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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]  this vanity i'm breaking
    #1
    draco
    i've got a face of gold, i've got a heart of coal, but baby that's my cross to bear

    She reminds him of the sun and he hates it.

    Tirza, in all her glorious, fiery beauty seems to stand for the light that so easily exposes him. The sun sets and yet here she stands, orange and red and glowing. All she had done was walk past him, way off in the distance, minding her business and surely thinking of much more pleasant things than a demon with an unsubstantiated grudge. But the discomfort of change beats wildly in his chest and roars loudly in his ears: somehow, Tirza amplifies it and she has to know what she's doing to him.

    Most of his skin is covered in scales, now - save for a few spots around his knees and tail. Just last night, immediately after the last of his fangs grew in, his tongue split down the front. Tonight, as he quietly follows the path taking Tirza deeper into the woods, two parallel sections of his back split to expose the beginnings of webbed wings. The pain momentarily brings the demon to his knees, where he dips his head and hisses, spitting his snake-tongue between his teeth as if he's been doing it his entire life.

    When Draco looks back up, Tirza is much further ahead, but easily spotted by her glow. The wings on his back grow steadily, dripping blood from the two wounds and the webbed edges. Draco heaves himself upward, breathing heavily but still managing to burst into a healthy trot. It's here, in the shadows and worn soil, that he feels something in his legs shift. The trot turns into a canter, then to a gallop, then into a speed the demon has never felt before. Before he fully knows what's going on, he's cutting around Tirza and not stopping. A cackle leaps from deep in his throat.

    Draco comes to a skidding stop and slowly turns around, glowing eyes searching desperately for the sunset-girl.

    "Where is the sun?" he coos, voice gravelly and low.

    i won't take you back


    @[Tirza]
    Reply
    #2
    The sound of reckless movement in the woods stirs the beast in Tirza’s heart, a new sensation prickling across her skin. In time she’ll discover that it is the urge to shapeshift but for now she is too focused on the noise - turning her head and seeing little but a dark blur until it is skidding to a stop in her path. Those glowing eyes root her to her spot, ceasing her aimless wandering.

    She had not backed down as a filly when bone creatures had been sent after her and her brother and she does not balk at this stranger, though there is a flicker of recognition somewhere in the pit of her stomach. Something that tells her this is a predator. Something within her that sees it as kin, though she also recognizes that it is a greater threat than the creature that lurks beneath her own skin.

    If there is a warning there too, and there likely is, she does not heed it.

    It has been a habit of hers, lately, to be asked odd questions in these woods. Her bright red eyes regard this stranger with amusement once she hears his.

    She takes the question literally and if there was another meaning to those cooed words, it goes neatly over her head. “Beneath the horizon.” She says, gesturing with her head to the west as that grin in her gaze grows into something made of fire like her glow. “Where it goes every single night.”

    tirza


    @[draco]
    Reply
    #3
    draco
    i've got a face of gold, i've got a heart of coal, but baby that's my cross to bear

    It doesn't strike him that another won't get his bite, his sarcasm, his nicknames. When she answers him so bluntly, Draco cocks his head and relaxes. He leans back on his hind legs and considers the sunset girl before him.

    "No, beloved, you are the sun," the demon calls back. He continues to stand, patient and wondering. Beloved falls off his lips so easily, the kind of pet name he uses to soothe the nerves of most creatures he meets. Tirza quickly becomes beloved simply for answering so readily, for not playing the game and for hardly showing any fear.

    A smile, shark-like and gleaming, lifts Draco's mouth. He takes a couple of steps forward, spiked tail flicking with excitement. He forgets the bloodied, fresh appendages hanging loosely at his sides; instead, his focus is entirely on how he doesn't seem to frighten the dry woman before him. He pulls in his fear aura, tucks it deep within him, and settles - strangely content.

    "And where do you go every night, sunshine? Do you go beneath the horizon?" Draco ponders, almost as if he isn't actually addressing her. His eyes stray to the shadows deepening around them. His eyes shine with love for the darkness, finding that he loves them more and more each time they answer his call.

    The night swirls and twists around Tirza, almost adoringly. Draco offers that impish smile again, head cocking as if to ask Do you like that? Somewhere deep down, the demon hopes she does.

    "Your name?" he finally asks. "I am Draco."

    i won't take you back


    @[Tirza]
    hitch a ride on my violence
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    #4
    Tirza cannot think of a time when a pet name has been used on her in her entire life. It makes her frown, this mare who takes this so literally, and it is another minute or two before she is able to shrug it off. The fire-hued mare must remind herself that while she would not likely even use such sweet words with her siblings, who she loves very much, the rest of the world grew up under different circumstances.

    He drifts closer and her eyes catch on the bloody appendages on his back, and they widen slightly. A question might have been asked, if it were not for his own. Perhaps he does not mean for her to even answer but she decides to play along, if only for a moment. “I slip further beneath the horizon and hang with ghosts.” Which is true enough, though a rather roundabout way of saying that she spends many nights with her sister. But the younger girl is a ghost, sometimes, and it amuses Tirza to pretend she is capable of such odd poetic language.

    When he asks for her name, a wicked grin lights up her red eyes and she coos back to him in a voice that is very nearly mocking. “You can keep calling me Sunshine.” She’s not sure why she doesn’t give him her true name, except maybe that it does not matter. It is just another word, after all, and surely that means they can be interchangeable with one another.

    Her eyes drift from Draco to the darkness, ignoring the instinct in the back of her mind that tells her she should keep her attention on him and definitely ignoring the one that tells her to run. “I did not think the sun and the night would be compatible.” She muses as she reaches out her muzzle towards some of the shadows that have swirled and twisted around her, testing to see if they are solid and disappointed when she feels nothing but cool air.
    tirza


    @[draco]
    Reply
    #5
    draco
    i've got a face of gold, i've got a heart of coal, but baby that's my cross to bear

    "Okay, Sunshine," Draco murmurs, shark-like grin still turning his lips.  He wonders if her tone is mocking, if she dares to tease him; but for some strange, unknown reason, this mocking has a positive effect on him. Respect blooms for Tirza, a brilliant sunflower defying all odds and coming alive beneath the moon.

    The demon is pleased to see Tirza reaching out for his shadows. His smile widens and he watches intently, questioning as he thinks, "Are you a ghost, then?" A stray shadow twirls upward, against Sunshine's neck, and twines into her mane. It gives a little playful tug and remains there, content, as if alive.

    A few bold steps later and Draco is now studying the blending of Tirza's coat a little closer. He hums to himself, thinking, then murmurs, "The sun needs the night, doesn't it? As the night needs the sun." His eyes stray back to hers, some mischievous glimmer in them. He likes her answers, the dry replies.

    "What can you do, Sunshine? Can you manipulate the light as I manipulate the shadows?"

    i won't take you back


    @[Tirza]
    hitch a ride on my violence
    Reply
    #6
    Is she a ghost? Tirza grins, wondering if she’d be better at understanding her sister if she was or if she would simply be a better sister if she was. “No, but I am a sister to one.” She tells him honestly - pleased with how it still sounds like a riddle but it is still very much the truth.

    A way of making her life sound a little more exciting than it really is. Since she took a swim and emerged an entirely different colour, since she lost all traits and colours that tied her to her parents, this conversation with Draco is the most interesting thing that has happened to her.

    Of course, she already knows she will not tell him that.

    She grins a little brighter when the shadow tugs on her mane and though there’s no threat in her, her eyes dance a little more when he steps closer.

    “No.” She says again when he asks if she can manipulate light. “I was a viper once, but I lost that in the darkness and I do not know if anything has replaced it.” She pauses, considering what she is about to do, but she dismisses these thoughts before they can fully form. “But I can do this.” And then she reaches into him with her power, even though she knows it’s bold and very, very likely stupid. She doesn’t take much - a few weeks of his life, not enough - she thinks - to matter but enough, hopefully, for him to feel what she's done. Her red eyes remain fixed on him, eager to see his reaction, eager to see if he’ll stop her, and how he might do that. She doesn’t think that a spooky exterior and some shadows are the only tricks this demon knows.

    tirza


    @draco
    Reply
    #7
    draco
    i've got a face of gold, i've got a heart of coal, but baby that's my cross to bear

    A dead sibling, then? he thinks. Draco could dip into her mind, see if there's some hint of a lie or a trick; but he is far too focused on the sunset blend of her coat and the way her voice gently eggs him on. He tilts his head, serpent's smile flashing those sharp teeth and that slithering, freakish tongue.

    "You sound as if you might belong in Pangea, then," the demon muses, pupilless eyes leaving his studious watching to catch her gaze. He thinks her attitude might suit the territory, as well; and he wonders how strange it might be for him to come home with an actual recruit (never mind that he hardly thinks of her as recruit and more of another fascinating, pretty woman to keep around). Desire might laugh at him and Dove might frown, but Draco has never been one to ignore his own desires.

    The demon tilts his head again, a gesture he finds himself doing often when his curiosity is sated, wondering what it could possibly be that Tirza is about to show him--

    But he doesn't see her power, doesn't hear or smell it. He feels it, the sensation of his life being stolen settling as a burning tingle in his chest. "Oh," Draco breathes out, pleasure and surprise coloring his voice. Those few weeks hardly matter to an immortal like himself--and rarely has Draco felt threatened when harm befalls him.

    "How lovely, Sunshine. Is that all you can do?" he asks, threading more tendrils of shadow around her neck. He wanders closer, red eyes glimmering with a strange mischief. "Would you like to see what else I can do?" Draco purrs, then shows her before she can answer. It's just a moment, a split second of taking a single step as Tirza--but it's enough, and when he returns back to his body, he is panting.

    i won't take you back

    @Tirza he possessed her for a second, if you want me to edit anything just let me know!! <3
    hitch a ride on my violence
    Reply
    #8
    He mentions Pangea and she tilts her head to mirror the way he is holding his own when she replies with obvious curiosity. “Is that so?” She had never been to that land, though it was close to where she had been born. She knew nothing of it - had not even considered that there might be a place where she belonged that wasn’t with her siblings.

    After sharing her trick, the surprise and pleasure on that single syllable of his is sweet to hear. Tirza is grinning bright when her power retreats back into herself, feeling a little refreshed for those few weeks she’s gained. Her expression is soon soured by the idea that her best trick was allshe could do. As far as she knows, that was it - there had been a little more when she had been a viper and though she does feel like there is another creature sharing her skin sometimes, she does not know that this is not how everyone feels.

    His question grabs her attention away from those reflective thoughts and she is just opening her mouth to reply when she loses the ability to control her own body. She takes a step but she doesn’t mean to, it is not her that takes it.

    She is panting too when she is back in control of her body, her red eyes wide with a mixture of anger and fear. Losing control of her own body, even for a split second - even to take a step that she would have willingly taken anyway - would appear to be one of Tirza’s few fears. Possibly the only one. She would let the shadows stroke her wherever they wished and she would reach out boldly to touch them in kind but this was something else entirely. Her heart pounds in her chest and rings in her ears as she stares back at him.

    “Don’t ever do that again.” She snaps and for a moment, sharp canine teeth flash in her mouth as the words are spat out. An action that might be more effective if her voice did not also shake like her knees as she struggles to get herself back under control.

    tirza


    @draco
    Reply
    #9
    draco
    i've got a face of gold, i've got a heart of coal, but baby that's my cross to bear

    Arrogant amusement is a pleasurable feeling that blooms in Draco’s chest. It is also a handsome look on his face, curling those sharp features into soft curves and crinkling lines. He might like Tirza, have that instant warmth for her that he often finds for cold women, but that doesn’t save her from who he is. Draco does not know gentility, does not know regret or sadness intimately enough for it to shape how he treats others. The only creature to know him as sweet is Dove, and even for her he cannot dull himself enough.

    Draco doesn’t miss the sudden flash of canines when Tirza snarls out a response. His own fangs flash in a grinning response. And while she might not soften him, the demon does appreciate a strong will. To be so willing to snap at him after such a display, to answer as if she might have something that could match the dark trove of magic within him—he wonders if that will of hers might actually resist such things given time and practice.

    “Oh, you didn’t like that?” the demon asks innocently, head tilting. “And what are you going to do to stop me if I try again?” He smiles as he asks, resisting the urge to completely close the distance between them. His questions are taunts, but Draco doesn’t act on them. Instead, he watches Tirza expectantly, eyeing her with the hopes that she will take the lead. Draco has always loved a good tango, the dramatics of dancing between anger and fear.

    “Show me what you’ve got, Sunshine,” he whispers.

    i won't take you back
    hitch a ride on my violence
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