breathe after. Sabbath has dreamt of this life, before, but the memory is gone by the time the haze of sleep lifts from her eyes.

    She watches Katarine crane her neck to accept her father’s affection before wiggling closer to Riptide and settling in. There is still hope for their daughter to be gentle and fragile in all the ways Sabbath would like to be. The ways she used to be.

    Her wild green eyes watch Varick for a while as she thinks. It isn’t hard to see she’s lost in her thoughts as she stares him down, as though calculating how to break him down into bite-sized pieces again. Can he hear the rampant thump of her pulse thundering in her veins? She leans her head to his and presses a light kiss to his temple before she loses her nerve.

    And then, before he can speak or reciprocate, she curls around their newborns and closes her eyes to sleep.
    may my enemies live long                                  so they can see me prosper.
    sabbath
    @[Varick]




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