Beqanna
it feels better biting down; any - Printable Version

+- Beqanna (https://beqanna.com/forum)
+-- Forum: OOC (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=24)
+--- Forum: Archive (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=81)
+---- Forum: Field (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=2)
+---- Thread: it feels better biting down; any (/showthread.php?tid=19648)



it feels better biting down; any - Virgo - 06-01-2018

the first time he calls you holy, you laugh it back so hard your sides hurt.
the second time, you moan gospel around his fingers between your teeth.

How do you love without deconstructing the one you hold dear, without picking them apart and pinning the pieces to cork board? She’d hung her thousand half-loves along the walls of her ribs and forgotten how her skin once burned for their touch. She never forgot home, though. It never fails, she comes circling back to her birthplace even after it tried to change its face into something unrecognizable. Her bones hum for the Forsaken Valley but she couldn’t find the old worn path back. The realization leaves the flavor of bile and tear-salt across her tongue but she manages to choke it down as quickly as it rose up.

The meadow. The field.

She mumbles an empty prayer that they still await her return, at least. Virgo ducks her pale head beneath a branch and it scrapes along her back like fingers trailed across her skin so delicately. The leaves catch on her barbed spine and twitch away when she continues forward. Her pace is slow and purposeful, each stride certain of itself with the near-white face held high. Daughter of countless kings, she’d never let her head hang before anyone. (A lie. Eons ago, she’d bowed her head to Eerie’s hateful touch and tucked her heart between her lover’s teeth.)

The trees give way to the field and she drinks in the scents of honeysuckles and strangers alike. Spring has always fit Beqanna like a tailored dress and she cannot help but notice. Used up petals curl on the wind and fit themselves into her mane as it sighs across her slender neck. She’s beautiful, but you could hardly breathe the words to a girl like her and expect her not to rip the words from your throat. Virgo’s got a soft face like her mama and her father’s coarse soul. There was never any hope for her, really.

She watches mothers with their newborns and her mouth twitches into a fleeting frown. Envy. Her hips have always ached for love and children but life never found a home in her. Not without a taste of magic interfering, at least. Virgo maintains her composure as always and turns to watch the emissaries instead.

Surely something could pique her interest today.
Virgo
you will ruin him and he will thank you; he will say please.



RE: it feels better biting down; any - Wishbone - 06-01-2018

haze like a fever
i fell like a dreamer for sweet tea and lemonade; it clings to my t-shirt it’s loud and it lingers, designed to suffocate. i light up to find what i’ve known all this time, there’s some beauty here yet
The sun rests upon her back like a heavy, drowsy cat. The light catches on the highlight of her hair, dipping her in shades of faint gold to contrast her mahogany body. When she passes beneath the extending arms of a tree, the cat disappears like a ghost and a blanket of cold drapes itself across her shoulders and along her spine. The length of her legs are doused in shadow, moving at a slender walk that brings her into the Field.

Wishbone has been here before. It was in her childhood, nestled alongside her busy mother, and it hadn’t been the first time she’d traveled past the borders of Tephra. Entering the clearing gives Wishbone a nostalgic feeling deep in her stomach, one that travels into the linings of her mouth, although she arrives from a different entrance than she had as a child. Her sunset gaze turns briefly toward the trail leading toward Tephra, where the scents of sulfur and brine and ash ride faintly on a spring breeze.

She isn’t here to adventure back to her parents, but rather to seek out any potential candidates for Nerine’s lifestyle. She moves easily, healed from any previous mocks she’s had with Scorch, as she walks deeper into the Field. Her amber eyes scan the landscape once more, landing on a leggy child floundering around his mother, asking so many questions Wishbone wonders if his lips might fall off.

Her heart doesn’t long for her own offspring, still being in her youth, but she cannot help but smile fondly as the mother shoots her an apologetic look. It isn’t long after that Wishbone spots a gray mare with unique barbs jutting along the length of her spine. It isn’t so much the fact that the stranger is a mare that draws the Nerinian to her, but rather the interesting display of weaponry.

“Were you born with those?” Her voice is honey-whiskey riding on the springtime breeze, feminine and sweet in her youth but layered with the smoke-and-shadow from a childhood spent on Tephra’s shoreline. She’s stopped a reasonable distance away — manners instilled in her from both of her parents. Wishbone’s sable nose extends forward curiously, her amber eyes searching the other mare’s gray face. “I’m Wishbone.”
credit to eliza of adoxography.

@[Virgo]


RE: it feels better biting down; any - Virgo - 06-04-2018

the first time he calls you holy, you laugh it back so hard your sides hurt.
the second time, you moan gospel around his fingers between your teeth.

Virgo has never known her mother’s face nor her loving caresses as her brother had. Jareth was born after years of wanting and wishing, making him the golden baby that laid in an ivory cradle. The joy and success of their firstborn left Chernobyl and Fleshlip hungering for a second child in the hopes of growing their perfect family. She was born strong and angry, crying beneath a full moon and drenched in her mother’s blood. Jareth told her it was all her fault, that the world came crashing down the moment she entered this world, and it has not known such peace as Fleshlip had built since.

Chernobyl went away after that, left his newborn baby girl in the care of a loving uncle and hardly whispered her name ever again. He couldn’t handle the sight of his daughter because she had her mother’s damned face. Even her uncle, bless him, choked up when he first laid his eyes on her. Virgo aches every day with wanting for her perfect family but her house remains dark, with only the cobwebs and the fear keeping her company.

Were you born with those? What a loaded question. She turns her pale head and blinks slowly at the girl who speaks to her. For a moment, all that rage comes boiling up and she wants to spit vile words at the stranger. Her brow furrows for a moment as she chokes all that hatred down into the basement of her heart. How could she know? How could she begin to realize the hurt the words caused? Forgive, forgive.

Yes, though I prefer not to speak about it,” she says with a weak smile. Time has softened all those sharp edges and sewn patience into her soul so that her sweet bell-voice suits her now. Lord knows she had said and done things just to cast her misery over others when she was still a child of the world. She’d even gone to battle over the hurt she had caused, though she arose victorious and unbowed in the face of her adversaries.

A pleasure, Wishbone. I am Virgo. Where do you come from?” Her gaze is stern despite her kindness here, picking apart the stranger as she waits for her response. The barbed girl’s expression offers no hints as to her thoughts and she says nothing more. Better to be a mystery than an open book, she believes.
Virgo
you will ruin him and he will thank you; he will say please.



RE: it feels better biting down; any - Wishbone - 06-04-2018

haze like a fever
i fell like a dreamer for sweet tea and lemonade; it clings to my t-shirt it’s loud and it lingers, designed to suffocate. i light up to find what i’ve known all this time, there’s some beauty here yet
It is a good thing forgiveness is a plausible thing in Beqanna, or else things would have certainly gone to shit.

Wishbone is lucky to have been blessed with a gentle, warm family — a mother who’s taught her manners, a father who’s shown her the beauty of the stars, a brother who’s encouraged her wild side, a sister who’s been a role-model for leadership skills. Although her parents do not nestle to one another’s sides when the nights get chilly, their friendship has been obvious through the years and Wishbone is grateful they have remained a strong face of love and security for their daughter.

She can try to understand the war-torn lives of the childhood of others, but to truly fathom it all she must have to experience it. Instead she offers an apologetic smile at the other’s statement, amber eyes lingering on that timid smile. She would apologize further, but they are already moving past the rubble of her blundering mistake.

“Virgo, like the constellation.” She mutters it mostly to herself, yet the words are audible for the gray mare’s ears to catch. Warrick had taught his daughter the constellations shimmering in the night skies in her youth, urging his daughter to commit their names to memory and reflect upon their hazy glow whenever she might feel afraid. “Your ancestors spin in the sky,” he had said to her one night, sulfur-heavy wind tossing his navy mane. “Whenever you feel overwhelmed or alone, look to the night sky and remember that they are always with you.”

A nostalgic smile blossoms on Wishbone’s slender face. It hadn’t been so long ago that she’d visited Tephra for a short amount of time — spreading the news of her potential coronation to her family gathered there — and spent an evening in the company of her father. Yet still the absence of his presence lingers in the depths of her chest. “Nerine,” she responds, although the question is loaded just as her own had been. “Though I grew up in Tephra.” Another smile, this one softer than the last. “Do you have a place to call home, Virgo?”
credit to eliza of adoxography.

@[Virgo]


RE: it feels better biting down; any - Virgo - 06-05-2018

the first time he calls you holy, you laugh it back so hard your sides hurt.
the second time, you moan gospel around his fingers between your teeth.

For Virgo, the stars were all the dead gods who never answered her prayers. She stayed up all night cursing them and howling as her rage overtook her until her throat was raw. Still they remained silent as she chewed on her agony and sobbed her bitter tears. What more could she do? The only solace she had ever known was the times she curled against Eerie’s perfect shoulder. Her dry cackles had been her lullaby and safety was being bound by the jungle’s vines, hung up in the trees and left for hours. Perhaps her constellation, too, prefers to be pinned to the sky for all the world to see.

Virgo’s dark eyes grow bright for a moment when Wishbone mentions the stars and she tilts her head in curiosity. No one ever taught her such things or polished her manners. They left her wild for all the world to deal with. “I don’t know any constellations. Are they important?”” Her voice grows soft and careful now, cautious even. There are a hundred faces to Virgo but this one rarely sees any use. Normally it’s hidden away for safe keeping where careless hands cannot harm it.

Her ears curve forward when Wishbone speaks her home’s name. It’s all foreign to her but she listens regardless. “My home is gone now, it seems. I don’t know any of the lands anymore,” she explains with a slight frown. The Valley had never felt like home and the Gates would never love her as they did before her betrayal anyway. Perhaps it was best for all the old kingdoms to be swept away along with the past.

What do you stand for?” she asks as she looks back out over the field. Whether she means Wishbone herself or the kingdom she represents, it is unclear. Perhaps they are one and the same. Virgo’s own morals are murky at best but she strives to craft a decent heart for herself that no one would be disgusted to look upon. Easier said than done, she’s learned. Her eyes drift back to the stranger turned acquaintance now. Everything about her sings hymns of kindness and she wonders what others think when they look at her. Is she strong beneath their gaze or is she just some ugly, sharp thing to be avoided?
Virgo
you will ruin him and he will thank you; he will say please.
@[Wishbone]



RE: it feels better biting down; any - Wishbone - 06-08-2018

haze like a fever
i fell like a dreamer for sweet tea and lemonade; it clings to my t-shirt it’s loud and it lingers, designed to suffocate. i light up to find what i’ve known all this time, there’s some beauty here yet
She’s on her best behavior for this Field visit. The training her parents and Scorch have instilled in her has pushed itself out of the corner she keeps it in. Although Wishbone is a princess-turned-heiress, she’s one who dances with death and recklessly runs on the wild side. Her refinement and knowledge is given to her by the pedigree she carries in her blood — perhaps if Wishbone had been birthed into a family of the likes of Virgo’s she might’ve turned out just the same as her.

“They are to my family.” Her answer is simple and vague, but the thoughts of her father (his laugh as she nestles herself beneath his wing, the hitch in his breath when she leaps from a ledge on the volcano down to him, the serenity of his mahogany face when they stare at the nighttime sky together) are pressing and, though she won’t admit it to the stranger, painful. Wishbone is thankful when Virgo moves on to speak of Beqanna before the Reckoning.

Thanks to those damn manners again, she knows of the kingdoms this mare speaks of. “Oh! You used to live in the Kingdoms of Old?” She could list them aloud, but the list was long and grew old after having to recite them to Scorch so many times. “I could help you find a home that might match your old one.” She’s obvious to the pain Virgo might hold in her chest, if she feels the prickle of it.

The next question — “What do you stand for?” — echos in her mind moments before Wishbone gives her answer. It’s a heavy-laden one, with a thousand possible answers, and the girl understands that even in her youth. Should she give her own morals? Or Nerine’s? Or perhaps the morals Beqanna holds nowadays? Although the Reckoning has come and gone, Wishbone doubts Beqanna is much different from before.

“I’m here to get the best out of life that I can.” Ruling a kingdom will be another memory and adventure to tell someday, maybe when she’s drinking a beer surrounded by handsome men in a hole-in-the-wall bar. “Nerine’s basically the Amazons.” She’s too lazy to list their creed or their morals, certain this simple sentence will suffice.

If Virgo knows anything of the Kingdoms of the Old, she should know of the Amazons. “Do you want to see Nerine? Or maybe I can show you another kingdom.” If Virgo isn’t the warrior-woman type, she might be better suited for Ischia. Or perhaps even Tephra. Wishbone’s mind’s eye flashes back to her father. Virgo would work well in Tephra — she reminds Wishbone of her slightly-more-refined mother.
credit to eliza of adoxography.

@[Virgo]


RE: it feels better biting down; any - Virgo - 06-08-2018

the first time he calls you holy, you laugh it back so hard your sides hurt.
the second time, you moan gospel around his fingers between your teeth.

What was important to her family? Better yet, what was important to her? Virgo tosses the question around in her mind for a moment without coming to even one conclusion on the matter. Suffering was their family tradition and they had built their family tree from weeping willows, she believed. Everclear had taught her their names and swore she’d surpass them all in her victories and her joys. She believed him, then. Virgo trusted him when he said she held the world in her tiny palm and followed him like a disciple.

Kingdoms of Old. Had it been so long? Her memory is hazy at best but she remembers vivid images of her childhood back then. “If only you could, Wishbone,” she murmurs with a smile that is suddenly very tired. The Valley alone had a thousand faces and the Amazons had a thousand more. Each one had been her home for some time, though her heart realizes it could never choose between the two. One had given her life while the other had given her love. They had each, in turn, sculpted her into who she is today. She leaves the topic to dissipate in the air between them, after which her smile grows a little stronger once more.

A noble dream. I suppose I could say the same until life reveals a clearer path for me. ” Then the bay girl is equating Nerine to the Amazons and Virgo finds herself chewing at the inside of her lip. Would she still feel Eerie’s magic there? Would jungle vines find a way to cradle their lost treasure again? The idea makes her heart flutter lightly against her ribs, fighting to escape and also to stay hidden within her. Perhaps it would offer her a banquet of new beginnings altogether.

I remember the Amazons. ” Her voice is so soft she isn’t sure Wishbone can even hear her but just saying the name again tastes like wild roses and lavender across her tongue. There can be no denying it, then. Virgo’s eyes regain their brightness as she looks to the girl again. “It’s been a while, but I think your home may suit me best. The Valley and the Gates slumber, but Amazons somehow always find a way to carve their place in the world.

She laughs softly, then. Maybe her bones were always meant to call the matriarchal kingdom home. Her gnarled family tree sprung from the warrior-women, after all, and it has always ached to return to its roots. It only makes sense for the lost girl to finally heed its call after all this time.
Virgo
you will ruin him and he will thank you; he will say please.
@[Wishbone]