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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


    I am capable of anything, and everything, KRATOS
    #1
    so you wanna play with magic?
    She has a vested interest in anything having to do with the Deserts. That alone would have been reason enough for her to seek out Kratos. But after their encounter in the field, after he'd caught her attention with the lightning-electric energy that was so uniquely his, she'd done a little bit more digging and decided she had other reasons for wanting to meet him. See, if he has a thing for powerful women, she has a thing for controlling those who love her power, or who fall under her spell. Not that she's necessarily malicious; in fact, she's usually mostly not unkind. It's just so very useful to have control of others. That's why she so often traffics in favors, boons granted in exchange for nebulous chips that she can call in whenever she decides she wants to. There's just so much you can do with that.

    Not that she lacks for power even without the help of others. Her magic is like a constant companion, a warm coat that she never removes. She uses it as frequently and fluidly as one might use an arm, or a leg; it's an extension of who she is, a capricious element that she wields gracefully and with deadly effect. She is a beautiful thing, a creature of almost infinite possibilities. She's a fantastic ally to have, and a terrible enemy.

    The day is more autumn than summer, more biting chill than gentle sunshine. She watches him lazily, perched on the edge of a meadow in the guise of a bird. She is a robin, small and quiet, dainty on a branch that affords her a great view of the horses spilling out across the grassy area below. She can hear their thoughts as clearly as though they had been speaking, and a million joys and tragedies jump out from each of them. Everyone has a story, it is the way of things, here and everywhere else. Only she (and, she supposes, the others lucky enough to have magic) will ever really hear them all.

    He is paused nearby, and she swoops down as a bird, turning into her equine form at the perfect time to put her gracefully standing on the ground. It is a lightning-fast transformation, no subtle shifting like you might expect from the body shifters. She has always been more of an all-or-nothing kind of mare.

    She is simply herself now, a beautiful black mare, coat shining in the late summer sunlight. The chill does not impact her; she could either be immune to it, or she could enclose herself in an invisible nexus of heat, it doesn't matter. Across her chest, bold and golden, the crook and flail shine in the weakening almost-fall sunlight. Across her cheek, a small trail of precious stones drapes gracefully like a necklace.

    "Kratos." she greets, the name warm on her tongue. Her voice is like velvet, smooth and pleasant. She smiles at him wryly. "Brother of the Tundra, son of the Deserts…" she pauses. "And the Valley. And the Dale." her voice is gentle, playful and wryly teasing. She wonders how much he's put together of who she is, whether the stories of what's happened in the Deserts have traveled to him yet.

    She smiles at him, and as she does her eyes turn vivid yellow. She could mirror his electric – she feels the power within him, the way she feels the power within every magic-user of any form – but she holds off on that trick for now. It's no good if you show your hand; all good things take time. She smiles. "A pleasure to see you again."
    CAMRYNN
    co-queen of the deserts, magical, mother of badassery
    Reply
    #2

    Strangely, the Tundra had seemed to soothe the titan’s temper and at least for now, had sated the sometimes cravings for sadism that weighed on his tongue. Kratos was not shadow-bred; there was no real justification for the creeping, wicked webbing that spun through his thoughts from time-to-time. And despite the viper-sharp coldness that stormed back from his black eyes, there was no real malignity in them, only a strange hunger that reached with aching, electric claws.

    He was quick to temper where his father was tolerant, his tongue a too sharp blade gifted to him by his warrior-queen mother. Kratos had inherited almost none of Vanquish’s good traits and nearly all of Lyric’s bad ones, which could make for a frightening soul if it was so inclined to be. But he is not bad just as he is not good, Kratos is easily swept inside the tides of pleasure and morality was not always the reigning value on his list of virtues. Many nights Vanquish had called his titan son to his side and berated him for bodies found left electrified and strewn among the pathways between the kingdoms. He was and is still not the prince his father would have had him to be, but he had been his favorite nonetheless. And just as Vanquish used to call him to scold his sadism, he too called him to stand beneath the king’s shadow and hear his pleads to ready his shoulders to bear the weight of his crown. But he had shrugged away the responsibility, “soon,” he would tell the aging Nightwalker, “I will take your load soon, father,” he had told him, lying. Kratos had been greedy in his want of the liberties of noncommittal life, what king had the time to search the betweenlands for things to inflict his power on? Kratos wanted to enjoy the unrepentant freedom of youth, to traipse the kingdoms at his will and test his strength as he saw fit. Accountability could come later, it could wait for his fun to be had. The young never value the true luxury that time offers, he had been visceral and selfish and now he would have a lifetime to repent for it.

    Kratos had been out hunting, nearly three and still wild wrought with the thrills of his power when the news of his father’s death came. Another harsh blow to the foundation of a haphazardly high ego, both of his parents were now strewn to ash and memory. It was then that he turned to the Tundra, a kingdom that sung to his bloodline and filled his linage with generations of kings. Kratos didn’t even pause at the Deserts to visit his stepmother nor siblings and when he heard the drums of the competition he turned his back to its song – the Deserts would never be his path now.

    When the mare comes, he recognizes her for who she is and his gaze drapes heavily across her like cold silk. He is neither abashed nor meek when he looks upon her, letting his eyes linger across the shining crook and flail that gleamed from her chest and the delicate curve of her hip. “Queen Camrynn,” he says with a dip of his heavy white head before allowing a wolfish smile to creep across his lips, clearly amused by her research, “it’s just Brother of the Tundra now.” His eyes pause on the adornment of diamonds that lay across her cheek before finding her own, “congratulations, my father’s--” he pauses before correcting himself, the crown suits you well.” Vanquish had always had a fetish for powerful women and by all accounts so far, Camrynn would have been no exception to his father’s taste. A taste that Kratos had already shown to share, how do the Deserts fare? And Yael?”



    Kratos

    the electric titan of vanquish and lyric

    Reply
    #3
    so you wanna play with magic?
    He might not be shadow-bred, but she was. She was born of a crazed, dark stallion's tryst with a manipulative, slightly cruel mare he did not love. The result had been a small, illusionist filly with color changing eyes, who had immediately sensed that she could play those around her like so many instruments, turning the world into her own personal orchestra. And still they sing for her, although now she can make them sing ever so much more effectively. Now she can supplement where they are lacking. Now her magic can fill in where the pieces themselves fall out. It is who she is, what she is, everything she is – born to push the envelope, to question everything, to do what is shocking and surprising to so many others.

    To know things, like the history of the stallion who stands before her.

    She couldn’t care less that he looks over her with that kind of hunger that so many stallions have had when looking over so many mares. She's absolutely beautiful, and that's by design. Beauty is one of the easiest and most potent tools in her little conductor's arsenal. And already she can feel that he is intrigued. He stumbles as he congratulates her, naming the crown as his father's first, and she can't help but smile at that. It is a coy smile, almost (but not quite) innocent.

    "The Deserts are as well as any kingdom in Beqanna." she answers him, her voice like honeyed velvet, sweet and rich. "You know how it is. It's all quieter than it was, once. No doubt the Tundra is the same." she pauses for a moment, a rich chuckle escaping her throat. "Very nice the way you handled your Mountain problem, by the way. You did the rest of Beqanna a favor." Not that he was particularly a threat to the Deserts; with two magicians in the kingdom itself, and the very secret tacit attachment that the Deserts now has to the Valley, there was little that could truly be said to threaten them. "Yael is well. She misses Vanquish, but the freedom that came with giving up the crown has been good for her. She serves Pevensie and myself well as an advisor."

    She smiles at him then, her grin impish. "But surely you wouldn't have us talk politics all day." her voice is wry, teasing, perhaps even a hair seductive. "If I'd sought you out for that, I would've come to the Tundra. The cold up there means nothing to me." as though to prove her point, she raises her body temperature enough that she's actually emitting a little bit of heat. She takes a small step closer to him, putting them just close enough that it's a little bit closer than normally accepted social distance. He'll feel the warm radiance that flows off of her, but it won't burn him, not even close. "I sought you out because I think you and I have a lot in common. And I think you think so too." she smiles then, stepping back and dialing down the heat. "And I always enjoy making new friends. Don't you?"

    Especially when they're powerful friends.
    CAMRYNN
    co-queen of the deserts, magical, mother of badassery
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