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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


    [private]  a melody to open their eyes
    #1



    Today Tamlin had woken up and decided he was going to move as little as possible. It just felt like one of those days, you know? It was hard to keep track of time but he was pretty sure that he spent a few hours just lying there, watching one of the glowing birds do lazy circles and counting every time it flew by. He got to ten before he forgot which number he was at and then another five after that before giving up entirely.

    He accidentally sent some of his agitations to the wolf pack and then promptly suggested that they go hunt somewhere else when they started pacing around and a few of them gnawed on his bone legs. It didn’t hurt but it was super weird.

    So off they went and Tamlin lied back down onto the soft Tephra soil for a few moments before getting up with a groan that was more appropriate for someone five times his age.

    What can he say, his bones were aching!

    Almost a whole year spent as a skeleton with the prettiest opal hooves you could imagine.  The shadows shift as some of the glowing birds move about and Tamlin settles his wings against his side and they rattle against his ribs in probably the most uncomfortable noise in the entire world.

    Well there was nothing for it, once he got enough energy to put one bony leg in front of the other he was going to have to find one of his siblings to entertain him.

    t a m l i n

    artwork by space1993


    @[Wishbone]
    #2
    it's a mystery to me
    we have a greed with which we have agreed. you think you have to want more than you need; until you have it all you won't be free. and when you think more than you want, your thoughts begin to bleed.
    Some days Wishbone paces Tephra’s borders. Some days she wanders in the jungle, stepping across lava flows and splashing through creeks. Some days she simply stands at the edge of the beach, listening to the ocean’s dysrhythmic song. She has accepted that there is no such thing as day or night anymore, merely the passage of time evidenced by the slow decay of their jungle. Her sleeping patterns have only exhaustion as their reasoning, and even this is unreliable. Since the moon and sun first collided, Wishbone has found sleep to be a fabled thing. Her dreams are flashes of memory, of Svedka’s blue-eyed face, of her mother’s laughter.

    The urgency in Warden’s voice often wakes her up. Her brother’s voice jolts her awake now, and it sounds so real that Wishbone sucks in a deep breath of the air. Yet all she smells is the thick sweetness of dying plantlife, clinging so heavily in the air that she can taste it. It’s enough to send Wishbone out of the jungle. The sounds of the beach are beginning to reach her ears when she catches the scents of fresh blood and warm fur.

    So far, she has only seen the wafting forms of shadows (and there are even darker shadows than what surrounds them, otherworldly beings that flicker with teeth and eyes she can’t begin to describe); she hasn’t heard about anyone getting injured by the beings. The shape of Svedka falling into the open mouth of the earth flashes across her mind’s eye, and she shudders instinctively. Apprehension mingles with frustration at the thought of her brother lost somewhere, perhaps stuck in the darkness he had spoken of before. Wishbone tightens her jaw against the spiral of thoughts she knows will follow if she keeps thinking about Svedka.

    Instead, she turns toward the signs of struggle. The glowing birds’ swooping forms provide enough light for Wishbone to make out the blood streaks on the ground. She follows them quickly, her pulse quickening in her throat, and when she finds the remains of a carcass torn apart, she stops. Thankfully the prey seems to have been a deer of some kind, and the predators have already moved on. Wishbone’s amber eyes scan the dark undergrowth as she calls out, “Hello?”
    credit to eliza of adoxography.


    @[Tamlin]
    #3



    Tamlin was always pretty good at preoccupying himself with his own thoughts - it was a talent - but he much preferred to have someone else distract him. The bony nub of his tail practically wags when he hears someone approach and his own voice holds absolutely none of the hesitation in the one that calls out. “Hello!!”

    He moves towards the voice and emerges from around a tree to find a new friend and a bit of a mess on the ground. Tamlin’s eyes, which work perfectly fine even though they are invisible at the moment, catch on the leftovers of a deer carcass. Lockie and the rest were getting pretty sloppy in their old age, it might be up to Tamlin to teach the next generation of pups some manners. “Oh, that’s just from the wolves. They’re usually a little cleaner but today they were more agitated than normal.” Tamlin does not, for the moment, mention that it was his own blend of restlessness and laziness that had been making them agitated in the first place.

    “Nothing sinister going on here at all.” And he would be wearing a dazzling, prize-worthy smile if he had any flesh on his bones. As it was, his skulled head merely tilted to the side to regard the purple mare and hope that she does not mistake him for one of the monsters.

    Surely none of them were quite so chatty, were they?

    t a m l i n

    artwork by space1993


    @[Wishbone]
    #4
    it's a mystery to me
    we have a greed with which we have agreed. you think you have to want more than you need; until you have it all you won't be free. and when you think more than you want, your thoughts begin to bleed.
    Wishbone has never considered herself afraid. She has peered into the many shifting faces of Death and laughed. From the moment she could walk, Wishbone has been a daughter of Bravery. Fear has been an emotion not nearly as strong as the rest, a phantom that haunts the quietest part of her mind. She has been happy this way; she has been proud of her independence, her fearlessness, her courage.

    It had felt like nothing would phase her. She had kept her chin up, even as Ivar sunk his teeth into her skin, pressing his weight between her shoulders and forcing ocean water into her lungs. While the Afterlife was gray and cold and hazy, she had paced the threshold between Life and Death until her legs gave out beneath her. It wasn’t until the monster twisted from her murderer into a friend’s friend into a true beast that Wishbone felt the first fleeting screams of genuine fear. To die once was an adventure; to die again would be torture.

    And yet, she hadn’t died. Merely splintered into a thousand pieces and reformed into someone new. Wishbone can’t explain it (even still, she is confused by the magic that winds through her blood), but this purple body feels closer to her original body. It brings her comfort, even as an unfamiliar voice cuts through the darkness.

    Perhaps she would have sent a blunt-tipped bone right through his chest if it weren’t for several different factors. Monsters didn’t speak — something she had learned in her encounters with them. Her body is unwilling to die — if bleeding out by a pair of relentless jaws hadn’t killed her, maybe nothing would. The stranger is a twisted skeleton — she can hear the clatter of bone rubbing against its brethren.

    “I’m assuming the wolves are friends of yours.” There’s a twist of humor in her rough voice. Tephra is her home, and even that simple fact eases whatever fragile pieces of fear linger in her mind. “I will have to remember that wolves and skeletons tend to run together.” Wishbone’s amber eyes twinkle with amusement, even as she introduces herself. “I’m Wishbone.”
    credit to eliza of adoxography.

    @[Tamlin]
    #5



    For the moment, at least, it does not seem he is in any danger of being attacked or being mistaken for a monster, and Tamlin relaxes when he picks up on the notes of humour in the purple mare’s voice. On the matter of the wolves being his friends, he’s quick to nod and confirm. “They sure are! I don’t know what it says about me that I prefer to hang out with a bunch of dogs but, here we are.” Maybe it wasn’t that he preferred it? Maybe it was just that the wolves tolerated him a little more readily than anyone else? Tamlin hadn’t really given it too much thought. He never really gave anything too much thought.

    And sure, maybe the magic that he could use to stop them from killing him helped - but he had actually bonded with most of the pack and only rarely needed to control them. Usually when someone new came around.

    But, he’s not thinking about that right now because he can tell that the wolves are happy he’s distracted and he’s happy to see a twinkle in the amber eyes of the mare that introduces herself as Wishbone. Conversations were always so much better when the one you were talking to had a sense of humour.

    Tamlin’s bright smile is evident in his voice as he responds, pouring in a little over-exaggerated incredulity at the end for good measure. “I’m Tamlin and are you trying to tell me you don’t run with wolves?”

    t a m l i n

    artwork by space1993


    @[Wishbone] just in case you didn't have enough replies from me already <3
    #6
    it's a mystery to me
    we have a greed with which we have agreed. you think you have to want more than you need; until you have it all you won't be free. and when you think more than you want, your thoughts begin to bleed.
    Wishbone’s ran with wolves before, though not in the same way Tamlin mentions. She’d spent her childhood peering over her shoulder for the flashing teeth of Longclaw. She’d spent her growing, maturing years with Wolfbane in mind (and heart). She’d spent her older years with a kelpie with bloodlust like a wolf, one who’d eventually gotten what he wanted. And she’d seen wolves in the Afterlife, ones who had probably been deadly during their lives but now roamed the gray world like shadows.

    His question makes her laugh, especially the way he exaggerates his words at the end. The skeleton has a sense of humor, and she finds her rough voice chiming along with the rattling of his bones. “Not the ones you run with,” she offers in return, and her eyes are blazing with the soulful tales of her adventures.

    In the darkness, while Tamlin’s pack races through the woods together, Wishbone begins to tell him just one of the true stories of her life.
    credit to eliza of adoxography.


    @[Tamlin] Just a little closer for this thread <3




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