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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 don't know why i run away, rosebay
    #1
    CrownS
    He moves through the darkness as a pair of glowing eyes with the will-o’-wisps bobbing lazily around him. Their blue flames occasionally illuminate his hip or shoulder before continuing on their lazy orbit. Crowns allows his magic to spread from him as unseen hands, blindly feeling for anything familiar. He occasionally catches the leg of some stranger or brushes up against the scales and fur of unknown things. His breath catches in his throat whenever they escape between his fingers. They were not anything he seeks, though.

    The boy wonders if he will happen upon Olena or Eight, maybe even Altar or Rosemary. Would they venture into this infinite night as he does? There is a piece of him that would prefer they remain somewhere safe, if he’s being honest, but then he finds Rosebay standing there in the dark nearby. He swallows hard and gently tugs at her mane before his magic recoils and retreats back inside his ribs. Crowns blinks his glowing eyes and waits to see if she will entertain him with her presence once more.

    Somehow, it doesn’t surprise him that she is the one he stumbles upon here. She had tiptoed to the edge of death with him. She knows what lies beyond this world just as well as he does.

    A snarl of something off to his left snatches his attention for a moment as the hairs along his neck raise. The yowling almost sounds like words and he finds his legs moving closer to Rosebay before he wills himself to walk. Crowns spreads a dripping wing to drape over her back as he draws near.

    It sounds hungry,” he whispers as the glow of his fire briefly lands upon their faces.
    you got me on my knees; i'm your one-man cult.

    @[rosebay]
    Reply
    #2
    Rosebay

    She peers into the darkness, seeing nothing but the shadows reflected back at her.

    There is a piece of her that wonders if this is what her mother saw. If this endless darkness was what had greeted her when the earth had yawned open underneath and dragged her down below. She wonders if this is what is waiting for her on the other side, if she is ever going to find her way toward it in the end. There is not fear that she feels though, although if she was wiser perhaps it is what she would allow.

    Instead she just feels curiosity.

    An endless supply of it.

    She is not surprised when she feels the warmth of him come up along her side. When she feels the familiar heavy weight of his wing across her lean back. She glances up at him, her pale brown eyes studying the changing lines of his face—maturity now sharpening what his youth had kept soft. It suits him, she decides, and although she had not missed him per se, she is glad to be near him once more.

    “Is the darkness not always hungry?” she counters lightly, staring back into the dark where the growls and yips continue. She feels her newfound power beneath her grasp, humming lightly, and she brushes it against him for a moment, blossoming a weak poison on his tongue—only strong enough for him to feel the buzzing of it. “It is good to see you, Crowns,” she says with a wicked tilt of her lips.

    A single ear tilts to the side as she thinks she catches the sound of snapping bones.

    “It is a lovely night.”

    but in all chaos, there is calculation



    @[crowns]
    Reply
    #3
    CrownS
    She doesn’t speak of her mother aloud and he doesn’t pry into her thoughts without invitation. Regardless, whatever Otherworld Straia had been snatched away to remains a mystery to the both of them. And perhaps it’s better that way. Rosebay and Crowns are precisely the sort of fools who would reach into the darkness just to see if they could pluck an answer from it.

    He wonders what sorts of demons dance behind her eyes whenever he looks down at her. Is she glad to see him? Annoyed he was away for so long? A smile forms across his lips when she breathes her question, then widens when the poison spreads over his tongue like wine. He likes the way it numbs his tongue and makes his entire mouth feel like static electricity.

    The snapping of a bone draws his gaze from her face for a while as he stares wordlessly into the void. For a short moment, there is silence, and then wet thrashing as meat is torn and chewed. Crowns swallows her poison and thoughtlessly presses a kiss to her temple before stepping closer to the sounds.

    Who do you think is hungrier? Us or them?” he asks without looking back to her. There is a soft laugh bubbling into his words as the foxfire seems to jump a little with excitement. He pours heat into the bouncing flames until they begin to hiss and spit in their wild orbiting. “It is a lovely night.
    you got me on my knees; i'm your one-man cult.

    @[rosebay]
    Reply
    #4
    Rosebay

    Rosebay does not follow others easily, but she might follow Crowns into the darkness. And why not? He had been there to give her that first, heady taste of death. Had pulled her into the shadows of it and let her get drunk on the promise of the abyss. Let her close her eyes and sigh with pleasure at the first gut punch of it. The way her entire body had recoiled. The way she had felt it burn like wildfire through her veins.

    So perhaps she would follow him into the dark—perhaps she would.

    These truths do not come to rose petal lips though nor do they hide behind her plain, almond eyes. Instead she tucks them away beneath the growing armor that has begun to take over her slender body. She tilts a fragile head at him as her poison spreads across his tongue and she nearly shivers at the intimacy of it. So much so that she does not pull away this time when he kisses her. Does not turn to mist at the touch.

    When he steps away, she remains still, with nothing but the shadows to wrap around her.

    At his question, she laughs—the sound sharper than the sweet girl she can sometimes pretend to be. But he has never known that truth of her. Has never knowing anything but the raw ugliness of her—the power hungriness, the greed. The way she slurps cruelty off her fingertips and asks for more.

    “I am always the hungriest in the room,” she purrs as her lips tilt upward in the corner. Her eyes flash a little as she settles, watching the way the light from his foxfire dances across his features.

    but in all chaos, there is calculation



    @[crowns]
    Reply
    #5
    CrownS
    His magic has doled out little morsels of itself to him and held his hand when he wandered near the edge of this world and the next. It served as a safety net and always kept him anchored where it wanted him. But lately, now that his body has matured, it feels like the promise of safety is gone. Instead, his magic has become a claw gently tapping at his bedroom window. It ticks out little requests in timid morse code: Take. Take. Take.

    But take what? He finds himself circling back to this question often.
    And the answer comes clicking ou feverishly. Everything. All of it. Then more.

    He has heard the voice of hunger and learned to speak in its native tongue. Crowns has mastered the art of always being ravenous, of always chasing satisfaction like his ancestors before him. So when Rosebay says she is the hungriest in the room, he only smiles and nods. They will see who is more empty in due time.

    For now, his limbs twist and pop into talons. His spine pushes up from beneath his skin and splits it into a ridge of glistening scales. When Crowns moves, his shoulders bend the tree branches until they groan fearfully and snap. He becomes a terrible, hulking thing that reaches for the monsters before they can think to claw at him. He plunges ugly hands into their chests just to split them in two as if they were made from wet paper. They are beautiful, but they are disappointing to him. They die as quickly as a light flicks on.

    And when he spits Rosebay’s poison into their eyes, they only howl in pain before crumpling to the ground and going still. His heart scarcely quickens at all.

    We need something sturdier. Something that will teach us to pronounce fear,” he says with his strange mouth and jagged teeth.
    you got me on my knees; i'm your one-man cult.

    @[rosebay]
    Reply
    #6
    Rosebay

    Would she purr with pleasure to know that this magic seeks to lead him further into the dark?

    Would she gladly grab hold his wrist and take him?

    She knows that they both stare into one another’s eyes and see abyss on the other side. Knows that they see the promise of eternity and death and do not flinch from what stares back at them. She knows she would not hesitate to play her part in him answering the call of his magic’s clattering teeth.

    Rosebay would gladly answer.

    Would gladly alongside him.

    So when he shifts, his monstrous form cracking and breaking apart within him, she doesn’t move away. Even if her pulse accelerates, it is more from thrill than fear and she forces herself to watch. Forces herself to see the thing that he becomes. Whatever natural in her that has not been burned away balks, and she kneels on its throat. She forces its eyes open as he spits and roars into the monsters around them.

    She croons as it tears them apart, ripping through them like water.

    And when he finally turns his terrible attention back to her, she walks to him. Presses her poisoner’s mouth to the terror of his strange mouth and tastes her own toxin mixed with the demonic ichor. She licks it clean, feeling that pleasant hum in her veins as she tips her delicate, armored head back to stare at him.

    “Then let us find whatever will not snap so easily.”

    you and I nursing on a poison that never stung



    @[crowns]
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