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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]  Nobody's your friend at the start or at the end; any
    #1

    I tried to sell my soul last night
    Funny, he wouldn't even take a bite

    He’s not entirely sure why he’s still here. At the time, he’d followed the other pegasus here because he’d had little else better to do. The monster had not returned to fulfill his darkly grotesque wishes, so, finding himself at loose ends (really though, what’s fucking new about that?), he’d decided to humor Tarian’s wish to find a way to heal him in repayment. He’d never planned to stay long. Though, in truth, he hadn’t had much of a plan at all.

    In the end however, this place had seemed just as good as any other he’s haunted over the last few years. He could be just as damned useless here as anywhere else.

    And so, though he had healed and the sun had, at long last, returned, he found himself staying. He could hardly call it home, but it had proven at least slightly better than the endless rounds of irritably aimless encounters. Here at least, the irritably aimless encounters would be limited. And at the end of the day, it is no less boring than the endless trees of the forest or restless shores of the river.

    In any case, his laundry list of memories and regrets could afflict him just as well here as anywhere. Were he a more insightful creature, he might have thought how odd it was to miss having no memories. But he’s not, so he misses it and finds himself all the more irritable for it.

    With no more monsters to fight, it does make a man wonder how one might take out their aggressions otherwise. He is at least insightful enough to realize that it would be unwise to do so on whatever luckless inhabitant of Loess happened to cross him. But if he scowls at the landscape long enough, perhaps he might eventually figure out the answer.



    I'm sorry to anyone who might decide to respond to this for what a godawful mess it is lmao
    #2

    Help me out before I drown
    Save me now before I give up


    He’s still not quite sure why he had agreed to come. If he had wanted to disappear into a cave forever then he could have done so anywhere. He had already faded a few times from the forefront of this world, allowing his madness and illness to smother him into obscurity. So what made Oceane’s offer any different? Why was it her cave, her home, that he decided to try on as his? It was lie he kept telling himself, that it had nothing to do with her and nothing to do with the strange sensation that swirls around his empty glass heart when she looks at him. As if she doesn’t see a shattered man before her.

    He had watched many kingdoms rise and fall, had seen the land break and remake itself. He knows how fleeting all of it is, how this surely can’t last as well. However Oceane had kept her word, offering a space for him in a rather hidden cove to avoid the others as much as he needed. It had been nice at first, the solitary days spent exploring this new place of his. He shifted without worry of judgement or fear of reacting without warning, the polar bear spending several hours lounging in the gentle surf that rolls up pure white sands as a watery sun warms his back. The air is still cold but his blood runs hot and he spends most of his time bathing in the increasingly cold waters. He keeps to his shelter and is content enough to not explore further than what has been claimed as his.

    Although his mind is still in a constant state of turning and he still finds sleep hard to come by, he starts to relax here in Loess. His dreams are still filled of half truths, pain, and ghosts but in the waking hours he’s a little more present and the triggers are easier to avoid. He finds his gaze wanders constantly to the skies for a hint of a twilight wing.

    It’s about a week before he finally ventures further than the cove, looking for the river that she had spoken of. Ledger had never allowed himself to give in to his bear’s true natures. He had never hunted or ate anything outside of his equine diet, refusing to give in. As much as he hated what he could become, and feared what he could do when he became lost in the fog of his madness, he had accepted the bear now. They were one. It was time to prove that.

    The polar bear ambles quietly in his search, allowing himself to become familiar with the landscape that passes him. His anxiety flutters slightly in the depths of his stomach, being outside of his designated space. He’s unsure if anyone else in Loess knew about him, if Oceane had really kept him a secret. Perhaps he shouldn’t be in his shifted state but part of him was sick of also hiding it for so long. Besides how was he going to fish with hooves?

    The internal debate concludes the moment he rounds a hilly bend and sees a stallion scowling  at him. There’s an instant flood of shame and guilt and fear and the long shaggy winter coat of the bear disappears quickly as he morphs back to his normal self. His one eye regards the other warily, a snap of his flaxen tail displaying the anxiety that quickly crawls up his chest. He’s not sure if this is one of Loess’s residents or not but the dappled male doesn’t exactly seem friendly and he figures at least for Oceane’s sake he should figure it out. “Hello.” Comes the rough raspy voice as his muzzle gestures in acknowledgment to him, his gold flecked eye still wary and cautious.


    Ledger



    @[Ashhal] Mines not much better lol
    #3

    I tried to sell my soul last night
    Funny, he wouldn't even take a bite

    Were he a more poetic man, he might reminisce about the ways in which the world has changed in the nearly two centuries since his birth. But he is not and never has been. Instead he had counted the years in the tides of his own anger and boredom, in the innumerable times he had wished for a death that would never truly come to him.

    Even the moments he had imagined it finally had, they had ultimately only been that: imaginings.

    Though he is not truly glaring at anything in particular, only a blind man would miss the bear that ambles around the craggy red rock of a hill. It strikes him as odd in those first moments. A white bear normally found in the deep reaches of ice and snow is not something he might have expected in the heat of Loess. It causes his own hackles to rise immediately, wings ruffling and lifting as his dark and pitiless eyes fall on the beast.

    Just as quickly however, the massive thing begins to shift and shrink, melting into the more familiar form of another equine.

    Even fucking better. The scowl on Ashhal’s lips deepens, but he forces himself to temper the hostility, lest he attack a resident rather than some feckless outsider. Not that he could truly call himself a resident, much less self-appointed keeper of the kingdom who had had the poor luck to land with him.

    In another life, it might have been amusing that these two kingdom hermits were staring at each other with such suspicion, unsure whether the other belonged. If for no other reason than the sheer irony.

    The raspy greeting does not set Ashhal at ease, but it does, at the very least, reassure him that they are not going to immediately launch into a brawl. Not that he would have minded overly much, but it didn’t seem the smart thing to do. Instead he responds with every bit of his customary tact and good humor. “Who the fuck are you?”



    @[Ledger]
    #4

    Help me out before I drown
    Save me now before I give up


    They stare each other down, or at least Ledger does his best with the one eye he has, each wary and suspicious of the other. The irony lost on both of them. The reddish gold stallion had perhaps expected a not so warm greeting but he’s not prepared for the absolute rudeness from the other. It immediately makes him even more on guard, more mistrustful, and it’s a reflex from the bear within him that sharp canines pop back through his gums, only slightly peaking from beneath his upper lip. “I was going to ask you the same question.” Comes his flat reply, the gold flecks of his dark eye turning molten as he tries to keep his calm amongst the rising panic in his chest.

    He weighs his options as he angles his head to let his one eye sweep over the dappled stallion and the flare of his wide wings. They look a lot like Ellyse’s. The memories attempt to barge in but for once he’s too engrossed in the adrenaline of the current situation, still trying to figure out if this stranger was suppose to be here or not. The polar bear is agitated within him, wanting to come back out. He puts it in check although the teeth still remain. Even if he couldn’t promise Oceane that he was safe to be around, he keeps the promise to himself to try. Try as hard as he can to not react to the anger that easily flares to life, heating the heavy yet weightless thing in his chest.

    His nostrils flare as he takes a deep breath, trying to calm down despite the clenching of muscles beneath his heavily scarred hide. Tries once more for a different tactic instead of giving in to reaction. “I’m Ledger. I live here.” Saying that aloud helps a little, claiming this place as his home when he had gone so long without one. “Your turn.” He rasps, his apprehensive gaze never wavering from him.


    Ledger



    @[Ashhal]
    #5

    I tried to sell my soul last night
    Funny, he wouldn't even take a bite

    The stranger’s familiar reply does little to ease the overt aggression in Ashhal’s slightly lifted wings or stiff and angry stare. It does however tell him at least some things the words had not explicitly said. Whoever this shifter is, he at least believes he belongs. And for Ashhal, who is most certainly not a self-appointed guardian for Loess, it is enough.

    He doesn’t miss the canines that grow beneath his lips in response to his less than cordial greeting. There is a visceral satisfaction in seeing it, and in the way his spine prickles with heightened awareness. While Ashhal has at least enough sense not to be the aggressor in this situation, he certainly wasn’t going to take any damned pains to stop a fight either.

    Let’s hope Ledger has a bit more sense than that. Or not, if the mood should strike.

    Ashhal’s only response to Ledger’s introduction is a non-committal grunt. His eyes never leave the other stallion, but when he turns the conversation bluntly back on Ashhal with almost as little finesse as Ashhal had displayed earlier, the winged stallion stiffens. His ears disappear into the tangle of his pale mane, dark eyes hardening into glittering obsidian. He couldn’t damned well fault Ledger for doing so, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t be irritated by it.

    He is silent long enough that one could almost wonder if he would reply at all. When he finally does however, the two syllables are gruff and clipped. “Ashhal.”

    It would be simple enough to end the conversation there, but Ashhal being Ashhal, he can’t help but to add almost under his breath, “Not that it’s any of your fucking business.”



    @[Ledger] I'm sorry he's such an uncooperative arsehole lmao
    #6

    Help me out before I drown
    Save me now before I give up


    Dear lord, what was this guy’s deal? It seems that the mere act of breathing might irritate the gray man before him. The winged stallion remains in his aggressive stance so Ledger stays in his own, the incisors remaining instead of retracting as the bear within him becomes restless with his agitation. The last thing that Ledger wants is a fight, the bear is a different story. It latches on to the flicker of anger that rises from a smoldering coal, tastes the bitterness of ash and remembers what it had been like to rage and claw and bite. The scarred stallion had fought too hard to regain his control of the bear, to retreat from his madness, had fought too hard to let an asshole like this guy unravel all the hard work he had put into himself in smothering his fury.

    This was just another test. Just another shitty temptation to fall apart.

    Not today.

    He starts to wonder if perhaps the stranger is just slow when he says nothing and merely stares across at him with irritability. Finally a word, a name, is roughly offered. It’s followed by something that’s mostly muttered under his breath and Ledger openly frowns, displeasure radiating in the gold flecks of a dark eye. “I’d be lying if I said it was a pleasure to meet you.” He responds flatly, wondering what on earth Oceane had seen in this stallion to allow him to come here. Then he thinks of himself and all the warnings he had given her and how she still wanted him to stay.

    With a sharp sigh, he slowly releases the tension in his shoulders and allows his incisors to pop back into his gum-line. His gaze momentarily scan the stiff wings and flattened ears beneath a mass of pale tangled hair before landing back on the hardened expression of his face. If Oceane had some sort of faith in this stallion then perhaps he should try to see it too. “Are you always like this or am I just special?” A bad attempt at humor as his rough voice is strained but an attempt all the same.


    Ledger



    @[Ashhal] He's determined to make this man his friend lololol
    #7

    I tried to sell my soul last night
    Funny, he wouldn't even take a bite

    Though he had never taken any pains to meet the woman, he knows Oceane leads this kingdom of misfits. In truth, he has no idea if she had explicitly given permission for him to stay, but since she hadn’t tried to kick him out yet, he damned well wouldn’t do it for her. If he were being fully honest, he would have to suspect that Tarian had vouched for him. It had been an idiotic thing to do for a man he’d known barely a few hours, but that wasn’t Ashhal’s problem, was it?

    Still, it had been less awful to be able to heal from his monster-inflicted wounds somewhere relatively safe rather than the gods-forsaken swamp he’d been favoring at the time.

    When it becomes increasingly clear that the other stallion would not be incited to violence, the stiffness of Ashhal’s pale form slowly begins to fade. His lifted wings relax in painfully slow increments until they are once more settled against his ribs, his flattened ears just as slowly reappearing from his mane, though they by no means settle into something welcoming. His eyes however remain just as hard and cold, fixed almost unblinkingly on Ledger. The other stallion’s flat insult brings nothing more than a derisive snort to his lips. He damned well isn’t here to be a pleasure, as it happens.

    Ashhal doesn’t feel any particular need to engage in pointless conversation. Honestly, he probably wouldn’t even recognize friendly banter if it wacked him in the face and introduced itself. As a result, Ledger’s gruff jest serves only to deepen the scowl on his lips. He’s not actually so stupid he couldn’t figure out that Ledger was remarking on his decidedly unfriendly greeting. Unfortunately for Ledger however, Ashhal has never really offered anyone something that could be described as a friendly greeting.

    So Ashhal plays dumb, because life is far more interesting that way. “What the fuck do you mean?” he growls, eyes darkening. “I was being nice.”

    Which, regrettably, is actually pretty true. It’s about as nice as Ashhal gets.



    @[Ledger]
    #8

    Help me out before I drown
    Save me now before I give up


    It’s his turn to snort in disbelief, a slight huff of laughter that fades as quickly as it comes. “Who taught you how to be nice?” As the wings begin to slowly lower and fold and his ears return from the mass of hair they had hidden in, he finds it easier to release his own tension although the scowl on Ashhal’s face still keeps him a little on edge. He hasn’t forgotten that the gray man hasn’t really given much information about himself, there’s a chance he doesn’t even live here. That he may be here for nefarious reasons. He doesn’t jump right down that rabbit hole yet although his suspicions linger.

    For now he remains cautious but optimistic.

    “It wouldn’t hurt, to try a little harder.” He admonishes gruffly, tossing his forehead and exposing the paper thin skin spread across his hollow eyeless socket. Claw marks pucker the skin around it before its hidden once more beneath the snowy curtain of his flaxen forelock. He pauses a moment before starting to slowly amble closer to him, still stopping with enough distance between them but close enough that they no longer throw their voices amongst the canyon walls.

    “You live here, right?” He questions nonchalantly but the wariness still lingers amongst the molten flecks of his dark eye. He's not scared of Ashhal despite the crude words, rough tone, and over all unpleasantness. He had faced worse things in life than a grumpy stallion who has failed his manners course. Besides the bear was always there if things turned for the worst but that was an option he always saved for last. The white beast sometimes had a mind of its own and even after all these years, he still struggled to control it.


    Ledger



    @[Ashhal]
    #9

    I tried to sell my soul last night
    Funny, he wouldn't even take a bite

    Ashhal has never been particularly good company, even on his best days. And this was certainly not among his best. Nor had he ever desired learning that particular skill. So to the other stallion’s first question, he offers only a blank stare in response. What the hell was he supposed to say anyway? That his mother had been a bitch who had barely cared whether he died or not, so it’s not like she would have cared to teach him manners? Nevermind the father he’d never known. Or the school of life, where it was kill or be killed? Was that supposed to teach him how to be kind and gentle? Good fucking luck with that.

    The admonishment that comes next does cause him to bristle however. His flat stare darkens with irritation as the feather’s of his wings ruffle his annoyance. “I don’t need a fucking infant giving me courtesy lessons,” he snaps, his voice low and harsh. His eyes glitter, sharp-edged obsidian glaring from his skull. “If you want nice, then piss off and find someone else.”

    The winged stallion has precisely two things he is any good at, and conversation sure as hell isn’t one of them. Nor would he ever pretend it would be. He had humored Ledger this far because he suspected the man was only trying to look out for his home. Though Ashhal had certainly been crashing here, he couldn’t necessarily say the same.

    Not that he would tolerate being insulted or questioned well in either case. He can’t particularly blame Ledger for asking the questions. Which unfortunately has never stopped him from doing so anyway. His scowl deepens as he eyes the yellow stallion disparagingly. “If you have to ask that you need a new fucking nose.”



    @[Ledger]
    #10

    Help me out before I drown
    Save me now before I give up


    Ledger has lived longer then (at times) he wished to. He had watched kingdoms fall, the world literally break, had served rulers that now existed as only legends, tales of fantasy and memory. Being called an infant is beyond laughable and perhaps if Ledger had been alone in his own body he would have done so. But he doesn’t. The bear’s patience had grown mightily thin and while the flaxen chestnut may have the restraint to withstand such disrespect, the beast within him does not.

    Enough. It is a deep growl that escapes from a horses throat as his eye flickers between the dark gold flecked one and the beady stare of a predator as Ledger scrambles for control. It’s hard when his temper has risen, when his blood becomes fire in his veins and his anger which had laid smoldering in a heap now flames to life with enthusiasm. The bear contemplates how nice it would be to rip Ashaal’s larynx directly from him with his claws and put an end to him ever talking again period. That would certainly teach him some manners. “I don’t know what your problem is but you’ll watch yourself.”

    With a huge amount of effort, Ledger manages to take the reins of himself again and while no apology falls from his lips (the bear wasn’t exactly wrong) he does give a frustrated sigh and stamps a hoof in agitation. This was exactly why Oceane had needed to hide him away to begin with although it would have been nice to have a heads up on the type of… citizens she had come to collect in her kingdom. A hollow laugh is finally given as the other continues to scowl (and perhaps more) after his outburst and he merely responds to his insult with a bitter response of his own. “I could use a new eye too if you happen to know where to find one.”


    Ledger



    @[Ashhal] I swear he's trying to be friends  Big Grin




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