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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


    [open]  i will sing to you as if my chest is glass; any
    #1
    She smells of the ocean, of salt and brine and so much sun she might be made molten by it, silver and flowing like liquid ore. There are curls in her mane where the pale hair is always in some ever-changing phase of half damp and half dry, perpetually windswept and far too wild to ever tame. It dances across her dappled neck and falls over a pair of eyes brighter than any gem, bluer than any single shade of mountain sky. They are large on her delicate face, wide and round and almost doll-like as she turns that luminous gaze back out towards the ocean again.

    This place is home, this little rock cove carved from a land made and unmade by too many gods, too many higher powers always craving more and creating change and flexing magic made hungry from disuse. She hopes she will be able to keep this spot safe from that. Keep it safe and hers and perfectly secluded.

    She spares a glance towards where the grass grows tall and tangled against the rock barrier, too soaked in salt for her to ever want to eat, but perfect for concealing a pale gray seal skin. It is tempting sometimes to move it underwater, to find a submerged cave and tuck it into a crevice of stone, but she worries the tide will grow greedy and take it from her. The sea is like that, strong and selfish and so good at taking.

    With a grace reminiscent of the sea herself, Alleria moves down the shore to slip into the waiting waves. She disappears up to her knees, then her chest, and when the cold water touches her throat she exhales the air from her lungs that would otherwise keep her buoyant. Much like her seal form, the selkie can sustain for hours off the oxygen in her blood and muscle as she travels the shallows beneath the waves.

    It is the easiest way for her to come and go and still keep her cove secret, keep her sealskin hidden away from those with malintent. The cove is shaped like a wide horseshoe butted up to the sea, inaccessible but by sky or water, and no more or less interesting than any of the other local coves she is sure. There is little shelter from the sun, and only minimally from the wind, but it is not herself she means to keep safe.

    Not directly, at least.

    When she emerges again she miles down a different beach. She pauses on the shore as the water runs from her in glittering rivulets, turning to gaze up and down the beach for anything remarkable. But everyone in this place is remarkable, and she finds herself constantly enchanted by the oddities of a place so infused with color and magic that the oddities are those who go without either. Like her, to the unclever. She shakes herself, loosing sand and water and bits of damp seaweed from her hair as those curls reappear in the drying tangles that settle against her neck.

    There is something ethereally beautiful despite her plainness, something perfectly, unnameably right. It is in the shade of her skin as pale as pewter, in the silvered white of the mane coiling against her neck. It is in the darker points and darker dapples, and the too-large shape of those beautiful aquamarine eyes that might hold the blue of every sky trapped inside them. It is the smile on her lips, so soft and warm, and the sunshine in her quiet laughter.

    It is everything and nothing.

    alleria

    pull me back to shore, i'll never reach my place

    Reply
    #2
    He is the raging sea. Water when the winds tease it into ever taller tidal waves, the briny deep where secret creatures live and die without ever knowing the sun. When he smiles, it is like jagged rocks revealing themselves on a calm strait, no lighthouse giving warning to the devastation just beyond sight. 

    Blue tinged and white, he is like a patch of errant sunlight on the water. Easily missed if one wasn't looking for it. Only when he surfaces to exhale, twin bursts of mist from his nostrils and a new lungful of air greedily taken in, is he more clearly known. Caught between equid and orca, Cormorant dwelt between the two worlds, parts of both but fully neither. 

    He spent most of his time in the waters of Icicle Isle. Cold water and a pod of tolerant porpoises made it as close to home as he wished to get. They were migrating soon though, on to warmer waters and easier hunting as summer neared its end. He couldn't blame them. Was curious, even, to know where his warm weather companions would go. 

    South, it was always south. Further than he could follow without rest. His mother's gifts went far in the ocean world. Not far enough to carry him miles from land. So he whistled his farewells, and turned back when they passed his point of no return. Made landfall where fresh water met salt, and ran cold from melting off the mountains. 

    Like an ancient creature found in the corner of an old, half written map, he broke the surface and drank in free air. The muscular flesh of his tail hung heavy behind him without the water's support. The tall mast of his dorsal fin leaned likewise to one side. Like so many waterbound mammals, he was less graceful on the shores. Still, years of near constant swimming had given him muscle that compensated for his wobbling sealegs while he acclimated to the solid land. 

    It was a pleasant cove he'd come upon. Idyllic and calm, gritty sand beneath his dripping hooves. He snorted, pleased in an offhand way. Eating was a much more pressing matter in the moment, and he would consider a rabbit in lieu of edible vegetation. 

    Ah. But that wasn't a rabbit, was it. The burly stallion froze, a predator having spotted potential prey. A little grey mare also stood on this slice of land, and he wasn't sure she had spotted him yet. 

    @[alleria]
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    #3
    She does not notice him at first, there is too much to see, too much to take in. While she doesn't mind the isolation of her private little cove, it is still a delight to come to a place like this, where life dots the shores as prevalently as the shining shells beneath her feet. But as her gaze wanders from face to face, those luminous blue eyes studying everything quietly in turn, it is on Cormorant that they finally land and stay, and she wonders how on earth she had ever missed him in the first place.

    He is the strangest oddity she has yet to encounter. While her own land and sea forms are quite separate, his seem as intertwined as the wind in the slender tree branches. He is decidedly equid, she can see that in his face and his legs, the shape of his watery gold and white body, but there is a large fin on his back and a heavy, and decidedly not equine, tail behind him where only hair and slender bone should be.

    For a long moment she merely watches him, though her delicate face is gentle and her expression remains soft, curious in that wide-eyed way she can’t ever seem to shake. But he is too much a curiosity to ignore, and even though he watches her now not unlike the orcas have watched her before while in her seal form, she is too bold to be afraid of him.

    She crosses the beach towards him, and her gait is graceful and unhurried, those bright eyes drinking in each new detail this growing closeness reveals to her. His skin is smooth in a way that matches his fins, and she is sure she knows just exactly what it would feel like beneath her lips should she find a reason to explore it, but it does nothing to clarify the mingling contrasts of his body.

    Land or sea?

    When she comes to a stop again there are only inches between them, and she can smell the ocean on him in a way that is almost overpowering and yet so different from the scent that clings to her own sun-soaked hair. He smells of the ocean herself, looks made for her wicked tides and strong enough to withstand her more brutal children, yet he comes here to the shore where his tail hangs and his fin slumps,  and he watches her with a sharp kind of predator gaze.

    And she, ever the perfect, convincing prey, reaches out to touch her nose to the smooth skin of his cheek and whispers, “What are you? Friend or foe.”.

    alleria

    pull me back to shore, i'll never reach my place

    Reply
    #4
    Her eyes are like black liquid pools, and he feels them drink him down when they at last fall on him. Round as sand dollars, he smirked slightly as they took him in. Had he surprised her? It certainly seemed that way, a fact that soothed his predator's heart.  

    He hadn't been able to guess that she would make her way toward him, grey coat shimmering faintly in the daylight. He was reminded of stones in the shallows, glossy with water and sun. Beautiful in ways that were disguised when they left their homes in the sea. Perhaps she, like those stones, was at her best when wet. 

    He let her come to him, still as a stone himself until she found herself close enough to touch. Until she did touch. The skin of his damp cheek warmed at her contact. It was not a unpleasant sensation, and he found himself curving his neck to return the gesture. Brushed the sleek curve of his mouth to the hollow beneath her ear and inhaled the clean, salty scent of her. 

    "That depends," he hummed, voice musical even as the hunter's notes colored his words. "Are you a predator?" He paused, and the lips that had so softly run along her face now parted to reveal teeth meant for gripping, tearing. "Or are you prey?" His mouth closed firmly on the muscle at the top of her neck, teeth sinking through her thick mane until they stopped just shy of breaking skin. 

    @[alleria]
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    #5
    She is much more comfortable with giving than she is with receiving, and when his lips settle in the hollow beneath her ear, it takes a concerted effort not to tense up. He breathes in the salt on her skin, the sunshine in the strands of mane that hang there, and she merely waits until he is finished, keeping those large blue eyes deliberately soft and placid. 

    His voice is musical at first, and the melody of it lulls her into ignoring the sharper edge of the blade glinting beneath his seemingly innocent question. She waits to hear him finish, and perhaps she waits too long, lulled too far, because there is a sudden shift when he pauses and shows her teeth that could belong only to something made to tear flesh. She might’ve ignored the implied threat had he not reached for her, but the moment his mouth begins to close over her mane she strikes out with a foreleg and pulls out of his reach.

    “Try that again and you’ll be the first to know.” Her voice is as sharp as the suddenly glacial blue of those impossibly bright eyes. She never looks away from him, though her feet carry her a few steps further away from where she had stood a moment ago, now carefully out of his reach. She is furious, but she is still unafraid - she knows he must be easy to evade on land built as he is for the sea. But she is built for both.

    alleria

    pull me back to shore, i'll never reach my place



    @[Cormorant]
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    #6
    Is it wrong that his eyes gleamed with excitement when she whipped away? That the grunt of surprise as her hoof connected with his chest quickly gave way to a pleased short of chuckle? Cormorant grinned, not bothering to disguise the points of his teeth now, and watched her pique from a safe distance. 

    "Forgive me," he asked lightly, as though he had not attempted to sink his teeth into her only moments ago. "But it seems the question has answered itself." And he did not clarify what that answer was. Only that it satisfied him. With a shrug, the bulky stallion nodded to the open water from which he had emerged. It was steel grey and white capped today. Beautiful, when the light broke through clouds to glance off it. 

    "Things are so much more direct out there," he mused, to her and to himself. Who needed manners when it was eat or be eaten? One ear flicked thoughtfully, as he wondered at the merits of the surface. More talking, less knowing. His eyes drifted back over to the platinum mare, his expression mild. "Do you like it up here?" He asked after a moment. 

    He wasn't sure that he did. He'd spent most of his childhood on land, following in his mother's tracks as she served an island. The matriarch, as the orca were concerned. That was where the similarities ended. The orca had no sense of politics, of negotiation. It was strength and cleverness that got you by, not how well you could or couldn't talk. Still, there was always room for perspective, and he waited on the little riptide mare's. 

    @[alleria]
    Reply
    #7
    “No, I don’t think I will.” She answers evenly, and there is no hint of his own gleaming amusement reflected back at him from the cool, glacial blue of her ocean eyes. Even his chuckle makes her teeth grind silently together, and she can feel an arrogant fury burning to life somewhere deep inside her - some buried vein of dark inside her chest likely borrowed from her father. She should soothe her fire and let this be forgotten, but she is too bothered by this beast who thought it acceptable to place his teeth on her skin.

    Yet there is some part of her made curious over this wretched creature who can use his pointed teeth on the skin of a total stranger one moment, and the next moment chuckle and muse as though this is how civilized creatures do things.

    He is made almost entirely of the ocean depths, more orca than equine, more wild than tame. Her eyes study him once more without apology, taking in the markings and fins, the hanging tail behind him. When she stops again it is on his teeth, which she acknowledges with a slight frown, and then looks away as though to dismiss any discomfort she feels from not having her eyes glued to him.

    She is not prey.

    “I can tell you directly that I dislike you without having to bury my teeth in your skin.” She points out, leaning heavily on her selkie voice in an effort to weave a compulsion of tameness in him, though he hardly seems feral now. “I rather like the civility of the land,” she says, her gaze returning to him briefly, “the sea seems to lack any mystery whatsoever.” It is an insult, of course, and she delivers it slyly with the hint of a smile.

    She is of course nothing like what she allows him to believe. Not land-based, though he would never know it for the way she sheds her ocean skin and the stink of brine and fish. In this form she smells as much of the earth and sunshine as she does the sea. “Though I suppose it’s easy to love what you know, isn’t it.” Despite her distaste in him, she finds her gaze has remained on his face and his curious predator smile.

    alleria

    pull me back to shore, i'll never reach my place



    @[Cormorant]
    Reply
    #8
    He shrugged, not having expected anything different. Hoping, maybe. But not expecting. She was gentler than most creatures he met, the random clashing meetings of feral beasts not part and parcel of her every day. It baffled him slightly. Why not establish where you stand with someone new right off the hoof? Figure out who is stronger, who is smarter, and let your relationship go from there. 

    There is tension in every line of her now, and the burly sea farer watched with interest. She was angry and on guard, and he had caused that. The oceans in his eyes followed her, calculating. At her sharp assertion, he nodded. The words that followed it brought the smile back to his mouth, but it was one of resigned satisfaction more than any actual pleasure. A smile of being right about something unpleasant. 

    "Yes, but it sped the process up a bit, didn't it?" He asked, languid when he should have been intent. "You know you don't like me, and I know it'll be more work than it's worth to drag you into the sea." It's as thinly veiled an insult as she'd just volleyed to him, so he set back and let land. Watched her for reaction, or lack thereof. 

    With a sudden groan of weariness, the hybrid stallion stretched his neck in an inelegant curve. It had been a long journey to this part of the continent, and now that he had landed, exhaustion was setting in. It was being helped along, of course, by the musical notes the grey woman spoke. She had a very pleasant voice, he thought, even if it was being used to scald him with. 

    His broad shoulder jerked up and down, a gesture he didn't use often under water. "Mystery," he hummed, "is overrated. I like to know what's what." Less room for misinterpretation that way, or so he believed. Whether that he meant loved it, well... Love was an emotion he had grown up dodging. He'd seen the effects of it on his dam, and found it shockingly destructive. It was enough to drive anyone into the sea. 

    @[Alleria]
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    #9
    She does not consider it an insult that he recognizes she is more than helpless prey, more work than it’s worth to drag her into the sea. It sounds more like the first intelligent observation he’s made so far, and she can feel a smile sharpening in the corners of her grey silk mouth as she studies him once more. He is correct, of course, it would be far too much work to take her into the sea against her will. She is not something delicate and frightened, not someone easily domineered.

    “Did it?” She asks, and the smile on her lips is something sharp and beautiful and as dangerous as broken glass. “I suppose that depends entirely on whether or not you are truly an uncivilized idiot.” She makes no effort to gentle her words, though it no longer comes from a place of total disdain. He does not seem fragile enough to have his feelings wounded by the blade of her tongue. “If you are, then perhaps you are exactly right. It did speed things up. But if you are not, then it would seem you’ve only managed to make a mess of what could have been a nice introduction.”

    She resettles herself, the lines of arrogant tension softening along her jaw and her shoulders and the delicate curve of her spine. It is the impression of growing relaxed in his company, though she is not so foolish as to disregard him entirely. She may not be prey, but that does not mean he isn’t a predator. Which is why she is entirely surprised when his body language changes and she can see new signs of weariness in the way he moves to stretch.

    How curious.

    “Do you find me that exhausting?” She asks, and the smile on her mouth is suddenly less sharp, the shade of her eyes a perfect match to the sky overhead and shining with quiet amusement. “I assure you, it is entirely mutual.” But there is an almost friendliness to her now, though it is something so subtle and still new enough to shatter.

    She sighs, and the sound is contemplative as she turns to look out over the ocean again, to trace the shades of blue where they come together in sky and horizon and swirling ocean. “It is entirely impossible to live a life without any mystery. It is too easy to hide things, too easy to pretend. Like you, for example. You act a big brute, but I do believe you might actually have a brain in there.” Her smile deepens past the corners of her mouth as she turns to study him again, eyes warm and flashing with friendly laughter. Then, decisively. “Mystery.”

    alleria

    pull me back to shore, i'll never reach my place



    @[Cormorant]
    Reply
    #10
    There was a measure of entertainment in the interaction. Distinct from the thrill he got in pursuing prey, this felt like a similar game. One with more rules, maybe, but a familiar rhythm. At this point though, it was unclear who was leading, and who was following. A sneaking suspicion crept into the porpoise bull's mind. 

    Was he not the one directing this exchange? 

    The look on his face did nothing at all to erase the impression that he might very well be an idiot. His mouth curved into a chagrined grimace. "My ma did her best, but I can't say she was all that successful in smoothing the roughness off my tongue." Or any other part of him, for that matter. Waves pounding on the beach. They could change its shape, given enough time, but not it's nature. 

    A gust of salty wind blew over him, beckoning him ever more towards the sea. His expression softened at the light touch. "Tell me, girlie, had things gone how you think is right; what should our meeting have looked like?" He asked, genuine curiosity blending with a lick of humour. Right, wrong, they were arbitrary terms. Each made true or false by the one examining them at the moment. 

    With another yawn, his wicked grin returned, tempered with real weariness. "Perhaps," he answered briefly, legs folding beneath his heavy form a more visual reply. With an "oof" of breath, he settled into the warm sand, looking up at her expectantly. Expectant of what, who knew, but expectant nevertheless. A snort of derision sputtered from his slitted nostrils. 

    "You can't prove anything," he grumbled, defiant for the sake of it. That he was denying having a brain seemed less important than the horror that would be finding they actually agreed on something. "Anyway, who's to say brutes can't have brains? That's just profiling, right there." He added, tone aimed to nettle ever so slightly. Just enough to irk her into another bit of debate. 

    @[alleria] 
    @[The Monsters] gonna be a sadist here. Please mess with both his nereid shifting and orca mimicry!
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