"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
05-09-2021, 03:17 PM (This post was last modified: 06-09-2021, 09:51 PM by Obscene.)
Kiss me again Kiss me until I am sick of it
The rolling hills of wildflowers now lay blanketed under a fine crust of snow, even his red petaled flowers of fun lay hidden beneath the frost. The fae have also seemed to disappear and it worries him slightly although he won’t admit it. He finds signs of them, still comes across the little gifts of nectar that help him get through the season without being completely sober, but he doesn’t see a single jeweled wing dance over the open fields. That had never happened before, they may hunker down during cold seasons but they’ve never just completely disappeared. Not unless they don’t want to be found. That scares him more than anything.
It would mean they did it by choice.
It would mean that for once, he’s absolutely and truly alone.
There have been many times in his short life where he’s felt lonely and fearful but the fae had always been there, not the warmest consolation prize but it had been something. Now their absence speaks volumes and he figures in a few days he will once again trek up the Mountain and figure out what was up.
For now… For now he stands hock deep in the snow, his long dark winter coat only making him all the more ruggedly handsome as his blazing crimson gaze sweeps over the land he had claimed as his home. Not flinching as he hears the crunch of hooves behind him, only a single ear flicking backwards as the sound comes closer. “And what do you want I wonder.” He snaps roughly, his tone harsher then usual and tinged with an angry desperation that stems from the worry of his fae friends disappearance. Not caring who it was that had managed to sneak up behind him, only that at least he had an outlet to release his wretchedness on.
Aela never seems to grow a winter coat. It's something that she had inherited from the birth mother that she chooses to know little of, but as she shivers against a chilling breeze that rolls over the Pampas knolls, she can't help but think that perhaps it would be better to know some things. But the palomino brushes the thought away as easily as the cold and continues towards the border of the Loessian territory.
It was cold in Pangea, but the midday sun always chased away any bit of winter. It was often scorching by noon. For the place that always seemed so sprawling with lovely meadows and an abundance of wildflowers (at least in the borrowed memories of others), Aela learned that it was just as apt to freeze as any other place in Beqanna. An annoyance really - like learning that even Magicians have limits - but the golden girl has a reason for visiting today and it is easier to focus on that instead.
Her pale nostrils flare when they finally come across a familiar scent; Aela smiles and decides to take the risk of crossing into the Brilliant Pampas instead of waiting to be found. With a dancers stride, she moves across the light layer of snow. Even though her steps are light, the dark brute that she approaches from behind manages to hear her before the young mare can come to a stop. His greeting would be far more appropriate for her half-brother - Wherewolf - she thinks but Aela doesn't say that. The striped girl lifts her head answers back, "No need to wonder." A small smile tugs on her lips and even though Obscene can't see it, perhaps he hears in her voice when she says: "I had wanted to see the Pampas for myself."
There is a pause - like she is considering something - and Aela rolls her slender shoulders before adding, "But if you prefer I leave..."
The long threaded raven strands of his tail pause in mid-snap, the only sign that he’s been caught by surprise. A rather pleasant surprise though he's loathe to admit it. He hadn’t been expecting any company, least of all hers. Although he doesn’t turn to her, it’s obvious he is listening as the other ear twists back to meet its twin. So she wanted to see the Pampas did she? “And what do you think you’ll find here that you can’t find at home?” He counters, his words still holding a bit of a bite. However he doesn’t tell her to leave and that in itself is telling.
Dark tendrils fall over the fiery heat of his glittering red gaze as his neck arches and his skull angles to look behind him. To look at her. She stands out against the snow, a glowing sun in her own right, and he finds he quite likes how the cerulean blue of her eyes remind him of a foaming sea. They are easy to get lost in, different from the hatred he constantly seeks in Cheri’s jaded ones. A different kind of drowning.
He had been drinking earlier (having found a rather large nectar stash in a hollow tree basin) and also finding that the blooming warmth in his stomach extended to the rest of him despite the chill that tries to penetrate the deep layers of his coat. It’s the only thing he can think to do, to chase away the uncertainty of the fae hiding from him and keep boredom and loneliness at bay. There is a slight slur to his words but he doesn’t care. Has lost all sense of shame a long time ago.
“Well?” He asks, a sneer on his features and a tone as dry as a desert. “Is the Pampas everything you hoped and dreamed it would be?”
05-12-2021, 07:08 PM (This post was last modified: 05-12-2021, 07:20 PM by Aela.)
YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS
Aela can't sense his surpise, since he's turned away from her. The golden girl shifts her weight and waits to see what he might say. He keeps looking ahead - as he should, she has never found fault with anyone who keeps their eyes to the horizon - and the palomino gives her head a small tilt, the only visible sign that she is wondering what she might find here. That slight smile never wavers and the wind blows gently by, pushing her pale forelock to the side of her blazed face. "Well," she puts back to the onyx stallion, "you told me it was never dull here."
Her golden brow rises slightly but then she gazes across the meadowlands, remembering the abundance of wildflowers that had bloomed in the memories of others.
It's only when he glances back that Aela offers her own brilliant gaze in return. Pangea is quiet. She doesn't say this but maybe he gleans that, because she is here and not there. There is a looseness to his words that she can detect but Aela - having never tasted Fae nectar - doesn't know that it is the cause. She merely observes him for a moment before looking past him and wondering aloud, "Do you make your mind up so quickly?" She glances over the plains, where the sunlight glistens over the light covering of newly-fallen snow.
Aela does and the stare she fixes on @[Obscene] says as much.
If he were a waste of her precious time, she wouldn't be here.
That smile - small and slight as she is - tugs on her pale lips again. The dark brute looks so angry, but she can't help but be amused by it. There is a glimmer of it, unperturbed by the apathetic expression waiting for her. "I don't know," she tells the Prince of the Pampas (and this is the truth, because Aela is still learning from him what she can) as she takes another step forward before stopping. She isn't looking at the territory he commands but him when she asks with the wind still pulling at her flaxen mane: "Is it everything you had dreamed of?"
Aela doesn’t even bat an eyelash in the face of his rudeness, doesn’t break down in tears or even meet him head on with aggression. Instead she fixes him in her cool oceanic stare, a whisper of a smile on her lips. “Do you make your mind up so quickly?” A flicker of amusement in her words, in the cerulean iris’s that hold him unwaveringly. His sneer eases into a ghost of a smile. “Sometimes.” He responds quietly, only slurring slightly. Already having decided on her.
He had known from the first time he had met Aela that there was a coldness in her blood, watching how she stirred upheaval for Wherewolf in a matter of seconds with her appearance. It’s not that he thinks her an unfeeling bitch. No, he can just sense her ruthlessness (some may call it ambition which isn’t something he exactly has persay) but that speaks to the darker parts of himself that he’s hidden within the cruel armor he wears.
He can understand her hunger, even if they hungered for different things.
He can understand growing hungry in the first place.
They seem to see a truth in each other. She doesn’t look at him with disappointment, fear, or distaste, appreciating him for the feral sharp-tongued monster that he was. Perhaps she saw herself as the same. Like calls to like.
As she stands before him, the rays of the sun glinting along her gilded figure, he finds himself feeling recklessly bold. A soft cold breeze runs its fingers through her flaxen mane, dances through the long raven tendrils of his own, and she is moving towards him and he doesn’t stop her. “Is it everything you had dreamed of?” She asks and he cannot stop the sudden thought of sunlight catching through clear quartz, of angry eyes the shade of sage, the scent of rain soaked skin beneath his teeth. There’s a spasm of tension in his jaw as he pushes those thoughts away, as he looks at the wind swept gleaming striped mare, as he speaks before reaching for her in a smoky tone. “Almost.”
05-14-2021, 10:34 PM (This post was last modified: 05-14-2021, 10:38 PM by Aela.)
YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS
It isn't that Aela is intentionally cold or cruel; had Obscene known her as a filly, she could barely string together words without some emotion clattering the sounds together (so she refused to speak at all). But she had been a sensitive child and to protect herself - to make an armor of sorts - Aela had to grow into a perceptive woman.
And what she had sensed that day from Obscene in the Field was a familiar flickering. They want different things (nodody wants quite as much as Aela, who dreams of entire worlds and wonders about Magics not yet concieved) but the desire for more is always an interest to the striped girl.
What does Obscene want?
As the dark stallion moves towards her, the immediate answer seems obvious. Her coy smile deepens, revealing a dimple on one side. Aela knows she is lovely. That has been exclaimed and remarked upon since she has was young. (Aela is her mother's sin made flesh; her father's desire given shape. What else could she - the result of such a terrible union - be but devastatingly beautiful?) She doesn't see a monster when glances up at the Pampas leader; she sees a possibility (albeit a handsome one) and those are always worth exploring.
Oh, the things she finds. Aela peers up at him and wonders if @[Obscene] knows how easy he is to read, how his memories are shining so clearly on an onyx-and-green girl. The longing behind them leaves behind such a profound and exquisite ache that even she can feel it. It's a dangerous emotion: the jagged edges of loneliness can turn a heart ruthless.
She could use ruthless.
He reaches for her but he might be disappointed to learn that Aela has never been easily caught. She smiles at that thought and remains close enough that he might feel the warmth radiating from her gilded skin. Close enough that he might hear her murmur: "so what's missing?"
His cruelty had been carefully curated, a hard shell he formed around himself to protect the sensitive heart that laid beating in a cage of bone and muscle. It hadn’t always been the hard shriveled thing that it was now. There had been a time, short and bittersweet, when he had been a cherished boy before he had been forgotten. The hell in his eyes had developed over time, after months turned to years of being alone and at the mercy of those more suited for this world than he. As a mortal in a magical world, one had to learn to protect themselves to the best of their abilities and learn whatever skills it took to survive. It had been a hard lesson to learn but he learned it, quickly.
Those hellish crimson iris’s look back into the drowning waves of hers, the coy smile on her wicked mouth, and he knows what he wants. He doesn’t forget the way it felt when Cheri had been pressed against him, the way his heart had writhed as if it was being burned alive when her mouth met his. He can’t forget the desire he tasted on her skin and the way he had practically combusted under her touch. She stood for everything he despised, everything he hated about himself, everything he hated about this world. So why does he constantly burn for her? Why does she infiltrate every dream, every thought, every moment that he’s had since he left her amongst the wildflowers?
He doesn’t want to think about Cheri anymore, how she always seems to show up before a storm, how inferior she constantly makes him feel. He’s sick of being haunted by her. It’s easier to push the heated emerald gaze from his mind when Aela is there before him, who looks at him as if she can see him for exactly what he was. He’s drawn to that like a moth to a flame, drawn to the young golden mare who looks at him like an equal, who can cut words just as sharp, if not sharper, then he.
He’s none the wiser to the way she flicks through his memories, as she sees Cheri and then perhaps how he now looks at her. The ache is still there as she easily avoids his grasp, the depths of red glittering like dark rubies as it deepens, extends. She’s still so close, so tantalizingly close. What’s missing? She murmurs and a shiver twitches beneath coiled muscles, a ripple amongst a black sea. His features dark and stormy as the tension between them rises and starts to clear his head from its pleasant buzz. There’s a hole inside of him that’s so dark and endless, so twisted and deep, that he’s sure that it can never be filled or made whole (how funny that his father had once felt exactly the same). And yet, he looks at Aela. He looks at her and wonders.
He knows what’s missing.
A grin spreads slowly and smugly across his lips, hiding his nerves that jumble up inside himself. He’s not experienced in the world of seduction but that does not mean he’s not game to try. “Let me show you.” His voice gruff and filled with more conviction than what he actually feels. There’s a brief flicker of that first kiss with Cheri (of hard angles of clear quartz and the dewy scent of her rain soaked skin) and then it is gone as he takes in the delicate curve of Aela's neck, inhales the dusty scent of scorched desert on her supple skin. As he takes the one step that’s needed to close the distance between them, extending his muzzle down towards a single stray tendril of her forelock and pushing it tentatively back from those cerulean eyes. Flames dancing in his own. His muzzle lingers close to her, wondering if she would dance away again or if this time she would stay.
Aela had been born sensitive - to the past, to emotions - and she comes from a long line of horses who feel before they think. Perhaps something in her had recognized that from the very beginning, that the only way to protect herself was to keep all those feelings and emotions out. Far better toy and meddle with ones that belong to others because that way Aela never has to think about what she really feels.
She focuses on what she wants; on what she dreams.
Her ambition will take her far. Even Heartfire herself had said this. But she has to be careful. Aim too high and there is no recovering from the fall.
So when the onyx brute with the hungry eyes takes in her, Aela thinks about what she wants. Beqanna has been far too quiet. The Eternal Night had made horses cower in their homes and it would seem that the dark had stayed too long. They were drowsy, sluggish; the world was still quiet even though the sun should have rendered them wide awake. It hadn't and as she takes a brazen step towards the stallion, she thinks that perhaps Obscene and his Meadowlands could help change that.
Desire for her could be cultivated towards something else, right?
This is a game that she's playing, how far this might go between them. Aela's done it before (well, something like it) but there has always been a stopping point. But this is a stakes brought to a new level and so something in her rises to it. The girl is there again - the green-and-black one that seems to haunt Obscene - but it's gone in a blink, leaving only the two of them. She allows him to take in the curve of her elegant neck because it allows her to reach a dark ear, "is this how you attract new recruits?"
He pushes her flaxen forelock out of her face and so she tilts it towards his, "I have a proposition for you." Aela smiles again, murmuring the words where her pale mouth lingers near his a moment too long. She decides its safer to move past his muscled neck and sloping shoulders, to turn her head towards @[Obscene]'s rather impressive physique and ask as she glances back to him: "if I have your attention?"
It’s why the broken pieces of him glance at the core of her, looking for an anchor. A safe place where he can remain shattered and cruel and protected. He cares little for ambition after the hard years of struggling to just stay alive. Surviving. This is enough for him, this land of windswept flowers, a space he has carved out for himself with nothing to rely on but his own tenacity. Ruthless in his cruelty but lacking in his purpose. It’s what drew creatures like Sabra and Aela to him in the first place. Clay ready to be molded if guided by the right hand, touched in the right place.
Offspring’s fire lays dormant in his chest but he can feel it sometimes, a small coal smoldering. It ignites in the hatred for Cheri, in his bitterness for the world around him, the scorn for all those that think themselves better than he. The sins of the father lay on the son and he yearns to burn and rid itself of the icy enclosure lodged deep within his breast. The icy shriveled heart, cold and hard as it waits for the next time it can writhe in flames. The next time it can feel.
All it needs is a spark.
Somewhere deep inside of him he knows that she’s calculated every move, that she wouldn’t be doing this without some gain for herself. The need to burn weighs out every voice of reason, every coy glance from dark lashes and deep blue eyes only making him more curious. He wants to explore this strange world they are crossing over into, he can’t think of a more appropriate partner.
She stands her ground this time, the elegant curves of her dished skull turning up to him as he moves further down the soft slope of her exposed neck. Her lips brush gently against his ear as she whispers, a tremor running through his neck as the dark skin shivers from the ghostly touch. The muscle in his jaw tightening, teeth gritted. “Would it bother you if I did?” He retorts quickly, his own voice low and his breath warm as it presses against her chilled golden flesh.
He finds he likes touching her, as he brushes back the fine strands of hair that obstruct her view, and thinks he would quite like to touch her more. Would she also taste of rain and storms? Or would she taste of fire and blood? I have a proposition for you. There’s a rush of blood as her mouth lingers near his, as if she was wondering the same about him. “Oh?” He breathes quietly, his pupils dilating as the dark red iris’s flash and expand. Her almost touch hovers further down his neck, those drowning pools of blue looking back at him with almost angelic wickedness. “I’m listening.”
05-23-2021, 10:07 PM (This post was last modified: 05-23-2021, 10:08 PM by Aela.)
YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS
Aela has always been searching for something. It is her destiny, she knows. It's out there, somewhere, waiting for her to grasp it. And as the years have passed, she has practiced her crafts. She has cultivated her arts. She keeps herself sharp and pointed and always ready - waiting for that lightning bolt of Fate to seize the moment, waiting for the moment to strike.
She's veered away from that path. There had been the years in the darkness, using all her wits and her skills to survive. There had been her search for Skandar - who she had commanded into the Dark - and it's distracted her. The way that she is carefully trying to not let Obscene do now.
He is dark and statuesque beside her. He is the taut lines of a young stallion in his prime and the Pampas Prince is so close to her. Even as her always-ambitious mind cautions her and tries to keep her along the side of reason, it is hard to remember what direction that is when Obscene lingers so near. Her blazed head lifts towards the waiting ear and Aela finds she quite likes the way that his skin trembles beneath the wait of a phantom touch. She draws her blazed face away but keeps her head tilted towards his and parlays his question with another of her own: "You would care what I think?" Aela murmurs low, lowering her gaze demurely for a moment.
Just a moment to gather her senses again.
The palomino decides to take a step and then another, allowing the soft sway of her hip to slightly brush against his onyx hide. Aela lifts her lovely head again and decides that if @[Obscene] is ever to learn what she can do, now will be the time. Her lips move lightly to trace the muscle ridges on his shoulder (that she can reach) and then presses a memory into his skin. "What do you know of Beqanna's politics?"
There are flashes of the North as her touch moves up - the mighty trees of Taiga, the lonely moors of Nerine, the scorch marks of the Isle - and then more of the lands follow, of the South and the West (the East is where her nurse mother lives and she owes too much to Kota to give her trouble). The last images attempt to seep into his mind as Aela's blue eyes flash when they rise to meet his fiery red ones. She starts to move away from him, wondering if it will be the loss of her touch or the intrusion of his mind that he will mind more.
