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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]  you were a shadow, ashhal
    #11
    NEUNA
    these things the ancient maidens whirl on 
    with rushing thread of brazen spindles.
    The sensation changes but it does not weaken. 
    (His anger fades but it does not make him hate her any less, does it? And it is the hate that makes her wilt, the hate that tightens a vise around her windpipe and cripples the insistent heart in the cage of her chest.) 

    Anger and disgust are not all that different, really. But she draws in a long breath, fighting to keep her bearings, while the vision strobes and darkens and he frowns deeply at her. 

    She has never known this specific kind of hate before.
    Not even the wolf despises her as much as the stallion glaring at her from the shore. She shakes her head but it does absolutely nothing to clear the fog that seems to gather just behind her eyes. She grinds her teeth and the shadow wolf emerges from the darkness he’d hid himself in to stand at her shoulder, looking up at her.

    But she pays him no mind.
    Too stunned, perhaps, by the stallion’s insistence that he’s not using any magic. And she frowns, too, though hers is nowhere near as dark. Her brow furrows only slightly, her lips parting in wonder. She glances down at the wolf, who says nothing, and then into the copse of trees at the edge of the river. It must be someone else. 

    She swallows thickly and shakes her head again, shifting her focus back to his face. What kind of game would it be? “There is no game,” she says and the wolf presses its mouth to her knee, bleeding love into her flesh, and when she glances down at it again the black threads between her eyes flicker a pale glow. Love.

    Of course. 

    She smiles, though the heart is still a clenched fist in her chest.

    It is you,” she tells the stallion without looking up from the wolf at her side, “even if you aren’t doing it on purpose.” 


    @Ashhal
    Reply
    #12

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

    He doesn’t hate her - not really. It is her purity and innocence. Even that is an unconscious thing. After all, how can one truly understand love when they have never known it? Hate is the only thing he has known since he was dropped onto this unforgiving earth by a mother filled with it. He had suckled at the teat of that hatred until she had left him to die or live on his own.

    No, it is not a conscious thing. It had been instilled into him from the time he took his very first breath.

    He cannot know that it is his very presence that weakens her. That the bleakness of his own existence is what had defeated her without his ever even needing to lift a hoof against her. He might have laughed if he had known though. It makes perfect sense, of course. What kind of love is actually a match for nearly two centuries of hatred?

    Something far stronger than anything he has encountered so far certainly.

    Ashhal warily eyes the wolf that slinks from the shadows, the deep scowl not easing in the slightest. It ignores him however, instead focusing on the young mare before him. For a moment, a soft glow appears to resonate from her strange eyes. Ashhal’s wings flare slightly at that, aggression roaring back to life inside him. She had accused him of using magic, but it is clear she who has magic of her own at work here.

    If this were to devolve into a fight, Ashhal is more than fucking ready for it.

    But it doesn’t. Instead she accuses him of doing something even if it isn’t on purpose. His irritation rumbles inside his chest at that. “If you can’t stand me, then fucking leave,” he snaps. If he was going to do anything to her, she would damned well know when it happened. He could leave too of course, but her accusation has made him irritable and contrary. He isn’t the one with the problem here. For once. “I’m sure as hell not stopping you.”



    @neuna
    Reply
    #13
    NEUNA
    these things the ancient maidens whirl on 
    with rushing thread of brazen spindles.
    The wolf begs her to go.
    (But the thing all made of shadows is not afraid for her life, he is afraid for his own—if she dies, he dies.)

    And the stallion invites her to go, too. But she stays where she is, her focus never wavering from his face, all dark with emotions she will never know intimately. She drags in an unsteady breath and then smiles. There is a kind of serenity that settles over her as the heart wilts and slows and she shakes her head as she takes one shuffling step backward away from him, feeling the way his feelings loosen their hold on her pulse when she does. 

    It’s not that,” she murmurs, smiling still. “No, it’s not that at all.

    This is the truth. (Is the third daughter capable of telling a lie?)

    But she takes another backward step away from him, not because she feels any overwhelming desire to flee the situation but because her strength returns in fractions with the more space she puts between them.

    She closes her eyes, feeding on the love the wolf presses into her skin still, and wills herself to change. It requires more energy than she thinks she has, but after a moment downy wings sprout from her shoulders, the tail shortens and a curly mane grows down the length of her neck. And when she opens her eyes again, the dual threads between her eyes glow even brighter. Because she is a thing built for love and it surges recklessly through her in this form.

    See?” she asks, breathless, knees trembling. As if this explains it. Still smiling, she says, “love.



    @Ashhal
    Reply
    #14

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

    He doesn’t believe her when she says it’s not that she cannot stand him. Why would he? She wilts in his very presence. As far as he is concerned, it’s a damned good sign. It’s written through every line of his harsh features, that disbelief. But contrary, beastly thing that he is, he refuses to give an inch. He’d been ready to leave only a few moments ago, but he has always hated doing what is expected of him.

    He can’t seem to help his subtle flinch when she changes. Her light is nearly blind, wings erupting from her shoulders as her hair wisps into soft curls and a strange halo cuts through her milk-white eyes.

    His reaction makes him instantly irritable, a soft rumble of displeasure cutting through his chest at the fact. It’s almost painful, looking at her. He doesn’t realize it is the love that radiates from her rather than anything nefarious. All he knows is that his heart splits and aches at the sight of it, and he can’t stop the single step he retreats in response.

    He would have run once. Would have fled from the truth of it. That beneath the blackness of his soul, he is still capable of caring. That if one was brave and persistent enough, they might eventually be able to dig deep enough beneath the rot to find something almost like love within him. Now though, it only makes him furious.

    Furious because he doesn’t deserve it.

    So he lashes out. An instinctual reaction to the way she had inadvertently dug her way through to the softest, most vulnerable parts of him. Turn that shit off! he snarls as he lunges at her, teeth snapping. It’s a feral response. The only thing he can manage when she threatens parts of him he has spent decades trying to bury.



    @neuna
    Reply
    #15
    NEUNA
    these things the ancient maidens whirl on 
    with rushing thread of brazen spindles.
    He flinches but she does not notice.
    (What would she have felt if she had? Guilt, certainly. Because she is not a thing made to wound.)

    He retreats, one solitary step that wedges more space between them, and this she cannot help but notice. But she does not know how to apologize for the love that rolls off her in waves in this form, she does not know how to be sorry for it. So, she merely stands there and looks at him.

    (Is it obvious that he is fighting some internal war? If it is, she does not know how to translate it.)

    And then he lunges for her, teeth gnashing, and she loses her grip on the cupid. It falls away just as quickly as he lunges for her. (It has always been so much easier to let go of it than it has been to pull it on.) The wings, the soft curls, the look of youth in her face, they all disappear in a flash and she instinctively takes a step backward, away from him.

    (She is not immune to fear, Neuna, she never has been. Being so intimately familiar with darkness and terror cannot protect her from all things.)

    She releases a shaky breath as the shadow wolf thrusts himself between them, teeth bared. Because the wolf mocks her but it is fiercely loyal, too.

    How strange it is to look at his fury and still see it all ringed in light. She swallows and studies him a brief moment before she asks, voice wavering, “what are you so angry at?




    @Ashhal
    Reply
    #16

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

    Just as quickly as she had called it forth, she let it slip away. But Ashhal cannot dismiss his fury so easily. As inadvertent as it may be, she had toyed with his most ragged edges, and his restraint has always been wanting. Rage makes him a beast, and the only thing that satiates it is the feel of hooves and teeth against flesh.

    But the wolf is there between them, protecting his foolishly innocent charge. There is a masochistic part of Ashhal that would like nothing more than for the shadowy creature to attack him. There is a simplicity in the rending of flesh that cannot be found in the emotions the cupid inspires.

    For a long moment, the pale pegasus simply stares at the protective beast, ears pinned and black eyes wild with desire for violence. His body trembles with his restraint, muscles stiff and prepared to lash out at the slightest provocation. Unfortunately the wolf doesn’t seem interested in coming after him, merely defending its mistress.

    When she speaks, his eyes flick to her, the savagery in them unmistakable. Then, abruptly, his expression shutters, contemptuous scowl twisting his lips. Straightening, he settles his unfurled wings against his ribs.

    “You’re so clever, you fucking figure it out,” he snaps. Turning sharply, he stalks back to the tree he’d been brooding under before she so completely disrupted his evening. He doesn’t bother glancing back when he growls, “You should leave before I change my mind.”



    @neuna
    Reply
    #17
    NEUNA
    these things the ancient maidens whirl on 
    with rushing thread of brazen spindles.
    How fiercely the heart beats in her chest, railing hard against the cage that contains it, as the wolf and the stallion stare each other down.

    (Could either of them really hurt the other? Can shadows damage flesh? Can flesh damage a shadow?)

    She holds her breath hard and fast, her pulse echoing loud in her ears, as she watches. Waiting for something to give.

    And she expects the stallion, feasting on his rage, to plunge through the wolf standing between them to sink his teeth into her. To tear at the source of all of his anger.

    She does not exhale until he relents, his features collapsing around the sharp edges of his scowl, and retreats. And she is a soft thing, Neuna, but she is not a fool. 

    (Nor is she particularly clever, the third daughter, but she does not open her mouth to argue with the stallion.)

    Instead, she watches him return to the pool of darkness beneath the tree he’d pressed himself against, as if bracing himself. And it is a warning or a threat or both that he tosses over his shoulder. 

    (She had learned early that the opposite of love was never hate but rather indifference. It had been indifference that she had seen in her father, though his heart had softened when he’d touched her for the first time, let his breath fall across her brow. But this is loathing unlike anything she has ever seen and she understands.

    Or, at least, she thinks she must.)

    So she nods and she calls the wolf back to her side. 

    My name is Neuna,” she tells him, though he has not asked and likely would not if he’d been given the opportunity. “In case you should ever look back on this moment and wonder.

    She swallows thickly, exhaling a thin breath, and turns to go.



    @Ashhal
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