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  • Beqanna

    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]  été le plus beau jour de ma vie [Any]
    #1
    Bardot
    I know what sin is

    The sun is bright and high in the sky, sporadic gray clouds listlessly float by and cast cool shadows across the lush green meadow. A hawk lazily circles above but otherwise the open expanse of hill and grass is quiet. Her hooves delicately pick their way around large rough stones that jut out from the ground, grazing as she goes. She has come to like the cool foggy redwoods of Taiga but sometimes a change of scenery can do much good for ones headspace.

    Since becoming the “Amazonian” of the forest, she really hadn’t done much in her new home except exploring and getting to know one of the other residents. She aims to rectify that in time but today is just for her. The sun is warm on the curve of her backside, buttermilk skin washed into pale gold by the rays of the sun. She is washed in the strange scent of the passion flowers that weave into the long raven threads of her mane and tail, a strange mix similar to hints of honey, magnolia, and gardenia. At first the fragrance had been overwhelming but with time she had gone nose blind to it. The smoky quartz horn that spirals out of her forehead had been a little harder to adjust to, having to watch where she moved her head so it wouldn’t get tangled in undergrowth or accidentally poke someones eye out. She’s grown use to angling her delicate skull in a safe way, grown use to these small gifts of magic that had woven their threads into her DNA.

    As a cloud crests over her, bringing a moment of coolness against the heat of her skin, she raises her head and looks out over the rolling meadow with calm golden eyes. Not enough clouds to bring a spring storm, she thinks. A pity, it would be nice to feel the cold drip of rain after such a luxurious sun bath. The land still remains mostly quiet, some horses are in the far off distance but remain far enough that she can only make out blurry shapes. Instead she is graced by the presence of rabbits that dart from their burrows in rounded dens of grass, the song of a meadowlark from a nearby tree, the soft silvery ripple of water in the stream. She closes her eyes and breathes it all in.

    Just another peaceful day.

    They may call me a sinner, but I am at peace with myself;
    html © dante.


    Open to any!
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    #2

    It is very bright.
    The creature has forgotten how the intense full sunlight can be out of the trees, out of the miasma of darkness hanging over the depths of the forest.

    Over the years Tunnel has gone far into those trees. Occasionally drifting in a kind of psychosis beneath the cool dark of the old tangle when he ranged deeper than one should. He preferred the depths of the forest but did much of his hunting just beyond the paths where the lost ones always wound up. For a long time he had tended his pets and terrorized the unwary in that vast tract of woods but then his charges had grown and gone to leech the toxicity of their upbringing out into the world. When they were gone he turned into the repelling shadows and for a while lost himself to them.

    He is not the most frightening thing in that uncanny place, but monsters only rarely hunt other monsters.

    One night, after indeterminable nights and days far beyond the beaten path, Tunnel chose a direction and began moving doggedly outward. As the many hours passed light began to dapple the bleeding shadows of his murky hide until finally the sun was full on his back and he was standing in the midst of the swiftly flowing river.
    __

    Tunnel is dry again when he moves beyond the foothills, his massive hooves covered in dry mud and his barred legs hazy with dust. In the diffuse light of the forest he is easily camouflaged but hulking and intimidating. Out here with the sun blazing down on the black points that bleed against the blue of his hide he stands out like heavy eyeliner in church. He would not appreciate the metaphor for a number of reasons.

    This meadow has not seen him in a long while, he only rarely hunts in the light. The gentle rolling of the hills and their sea of varied grasses are alive with movement. Small rabbits, far more brazen than those in the forest, sniff at the mouths of their burrows and then dash across the open. These are not enough to collect his full attention though he might like to catch and shake a few of them to death just to remind them of their place, their birthright fear.

    While Tunnel’s grey eyes absently consider the zig-zag dash of a robust cottontail the insipid breeze guides a cloying fragrance in his direction. It’s a scent he does not know, though there are certainly many flowers of heady perfume that grow in the deep wood. Grey eyes seek her out inexorably, his body following with a controlled motion that belies the impulsiveness of the action.
    “Those flowers have the most unusual scent, little unicorn.”
    The words rumble into the space between them when he draws into speaking distance, too far off to collect her true scent from beneath the flowery haze. For once Tunnel did not decide on sight or scent that he would take something from a woman, but it might have been only the rich and sweet scent of flowers that kept his appetites away.

    TUNNEL



    @[Bardot]
    the heart moving through a tunnel
    in it darkness, darkness, darkness
    Reply
    #3
    Bardot
    I know what sin is

    The sins of her parents had never been a burden on her shoulders as they might have been on her sister. She has always been a flirtatious thing. A fickle, wild, and disobedient mare. She is an Amazonian through and through, unwilling to be owned or belong to anyone but herself. The heart that beats furiously in her chest when he appears is not one that’s ever been given freely before, never having a reason or want to. It’s never been taken by force or brutality before either. It flutters quickly when his voice rumbles like thunder to her, breaking her from the peaceful reverence she had been giving the sun. Her golden eyes open to meet the cool ashen ones of him and she finds her heart stutters in her chest once more. Not expecting to find the rolling darkness that matches the storm of his voice.

    Despite her brightness, she was not afraid of the dark.

    The jungle housed many things and was a world of shadows beneath the density of tree, vines, and ferns. Taiga was similar in that respect, a misty world of thick tall redwoods and mushrooms that one could easily become lost in. The Amazon in her recognizes the predator in him but she finds there’s a ghost of a smile brushing against her lips. Finding no fear where there surely should be some. The way he calls her “little unicorn” is almost a delicious feeling and she finds she wouldn’t mind him calling her that again.

    “They are from the jungle. Made of passion.” She responds quietly, her flaxen gaze sweeping over the marks that bleed into the cobalt of his coat. Her mother had once fallen for a boy of stone, as unyielding and granite as the gray of Tunnel’s eyes. She can understand now, what could draw a flame to the coolness of slate. Her horn catches the sunlight, filtering smoky hues amongst the spirals of crystal, as she turns her head to face him better. The faint jaguar markings on her neck exposed to him as her neck arches, dappled and soft against the buttery hue of her skin. She can see now the mud and dust that has dried and clings stubbornly to his legs, where had he come from? “I’m Bardot.” She gives her name because it feels like the appropriate thing to do and mostly because she wants to know his. A clue into the stallion that seems to command the very air she breathes.

    They may call me a sinner, but I am at peace with myself;
    html © dante.


    @Tunnel
    This went in a different direction then I expected lol
    [Image: BQjeje-Bardot2.png]
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    #4

    The mare is not insulted by his impolite greeting.
    She does not come closer as some would have and her voice carries over the gently waving ends of the grasses between them. Made of passion. He marks this as something like flirtation but does not rise to it as some would. Nothing at all changes about his appearance or manner but his flat gaze roams over the flowers slowly, noting where they cling into her hair. It's a prettiness that does not merit his attention, she would not normally interest him at all. There were no evident broken parts, no imbalances of need or emotion to trigger aggression in him. He does not yet study he more closely, not to pay attention to the spots that drift along the side of her neck or the way the sunlight filters mutedly through the dark quartz of her horn.

    “Interesting.” Replies the misplaced monster, but not in a way that would invite her to elaborate. Tunnel is not inclined toward small talk, typically his communication is baser and limited to what can be conveyed physically, the roughness of his voice perhaps increased by the infrequency of its use.

    Insects humming around them fill the quiet seconds before the little unicorn gives him her name. Usually he has to draw that out with his teeth, pull it from them while they resist, knowing they are giving the creature something they can never get back. Does she know that, when he speaks it back to her? That he is taking something? “Bardot.” Perhaps she does; he watches her eyes as the name slips past his teeth.

    He is not so bored after all, there might be some potential here even if her floral scent nearly repels him just now. “You would call me Tunnel, among other things.” There are many other things she might call him but as he says this he thinks of Shroud. It is always odd for Tunnel to be reminded of that once favorite pet’s long absense. This is too close to sentimentality for the blue stallion and he refuses the invitation to reflect on what might have been a perfect mutual destruction. “Where do you come from little unicorn...little Bardot?” Likely one of the lands he never bothered with, but which one? One where someone knows his name and has warned her? Doubtful.

    TUNNEL


    @Bardot Okay so my internet is being horrible and I kept having to come back to this and lost some of it but hopefully its something to work with <3
    the heart moving through a tunnel
    in it darkness, darkness, darkness
    Reply
    #5
    Bardot
    I know what sin is

    "Interesting." Given in a tone that could make you speculate if he actually was interested. He is still here, his gray eyes moving slowly along the length of her neck as they graze over her flowers. It’s sign enough that he must be. Interested, that is. As the gnats buzz in the distance, he seems to take her name and the way he says it back to her causes something primal within her to stir. Enough to make her gaze turn molten, only for a moment as he holds her stare, before returning to a dark tarnished hue once more.

    Perhaps it’s because she had still loved her father even after the horrible thing he had done to her mother, inevitable erupting their small family unit. Or maybe it’s because she had watched her mother and the sisters of the jungle tie up her father with their vines and witnessed his punishment (torture) first hand. The more likely scenario though was that she had seen what her father had taken from her mother and realized that she could never be broken that way if there was nothing take. Or if she gave certain parts of herself willingly in exchange of keeping the most fragile parts of her safe.

    So her smile seems to only solidify briefly, coy and shy, as he takes her name. Given to him freely. And takes his in return. “Tunnel” he rumbles like a rickety train and there is something else hidden in the meaning of his words that gives her pause on what the other things might be. Before she can explore those things, he is calling her “Little Unicorn” again and a delicious shiver spasms along her spine as her pulse quickens with a thrilled rush.

    She had been raised to be brave, raised to withstand men and other monsters in a world not kind to someone of her gender. You could take the girl from the Amazons but you could never take what had been learned in the jungle out of the girl. There was something predatory about him and still... She is not afraid.  “Tunnel.” She says, her voice still soft and innocent, wrapping herself in his name with the same sweetness that matches the color of her eyes. It is her turn to hold his ashen stare, a whisper of a smile now dancing along the corner of her lips as she remembers something.

    There was always a light at the end of every tunnel.

    “I come from a fallen jungle. I live in a forest now.” She is purposely vague and she doesn’t take her eyes off him in case it stirs some sort of reaction. Lingering once more on the exceptional amount of hardened clay that sticks to his figure. “You?” An innocent question but her eyes seem to sharpen as she watches him. And waits. 

    They may call me a sinner, but I am at peace with myself;
    html © dante.


    @Tunnel
    More than enough  Big Grin
    [Image: BQjeje-Bardot2.png]
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    #6

    How sweetly she says his name. Tunnel’s gaze had sharpened when heat had flared in Bardot’s eyes, alight just long enough at the sound of her name rolling off his dark lips. The sweetness and the coy femininity does not further incite his interest, in fact he exhales with restrained impatience at the same time as a simper tugs at her lips.

    He could turn back toward the forest without a word and never think or feel a single thing about having done so. It’s been a long time of just being on his own, so he lingers and is thereby forced to think beyond the initial impulse to drift back toward the river and the trees beyond.

    Tunnel has set eyes on many pretty things and he knows almost none of them stand up to more than a cursory inspection. Everything is rotting somewhere underneath, fear or pain festering in every idyllic scene. He himself is so often featured in that part of the scene, the shadows bleeding out from between whatever lovely things first catch the eye. Bardot is bound to have shadows he might decide he needs to see. He could inflict some on her, though he hasn’t a mind to just now, to harm her. She smells like flowers, not like fear. Of course he’s lent his own shadows before, put a sharp edge on someone who had only been simple, soft, and brave before she’d learned his name. Anything could be taught.


    “You live in one of those crowded lands, then.” Taiga, he’s never ventured there but looks in the direction of the place where the massive redwoods grow. He takes a few steps nearer to Bardot while letting his massive head swing back towards Bardot. “I live in the forest, across the river.” He doesn’t know anything about jungles that once were, and even if he were aware of this history it would not have mattered to him. The scent of her jungle-born flowers is stronger the closer he draws and he rumbles softly displeased with the floral camouflage that clouds around her and effectively hides her from the part of his brain that would recognize her as something to consume.

    “Do you like it there? A pause, referring to her Taiga home without pulling his flat-grey eyes from her own golden ones. How bright and eager those eyes look. There’s only a space between them the width of his own broad shoulders. “I expect you do, you are a gregarious thing it seems.” He, on the other hand, is not. Really not.


    TUNNEL
    the heart moving through a tunnel
    in it darkness, darkness, darkness
    Reply
    #7
    Bardot
    I know what sin is

    His nostrils flare as she says his name and she finds something delightful in that, in irritating such a stallion who has darkened her doorstep. He does not buy into her sweetness and that too is pleasing. For while she is a bright and friendly thing it does not mean that she is purely as sweet as the scent that ingrains itself in the dark strands of her hair. They regard each other with equally sharp gazes and she thinks for a moment that he might leave. Disappointing if he went but she would not follow him back amongst the trees. She would let him go if that’s what he wished. She was not one to chase anything when they all so willingly came to her anyways.

    He would find it hard to pry the fear from beneath the scent of flowers. She was far from simple, far from soft, and far from stupidly brave. But he could find the darkness within her as surely as she might discover the darkness within him. Everyone carries shadows and only a fool thinks them exempt from trauma. Only a fool will deny the imprint of pain. Perhaps she wouldn’t mind what he could inflict on her. Perhaps he would be surprised to see what she could take or even more so what she could give back.

    There is a flicker of disappointment in the depths of gold when he holds back the moniker he had previously used for her but it disappears as quickly as it comes. Instead she keeps the whisper of a smile on her lips as he speaks of where he lives, the Forest. A dark and eerie place, those woods. Fitting, she thinks, for the likes of him. He moves closer to her and she is suddenly very still but her golden eyes never waver from him. He’s so close that she can smell the scent of pine and earth and something mustier. He rumbles as if displeased, displeased that she can read so much of him while he still searches for the parts of her beneath the flowers.

    Her gaze inspects the markings on his neck, traces over the patterns on his shoulders, before looking back at him. Did she like it there? A slight shiver runs through her again, noticeable to him now that he has closed so much distance between them, as he calls her a “gregarious thing”. It’s no “little unicorn” but it’s enough. A soft laugh, silvery as it dances around them. “It’s a home.” She admits, for she has no qualms about Taiga and Yanhua and his family had been accepting enough. “But I miss the darkness of the jungle.” She responds quietly and lowers her head demurely. Just enough for the sharp tip of her horn to graze against his throat latch. A warning or an invitation? Perhaps both.

    “I’ve heard all sorts of things live in the Forest.” Her voice still quiet and her head remains lowered, looking up between long lashes and a glint in her tarnished gaze. “What kind of thing are you, I wonder.” 

    They may call me a sinner, but I am at peace with myself;
    html © dante.


    @[Tunnel]
    [Image: BQjeje-Bardot2.png]
    Reply
    #8

    It is just a shiver, just a little twinge rolling across her tawny skin, but his overcast-grey eyes flick across her curves with a swiftness that is at odds with his behemoth stillness. She is at the same time inspecting the darkness that bleeds across his skin like ink into dark water. Perhaps she misses the way he takes her in anew, beginning to forget about the flowers and the sweetness. Now seeing instead the skin fit snugly over muscle and bone, the geography of veins in her neck, the tiresome sunlight reflecting on her dark hair.

    “The forest is dark, in some places it may be very like your jungle.” Tunnel does not waste time imagining jungles, what is there to prefer over the rich earthy darkness of the maligned woods? Nothing. Does she say it knowing this, looking to be coaxed into the dark? His nostrils flare but still there’s nothing for him but flowers.

    Her smoky spiral horn carves a furrow in his pelt, grazing his throat latch and his lip twitches against a barely withheld snarl, resisting bearing his teeth at her impertinence. The creature shifts his weight, pressing his throat to the tip of her horn, neck arched and eyes darkening. 

    “What sort am I?” There is irritation in his low tones, anger and something else too. He is not a plaything easily wound and left to totter off just for her amusement. Tunnel does not perform or engage in traditional flirtations, and Bardot has gone too far or just far enough to draw him out. He does not wonder if she will quail before his wicked reply, he does not care. “What do you imagine, Bardot? You strike me as a dreamer. Have you seen the shape of me when those dreams turn to baser things? When you’re just an animal asleep and not a silly little unicorn playing games, do you conjure up the weight of darkness climbing onto your back? Does your half-waking self not crave teeth, bruising your muscles and cutting your skin?” The blue monster pulls away from the pressure of her horn but moves closer, growling as the tip of that spire drags against his flesh. Tunnel needs no answer, if she pretends her mind has not created such things in the twilight he will know it for a lie. “I am that kind of thing.”

    The stallion’s dark muzzle is turned to graze roughly beneath her sable-tipped ear and when he breathes her in this time he finds her scent beneath the flowers, rich and warm. “Bardot.” This is the first time he’s said her name without an edge of mockery, this time it is a savory, whiskey rumble. “You are not what you seem.”

    TUNNEL



    @Bardot
    the heart moving through a tunnel
    in it darkness, darkness, darkness
    Reply
    #9
    Bardot
    I know what sin is

    “Maybe you’ll show me one day.” She says nonchalantly as her golden eyes stop tracing the blackness of his skin to look back up at him. She thinks he would fit in the jungle but she doubts he would love it like she does. The rainforests could be noisy, the undergrowth hard to move through or a trap to get entangled in, and around every corner lurked dangerous things both big and small. It could also be deadly silent and she misses the days when it would rain and the smell of the earth would rise from the soil and the jungle was eerily quiet except for the steady thrumming beat of raindrops.

    As she lowers her head and places her horn at his throat she knows she’s playing a dangerous game. Nothing about the blue and black beast before her screams that a cuddly teddy bear hides within a grizzly. As she looks up from beneath long lashes, she can see the way his lip twitches and as he leans into her she shifts her weight to better bare the sudden pressure against her horn. In a way they have trapped each other, she holds him with the sharp tip of her spiral as he holds her in a position of deference to him. If she was to move now it could be the death of him or the snap of her horn and she doesn’t want either of these things. So she simply stays still even as his irritated words growl towards her.

    She should be afraid, she thinks.
    But she’s not. Not the way she should be.

    There’s a healthy thrill that pulses through her veins, a little fear mixed with a whole lot of something else. She is quiet as he tirades against her, as he insults her with his wickedness and she only flutters her lashes in response as the smile on her lips continues to linger. Deepens even. Maybe he was right about all of it. Perhaps she was a dreamer but she is not ashamed of that. As he describes a dark weight on her back, of bites along her buttery skin, she can’t help but shudder again but it is not revulsion that draws such a reaction. How vividly he paints a picture and how clearly she can see him doing those things to her. If she hadn't dreamed of it before she certainly would now.

    As he begins to pull away she begins to lift her head and barely misses his eye as he comes closer. “Even monsters dream.” She counters quietly, her sharp molten gaze coming to find his own steely one. “Are nightmares not dreams?” He is unrelenting in his perception of himself as he finishes with “I am that kind of thing.” She finds herself shrugging slightly in response, her penetrating gaze still unwavering from his own. “Perhaps.” Is all she says. Maybe he was all those awful things (she doesn’t doubt that something terrible lurks beneath his cobalt skin) but a thought within her stirs and wonders if maybe he was more than all that, for better or worse.

    As his muzzle roughly finds her bright skin she bites the inside of her lip as a breath catches in her throat, unprepared for the whisky tone of his voice as he rumbles her name in her curved ear. Her heart quickens it's beat as something unfamiliar flutters in her stomach. She can’t decide if she likes the way he says her name like this better then “little unicorn” but the way her muscles spasm beneath his breath betray that she likes it enough. A corner of her lip lifts a little higher as she murmurs softly, “No, I am not.” Lion had seemed a dutiful father and lover and King and he had turned out to be capable of terrible things. Even sweet Yanhua who she had followed to Taiga had changed in a worrisome way, muttering to himself in the dark. Nobody was ever what they seemed, she had learned. She thinks that he is no different as the little unicorn raises her skull slightly to boldly bring her muzzle to the exposed indigo of his neck. Blunt teeth place a sharp nip as she makes contact, relishing in the earthy tones of him as she breaths against his flesh.

    “Neither are you.”

    They may call me a sinner, but I am at peace with myself;
    html © dante.


    @Tunnel
    [Image: BQjeje-Bardot2.png]
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    #10

    Scent is such a crucial thing to creatures such as they, and what a lovely adaptation her flowers, fragrance camouflage. So much so that he had not even been interested in finding out what lay beneath. It didn’t help that he had misplaced himself out here in this sunny summer meadow and did not see Bardot as something that had wandered into his web and thereby at his mercy.

    Bardot had been too forward though, and would not allow him to get bored and drift back to his shadowed wood. Thus challenged he’d drawn near. She is warm, there is sunlight on his back and sunlight on his lips and the scent of her. Rich and distinct from those loathsome flowers but he understands why those blooms would need to be so cloying, because without them he might have come halfway across Beqanna to pull it from her skin.  She is herself, not like any other, not intoxicating with fear like Briseis or savage like his Shroud. Bardot reminds him of nothing and no one and whatever she may be he has not encountered one before.

    She probably hopes to frustrate him further with her flippancy, or even to look mad in some way. Instead his temper simmers back, his focus turned toward the way her neck arches and meets her withers, the shape of her back. He is not one to laugh, but he might have when her teeth pinched at the broad plane of his shadowed neck. What does Bardot think she’s claiming? Neither are you, says she, and Tunnel does not reply. He knows what he is, has never given much thought to presentation but reacts or does not, usually the former. Whatever Bardot thinks is hiding beneath his thick hide he himself is not aware of it.

    “What do you think you’re doing Bardot?” He growls, lips grazing the curve of her cheek. The monster does not play silly games, not the kind that flirtatious girls play. One of those strange flowers clings to the crest of her neck and in a single smooth motion he reaches up to pluck it away and drop it to the grass at their feet. “You should go home.” The flower having drifted to the earth he brings his face to hers, nostrils flaring before he grabs hold of the line of her jaw and then releases her only to force his lips against her own. Action to satisfy impulse, that is all he has ever been.

    Tunnel has had enough of the too bright meadow, of the openness and the distant stupid strangers. She is not the first that he has given the chance to escape, but he has never meant it less.  He breaks away from her mouth, too volatile to let such a kiss drift into sweetness if it ever had a chance to. Shifting closer to press his chest to Bardot’s, he drops his teeth against her neck just near where he’d torn away the wretched flower now crushed beneath his hooves.  Lashing his dark tail against his heavy, shifting hocks, Tunnel rumbles before reaching out to nip harshly at her withers.

    TUNNEL




    @Bardot He wasn't cooperating, haha, but here are words. <3
    the heart moving through a tunnel
    in it darkness, darkness, darkness
    Reply




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