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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


    looking like an angel but your savage love; skandar
    #1

    Aela had been ready to set the world on fire, again.

    It had looked so much fun the last time and she was still disappointed that she had missed out on the merriment of watching the North - her moors and her trees - turn to tinder. But there were would be other opportunities, she was sure. Straia, the Dominus of Pangea, had plans for her canyon country, and Aela, in turn, had been creating plans of her own (not that they go against the ones of her mentor; Aela's ideas simply involve the various ways that the other kingdoms and horses of Beqanna will learn of the great things still to come).

    She doesn't care much for the cold but Aela enjoys her freedom. The golden girl shadows Straia every chance she gets - gleans everything she can with glowing fervor - but the girl is still a child. She is still young and Aela thinks that if their world is to concede to what Fate intends, she needs a better understanding of the world outside of Taiga and Nerine, and even Pangea. So she ventures away from what she knows with casual indifference.

    What had transpired in Nerine - what had caught Aela's young mind - was the opportunity that could be found in the chaos. She isn't looking to cause chaos on this winter morning (at least not yet) and the nearly-palomino filly walks with that same self-assured stride that she always carries with her. Even if she doesn't know this place and she has drifted more towards the west than intended, Aela still strolls as though she has always known this tropical realm. That it knows her, expects her, and even welcomes her because Aela wills it. The striped filly rounds a corner and when the sound of a twig breaking reaches her fair ears, she abruptly stops. Aela knows she has nothing to fear but the interloper nearby does not.

    Summoning a rather spectacular memory, Aela sends one of the aliens that protect and patrol the Pangean borders. (She had been thrilled with them but the wild and wonderful things they are could be terrifying to those not accustomed to them). Aela intends to use that to her advantage; and just for a little fun, a second memory follows like a breaking wave of the clicking sounds they make like lovers in the dark as they search for their next meal.



    image credit to footybandit


    @[Skandar] so I think this takes place somewhere near Tephra?
    Reply
    #2

    Where he had traveled through the forest so far, deep charred markings dig deep into the wet bark of the pines, the smell of smoke and sometimes, if the forest was silent enough, the zapping sound that accompanied the heat would vibrate through the air. It comes to him thoughtlessly (fueled by a rage that in his youthfulness he had not yet defined), the soft glow of red beginning in the deep violet of his eyes before it seems to break through his irises, racing forward at the speed of light and burning through anything he decided to glance at.

    At one point, he had been extremely close to annihilating a squirrel on accident, but the rodent had been too quick for him. The galaxy-strewn colt pauses in the snow thoughtfully, watching it escape up the tree in fright, before furrowing his brow and attempting again, only this time on purpose. The beam of red doesn’t quite make it, for a wave of something crashes over him, and it causes his focus to stutter and so the bright red in his eyes flickers and then dies, leaving the tree with a smoking black zig zag all the way up its trunk.

    In his mind (and in a memory that was not his own) a strangely armored horse appears to him - black and shining, feral beings that chitter and clack their sharp teeth, clicking and whistling to each other in such a way that Skandar could feel the shiver of fear trickle up his spine. Skandar grimaces, disliking the intrusion and immediately swinging his head left to right to find the culprit.

    Not before, however, he fashions himself like one of these beings - perhaps it was partly out of protection he glamors himself in such a way, but he strictly reminds himself it is to strike fear into whoever thought they could play a trick on him.

    Fashioning himself into such a creature is far more difficult when he doesn’t have it right before him to mimic - his skin ripples and peels back, fluttering like feathers across his body until he’s completely black, with the appearance of bone-like protrusions at his joints. The teeth were hard to get just right, as he hadn’t had a clear look at them, but once he felt as though his outfit was more than sufficient, he is quick to trot through the wintry forest - for his shape would not last long only based on a very real memory.

    He finds her easily (though he wonders if she had been baiting him purposely in the first place) as he casually strolls out of the copse of some bare trees. Skandar (the alien version, of course) blinks at her unexpectedly, tilting his now black head in a way that he feels is convincing - predator-like and calculating. He champs his teeth, feeling the sharpness of them snap together with satisfaction, and decided he rather liked this creature he had created. For that is what he is - a creator. A god. 

    Do their eyes burn as red as his, though?

    Perhaps that would be the one factor that would make her realize that he is a fraud; his deep violet eyes begin to glow and burn, a fire pulsing in his irises. His facade begins to wear away, shuffling and cracking across his body, before the soft sound of his skin fluttering against each other in broken pieces overcomes the soft hum of the threatening glow in his eyes. His skin finally settles and pieces back together in the radiant orange and violet swirls that adorn the dark indigo of his coat. He snorts sharply, his dark eyes hidden beneath the two-toned ombre of his mane.

    “Stay out of my head,” he warns, the red glow of his eyes intensifying and pulsing. “Unless you’d like to see what else I can do.” Skandar’s voice is a growl, but the tiniest twitch of his lip gives away his true intentions - as if begging her let him show her.

    skandar




    @[aela]
    Reply
    #3

    Aela has gotten used to overwhelming others with her memories. When they don't outright terrify an unsuspecting horse, it usually leaves them confused and those moments give the gilded filly enough time to slip into the shadows or position herself downwind. Her (intended) targets never even see the girl who overpowered their minds.

    As Aela has gotten older, this gift has become more powerful and more direct.

    This target, though, is not like her others; he had been unexpected and maybe she had been careless in her projection. It wasn't as if she saw who she was sending the memory to. Aela had conjured the images of the aliens - creeping and prowling in the dark Pangean canyons - and thought it would be enough to send whatever was lurking in the other direction. It (because what else can she call what comes trotting towards her?) approaches and Aela stops, every muscle drawn taut with fascination. She has never been afraid of the wild creatures that call Pangea home and so she isn't of this pretender; he appears before like a gift.

    She had imagined the odd-looking, armored horses, and there one was!

    If Skandar considers himself a God because he is a Creator, Aela thinks she has divine approval. What else could his appearance signify? This had to be a sign from the Gods of their approval (and maybe a present from her Almighty father, Carnage?).

    Her blue eyes widen and Aela side-steps a pace from the creature. She is enchanted with the sight before her but it doesn't mean she is oblivious to the damage that it could do. It could-

    It could change?

    She cranes her head and then it jerks up as she watches the transformation. The glowing, red eyes dim. The body cracks and fractures (how odd!); the body before her rages before it decides on a shape. Not one of Pangea's aliens or her other wonders. A galaxy-marked... boy. She's disappointed and the frown emerges as the golden filly finally stills. Her flaxen tail twitches between her legs until the colt gives her an invitation. Aela's pale lips quirk in a reciprocated smile, like she and the other adolescent are both privy to the same secret. She turns his 'threat' into a game.

    The almost-palomino filly glows first around her ankles and her stripes, a brief warning to her new companion. But then it fades and a memory dawns: a colt in Nerine, buckskin with dark wings and golden iridescent dapples that radiate spectacularly in the sunlight. Aela even sends a separate projection of the young pegasus's scowl, just to see how well this one could replicate it.






    image credit to footybandit


    @[Skandar] i want you to know i cackled so much writing this
    Reply
    #4

    Her disappointment is not lost on him. That same scowl that nearly always finds his indigo lips placates it now - wrinkled and bitter, unpretty on his handsome face. Rage burns something fierce within his soul, perhaps outwardly shown by the brilliant red that seems to always glow in the violet of his eyes. Though he tells himself that it is beneath him to want the approval of a mere stranger (a silly girl, at that!), Skandar cannot deny the fact that there is a incessant need to prove himself that drives many of his decisions. The beam of light that leaves his irises is nearly uncontrollable; it travels through the air with an unearthly sound, burning into the tree directly behind her as he purposely misses. His gaze fixates there for awhile, ensuring that the tree itself has splintered and blackened, before a swift inhale brings his eyes back to their natural, violet color.

    There is regret for the smallest amount of time on his face - not that he had displayed such a threatening display of his ability, but that he hadn’t the gall to pierce her in a single sweep of his gaze. All it would take is a mere look - a glance - and her head would separate from her neck as easily as a hot knife through butter. Skandar isn’t necessarily looking forward to the mess that would come after. It would be only so that the disappointed frown would disappear from her face forever.

    She, however, then matches his intensity with her own mischievous grin. It does nothing to soothe the furrow of his brow or the fact that his ears have long since disappeared into his neck, but the thought of sending his lasers through her is not as poignant; calmed, in a way. She glows briefly and it is in such a way that Skandar wonders if the light she wields is anything like his own - but that is as far as his mind can get, for soon after, she sends a vision of something to him again.

    Skandar snorts sharply, his mouth rippling into a snarl. 

    Though he does not adorn the dapples nor the buckskin color, the skin just behind his withers flicker and flutter, sprouting those dark wings she had envisioned. They fall out of his sides almost like water, splaying outward and to the ground once before Skandar pulls them up in one graceful sweep.  The galaxy-studded colt uses the wings (for he won’t maintain them long, for he is only using a memory of a memory to conjure them) to bring himself face to face with her in one fierce swipe, landing solidly before her in a huff of hot breath and dust.

    The moment his violet hooves make contact with the ground again, he ripples and his skin peels away to mimic whoever had been in her memory. “I am not a dog for you to command, girl,” he spits at her, snaking his head forward to snap at the bridge of her blazed nose. He calls her a girl because she is one, but in a way that makes him seem less of a boy. He brings his chin to his now-dappled chest with a scoff. “Do you lack imagination?”

    Slowly, his skin begins to ripple once again, his dark legs the first part of him to slowly become the shadow that hides in the shade of the trees that surround them.

    skandar




    @[Aela]
    idk what this is but it was fun to write
    Reply
    #5

    His eyes brighten - to a glorious, furious red - while her blue ones darken with interest. She had thought him merely a boy; something to scare away with her memories, something to dismiss with a shrug of her slender shoulders. Aela makes a point to slide away from the pointed stare he gives her, and then the tree, not dismissing the way that his eyes blaze with rage.

    It's thrilling and she can't help herself.

    Aela has always leaned towards the unpredictable and it props up now in a smile she gives Skander as he incinerates the tree behind her. She glances behind her - admiring his handiwork - before arching a brow as she turns her blazed head towards him. The colt snarls at her and she looks down to his mouth, briefly disappointed that he doesn't grow sharp teeth (or even better, rows upon rows of them).

    All she has to do is recall all the 'monsters' (and that boy in Nerine is certainly a monstrosity) she has ever seen and the galaxy-marked boy transforms himself. The air around them is electric; shocked with the shapes that the shifter can take, charged with the memories that Aela could provide. Alone, they are separate entities. Both destined for great things, she knows (and decides then for Skandar). But together?

    Together has more potential than anything either of them could devise on their own.

    The colt attains those dark wings that she had been imagining and as he swings himself around, the golden-striped girl forcefully leaves an echo of herself behind, just in case that swipe had been intentioned for more than just turning himself around (though Aela thinks there might a little more brain than brawn in this one, at least compared to others; she thinks he might even understand what she sees).

    He snaps at her, reaching for the bridge of her nose and Aela gracefully draws back her head. The constellation child claims that is he is not hers to command and the striped filly eyes him carefully. He gets no special treatment in her reaction towards him. Those who cross wills with Aela will come to learn this lesson and submit to it: they are all hers to command.

    She'll let him choose which he wants to learn first. She remembers the iron taste of rage and the feathers that she had torn from Wherewolf when they brawled over the moorlands. She recalls the icy chill of fear creeping along her spine as she unthawed Kensley's frozen heart. She projects the might of Pangea as Magicians tear apart the rocky earth in Nerine and Straia had rechristened the North with her rain.

    @[Skandar] ripples with shadows - and Aela wonders if he is trying to imagine through the murk of her mind - so she flashes more images at him: the proud cliffs of Nerine, the impossibly tall trees of Taiga, the howling caverns of Panga. The flutter of butterfly wings and the frantic beats of deer fleeing the open. She gives him so many memories - creatures mythical and magical, places he has never been, faces he won't know, moments that aren't his. Aela forces them out quickly, never relenting until even her mind (and slim sides) starts to ache with all the infinities that she has pushed out between them.

    The blonde girl is smiling smugly when she is done.

    It would be a lesson she hoped to repeat only once; Aela lacked nothing.






    image credit to footybandit


    let me know if i should change anything but i am having so much fun with them
    Reply
    #6

    This nameless girl rises to his challenge without hesitation; she adorns that playful, mischievous smile and he is met with more than he had anticipated. Call it pride in the way he had assumed that his body could handle the weight of her memories (imagination?) as they turn in his mind, frantic and constant, without end. As parts of him had begun to trickle out into nothingness, slipping into the darkness that draws ever bolder with the setting of the bold-faced sun, the spasms begin to filter through him uncontrollably.

    Flashes of her memories come to life on his skin - rippling and peeling, unearthly and terrible. Pieces of him become rock and crumble to the forest floor, cracking devastatingly before they fall. Parts of his galaxy-studded face shatter into the burning color of Taiga’s leaves, blowing forcefully by the parts of his mane that have become the mournful howl of Pangea’s cavernous winds. Even the pattern of a butterfly’s wing fissures onto his skin and just when it seems as though his body could take no more, the whirlwind comes to a stop.

    Skandar’s skin begins to settle now that his mind could focus on one thing instead of multitudes.

    He had thought himself without weakness, seeing that his ability granted him any shape he could lay his eyes on. However, as his violet and orange sides heave and his burning gaze finally locks to hers, he realizes that he may be more mortal than he had previously thought. He snorts sharply, his head lowered between his knees as he gruesomely stares up at her from beneath his indigo forelock, his skin still ripping and peeling as it tries to set itself right.

    “My mistake,” he spits, still breathless, though now there is something more like admiration in the burning of his irises instead of the rage that had once been.

    The possibilities - the ones that she had already been thinking of - now placate his mind delicately and beautifully. Skandar slowly raises his head, his beautiful skin now finally his again. Even she is out of breath in her attack on him, but she brandishes that never-ending smile that he finally allows to twitch one side of his lips into a smirk. “I’m much stronger when the memories are my own.” He mentions to her slyly, tilting his head thoughtfully.

    “Where shall we go first?”

    skandar




    @[Aela]
    Reply
    #7

    Skandar accepts her challenge and changes splendidly before her blue eyes. Aela watches each transformation with something that looks like admiration (though she doesn't dare let it linger too long; she doesn't need another ego to contend with). He makes sweeping changes - something made of stardust to something as simple as Taiga leaves and butterfly wings. There is so much potential here that Aela is almost humming with it and for once, she wishes that speaking did come naturally for her.

    Oh, the things she could be imagining him to replicate!

    They look eyes and she smiles at him proudly. Good, she thinks. The lesson has been learned.

    She eyes him when he lifts his head, her golden ears pricking forward. Part of her wonders if he will take another shape. She wonders if Skandar will boast something else. There are no memories projected at him and Aela is careful to keep her emotions associated with him locked away; while she considers herself competent with her gift, she doesn't want to waste her reserve.

    (Just in case.)

    He smiles in response to her own and Aela takes a deft step towards the East. Her slim body angles away from his but she stops when he says that the shapes he assumes are stronger when they are his. For a moment, something bristles under his skin. Does he think his ability to create is greater than hers? If she weren't so drained from their previous interaction, she'd remind him. But her mind is full of trickling streams and the gentle sway of branches overhead.

    There is nothing to terrify Skandar; nothing to remind him of his place.

    It's a minor irritation, something her flaxen tail flicks away like the flies that dare to bite at her golden skin. She has already shown him dragons and Magicians and a battle. Aela will take him back to Pangea but she decides to test this new find of hers. Turning her head to look back at the star-speckled colt, her brow raises with a silent query (first, she pauses. First, she stills to remind him that she is the one leading him): what are your memories?





    image credit to footybandit
    Reply
    #8

    There is something that vibrates menacingly between the two of them. Something that Skandar has no word for, no recollection of ever feeling it before. Something familial, perhaps, like the wolves he sees hunt together in the forest, but even then he is unsure if that is the right word to describe it. It is almost as if they had both been born under the same burning sun, with the stars aligned a certain way, and that destiny sought them to meet face to face. As if, no matter what they did (what anyone did), their crossing paths would have happened the way it’s happening now.

    Thinking of those wolves - the ones that he’s seen bare their teeth at each other and then lick sympathetically at the same throat; showing dominance and then huddling together to keep warm beneath snowy heaps - Skandar’s indigo lips shimmer into a snarl that reveals yellowed canines, terrible yet somehow not at all fiendish. That same rage that ignites into brilliant red beams of light from his eyes still pulses and writhes, but it has quelled somewhere in his chest for now - it is something he saves for when he needs it and with her, he doesn’t see a reason to act on all that anger. At least for now.

    His sharp eyes follow her as she takes a step towards the East, narrowing, and fixating as she pauses in her movement. Fangs still protruding from his mouth, the young stallion’s ears fall flat against his neck with impatience, wondering why she is hesitating. It’s almost as if she’s reconsidering and the displeasure ripples across the dark blue and orange of his face, his eyes brightening into a shade of red-violet, burning somewhere in the back of his irises. His belly aches for the visions to come to life; to see the dragons and Magicians and strange black monsters she had conjured for him - his heart wrenches at the idea of attempting to seek out all of those things himself.

    But he does not let her see the worry that grips his throat - instead, he scowls at her with a huff. They are both equally selfish (and perhaps equally vain) but Skandar recognizes the stubbornness in her pointed look at him; he would get nowhere if he refused her (and forced back to his prison in Tephra, where a life of solidarity awaits him), and nor would he get what he wants by splitting her chest open with a single swipe of his gaze across her body.

    Skandar snorts and the fire in his eyes dim.

    His memories are not grand - they are filled with a dark ocean on an equally dark beach, moonlit nights surrounded by tropical foliage, monstrous storms that swell on the horizon and tear the world apart with its breath. He thinks of his sister, sweet yet dangerous Leijona, and her mountain lion that he had often taken shape as so she would not feel alone when she killed for her dinner. He could take this shape, he thinks, as he is familiar with it the most and it may be frightening to her - but it would not compare to the memories she had already shared with him.

    His eyes click to hers thoughtfully as the bright-burn of the lava flows come to his mind. In a blink, he turns what appears to be as black as night - but he has really become the shining obsidian that remains once the lava has cooled on Tephra’s inland grasses. Skandar’s skin then cracks, revealing an intense orange that flows like a thousand rivers across every inch of his body. Pieces of him crumble and drop to the ground, sizzling on the forest floor and disappearing once it no longer had him to support its image. He steps towards her, slow-moving like the magma that now courses through his veins. He wonders if she’ll pull away from him as the heat grows, burning the grass and debris beneath his molten hooves. “This is perhaps my only useful one,” he garbles, his jaw melting as he speaks and then reforming with each flow of lava.

    They’re closer than they’ve ever been yet and the tension is palpable. The memory he uses to form himself begins to become fuzzy, unable to hold the shape for much longer. The glow of orange lava begins to darken and fizzle out, spitting wildly across his skin. The familiar rippling begins and soon he is only himself - a star-studded colt with angry eyes. He is tired and his sides heave, but his stare does not waver from her own.

    “I need to make more.”

    And that is where Aela fits into this picture. 

    skandar



    @[Aela]
    Reply
    #9

    Aela locks eyes with the Tephran-born and a maelstrom of fire burns between them. She can see the way it blazes to life in his eyes; she can see the flames flickering there and the golden girl doesn't move a muscle. In the intensity of their heated stare, Aela does not even give Skandar an inch to move forward or yield back.

    The star-marked boy seems to understand this; he stills under her assertive blue eyes. The glowing red of his irises dims and Aela's expression remains impassive, allowing him to come to his own conclusions as to how this pairing will work (and she considers that rather thoughtful of her, when she could just remind him). It isn't as if Aela doesn't understand that she isn't playing with a snake. It isn't as if she doesn't know that she's tempting fires by pinning him with that unyielding look she gives him.

    She knows that this could end badly.
    One beam of light from those violent eyes and this interaction leads both of them nowhere.

    A horse attempting to trample a venomous snake under hoof risks getting bitten. A horse attempting to outrun a wildfire is easily reduced to ash by taking the trail.

    But Aela, she looks at Skandar, and she sees a myriad of wonderful possibilities for them. Something that could be as broad and interminable as the cosmos that have written themselves on the shapemaker's skin. Something that emerges as a quirk on her lips, a slight tug of favor in Skandar's direction. Be deft of hoof and there is the possibility of guiding the snake and his fangs; find the right tinder and there is the chance of starting the inferno. Aela has always considered herself graceful and she knows that she carries the spark.

    @[Skandar] could be her bite.
    Skandar could the blaze.

    The boy comes closer and melts near her touch. His jaw drops to the ground and the golden filly tilts her head towards him. Skandar's words are jumbled as his tongue melts and reforms, as his jaw disintegrates and remakes itself. Aela is more perceptive to emotions than most and the tension that radiates from his skin doesn't just linger against hers; Aela can feel the heat igniting in her veins, can feel it sizzling at her core.

    She will never be the kindling for somebody else but that doesn't mean she isn't a curious creature. It doesn't mean that she isn't willing to raise the stakes in this game if it might mean exploring the limits of Skandar's abilities (what he is capable of will only aid her). Aela lingers near him, allowing the charge between them to continue to crackle. She feels like a magnet and her vanity is nearly humming with it, a compass that she is more than willing to point straight towards her.

    Peering at him from beneath her dark lashes, she projects a single memory towards him: Nerinian granite.

    If only she could touch him, the pout forming seems to say. If only he was cool as stone. If only -



    image credit to footybandit
    Reply
    #10

    What is it that causes this girl to be so confident? He cannot find any wavering in her gaze; no weakness that trembles or frailty that shakes the slender of her bones. She is unlike anything he has ever come across (though, perhaps Leijona would be his only comparison - even then, his sister has a softness behind the teeth and claws, behind the earth she moves and shapes to her every whim) and it infuriates him and yet, in the same breath, enchants him. Either she has never faced defeat or she hasn’t come face to face with a force that has brought her to her knees. Skandar cannot tell which and though his curiosity is roused, he considers the quiet notion that she is one of few words. He wonders why that is so for if the way her countenance is held so proudly, he thinks her mouth would do much more than smile so prettily at him.

    But that is all she does - smile and smirk and give him electric blue gazes, blinding and sharp. Skandar snorts sharply, made even more curious by this enigma before him and finding himself unable to pull himself away from her magnetism. He is nearly certain she will reach out and touch him as the lava drips despairingly from his face, a suspended moment between the two of them that fizzles and cracks.

    Another memory of her own suddenly enters his mind and with a gentle tilt of his head - questioningly, thoughtfully - his body quivers and ripples, peeling in slivers that flicker like the wrinkled skin of Tephra’s blue waves. It does this for a few moments, like it always does before it settles on her image.

    His body is rough and dark, splintered and worn by cold and angry unceasing waves. It is an easy form to take, for many times he had become part of the earth just so Leijona could learn to manipulate it. The Nerinian stone is different than the earth of Tephra and the young colt tries hard to keep the shape that he has yet to see with his own eyes. Skandar’s gaze remains bold and brilliant against the grey stone that he has become, moving a few inches closer to her in unhurried steps. His movement makes the rock scrape against each other, grinding and groaning as his now-stone joints carry him forward.

    “Anything,” he murmurs carefully, attempting to answer a question she hasn’t yet asked him. His voice is quiet and low, hushed as he inches closer - as if telling a secret that is only for them to share. “I can become anything.”

    skandar



    @[Aela]
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