"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
04-23-2024, 08:18 AM (This post was last modified: 04-23-2024, 08:20 AM by assailant.)
Assailant
He knows he shouldn’t stray too far from the Meadow, lest his party return, only to discover his absence, but he cannot resist the urge to wander, at least for a while.
The skies are nearly as cloudy as his mind today, and for this reason, he opts to forgo his preferred method of travel. The scents of damp soil and mild decay weigh down the crisp morning air as he trudges over the leaf-strewn ground. The air itself nips at his skin and puffs of vapor swell and dissipate quickly with each breath he exhales. He looks up at the dark skies and rumbles a quiet dissent, for he would rather not be near others just now.
On its own, the earthiness of this time of year is not unwelcome, but when mingled with the unmistakable smell of breeding season, it is something he cannot quite bear. At least, not now. Every time he passes by a woman, she unwittingly sends out a plaintive appeal to his ignoble past, much like a bright light calling to the hapless moth. But at the heart of his displeasure is not the fact that such longing still lies beneath the still-thin veneer of the changes he has made.
No, it is the fact that there is still enough of his former self to want to submit, to give in to the craven desires, not for his own pleasure, but to spite her for what he viewed as her intractability. While Demise had been similarly headstrong as Adriana, the former had rarely fussed about a lack of fidelity, and when she did, he had always pulled another woman into his embrace just to stoke her anger.
But that was a different era with different expectations, and he has come to accept this, so that is why the surfacing of his old habits bothers him so.
He does his best to turn his thoughts elsewhere, but since he cannot seem to shake the traces of the kelpie girl from the webs of his mind, visions of a future in which Tephra has returned begin to form. He thinks of Savior, born to defend the land they seek to raise, and he wonders what his own role will come to be.
He is not sure that he could assume a similar post, as nothing in his life had ever required much protection beyond simple border patrolling. Yet, even if he had acquired any physical skill, how would that compare to the types of magic that run wild today? There had been a small taste of greater power when he’d been part of the group that had mended the Baltian/Stratosian rift, but that had faded once he had returned to Beqanna. He recalls the celestial images that Ryatah had painted to better illustrate her tales of the past; something tells him that her magic could do far more than produce pretty pictures.
On the other hand, how much of a diplomat could he be? When given the chance in the Baltian/Stratosian past, he had done little to inspire peace between the warring countries. Though it could be a more natural path for him, given his lack of offensive abilities; and learning peacemaking might be easier than throwing himself into innumerable skirmishes or even petitioning for new magic. He wonders briefly what kinds of defensive or pacifist abilities might also be out there, which leads him to also wonder about Famkee’s clairvoyance and how she might use that on either side of the fence.
While pondering all of these branches of magic, he cannot help but think of Adriana’s water wings and the frosted scales of her skin and a tongue of fiery hunger flares up so strongly that he can nearly feel the heat radiate from his chest. For a moment, he longs for a flame of his own, if only to melt his way through her icy exterior, but then perhaps to incinerate anything that threatens her well-being.
As this thought dawns, he realizes that maybe it is best that he has no potential for tangible destruction; he might not be able to control himself under certain circumstances. He then realizes that he has traveled much further than he intended to and that he is near enough to smell the ocean air once again. He stares out over the shimmering horizon, aware that he is still looking for her and, so infuriated that he is letting her consume him so completely, that he is of half a mind to abandon the quest for Tephra entirely.
But he knows he can’t, so he grinds his teeth in annoyance and wheels around so that he might head back to see if the others have gathered in the Meadow yet.
All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware
i showed him all my teeth & then i laughed out loud, because i never wanted saving, i just wanted to be found
At first she had clung to her stubbornness like a lifeline, but recently it had felt more like an anchor.
The flame of her anger had long since lost its fervor, but the cold ashes left behind still lingered, coating her no matter how she tried to brush them away. Her mind was a pendulum that could not stop swinging, vacillating between wanting to find him and wanting to continue to avoid him. She doesn’t know what she would do even if she did see him; somewhere in the back of her mind there is an apology forming, only she does not know if it will ever find its way to her tongue. She isn’t even entirely sure what she would apologize for; she cannot apologize for her hurt, and doesn’t think that she should have to.
But she is sorry that she leapt to reacting rather than listening, and that she had fled so far that he could not follow even if he had wanted.
All of these emotions — the jealousy and the regret and the longing — were still too new to her, but she had come to the realization a few days ago that all the solitude in the world was not going to bring her any clarity.
She doesn’t know what kind of string must be tying the two of them together when the very place she decides to surface happens to be where he is just walking away from. She didn’t think herself the type to believe in fate, and even then, fate did not always mean a happy ending. Perhaps they were only fated to destroy each other.
His back is to her, and she knows that if she wanted she could slip back into the depths, undetected. But before she even realizes it her hooves have found solid ground, and with every step she takes the ocean drops further around her, until the waves are only rolling at her ankles. Her crimson-red mane is far more tangled than it has ever been from spending so long in the salted sea, and her usual fierce confidence is somewhat quieted, feeling suddenly exposed in the open air.
“Wait,” she says, the word itself feeling cracked and dry on her now rarely used tongue, and she isn’t even sure if she said it loud enough for him to hear her.
A breeze abruptly throws itself at his back and the copper-tipped curtains of dark locks that cascade handsomely along the firm curve of his crest whip into a bit of a frenzy. He tries to let the air’s cool fingers soothe the burning sensation that threatens to rip his soul apart, but if anything, the renewed strength of the ocean’s scent only sets him on the verge of boiling again. He looks further along to where the Meadow lies, hoping the others are waiting for him, for he feels that, while they may not be the remedy for his ails, seeing them would at least give him the tools to reignite another kind of flame within him. The kind that is comforting and protective, rather the spiteful, consuming one that currently licks at his heels.
But he is not quick enough in beginning to move from the line where sand blends into soil and his nostrils flare as they pick up on something else in the breeze that still stirs around him. While anything remotely smelling of the ocean is enough to remind him of her, his nerves instantly fray as he picks up her true scent, which has been hiding beneath the salty notes that initially swatted at his nose.
Any steps that he had been about to take are forgotten as his emotions begin to churn even more violently than they were just a few minutes ago. He cannot tell how close she might be, but he cannot find her with a quick glance to the left and again to the right; she must be in the water behind him. That surprises him, as he would imagine it would be much more difficult to separate even the heady and intoxicating perfume of her body from such a substantial bouquet.
So, he convinces himself that he must be imagining things, that he has grown so desperate in his desire to end this find her, to touch her, that a psychosomatic effect has started to creep into his senses. He blows out a breath of enormous frustration as his mind decides to add insult to injury by conjuring her voice in his ear as well.
Wait.
Something is not quite right about this illusion, not quite right with the sound. Hardly daring to hope, he whirls back to face the ocean once more and there she stands, dripping water onto the already wet sand. He drinks in the sight of her, from the subtle way the water darkens her coat to the seashells knotted even more firmly into her mane, down to the softened set of her features. The crack of her voice seems to leap through the space between them, seeking to cleave through the hot anger and drive him into her embrace.
He knows that he should listen to the instinct, should let that bitterness melt away and speak the truths of his heart. He knows.
But he can’t, not yet. If only he had that true flame now. He could hand it over to her, let it eat away at her flesh just as the emotional ones have been doing to his mind over all of this time. Deep within himself, he knows that this is wrong, but if she could turn her back so easily once, what would prevent her from doing it again and again? The doubt lingers, attempting to wring every drop of passion from his heart so that it can better stoke the fire of his anger. He does not know what he needs from her to calm the inferno, but he knows that he cannot let himself fall at her feet, not yet. From the look in her eyes, he suspects she might not find any satisfaction in seeing him grovel before her, but she has enjoyed her little games before, so he covers her name in a thin layer of the same ice that she has been walling herself behind and a similarly fragile hardness settles in his eyes.
“Adriana…”
All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware
06-02-2024, 12:43 PM (This post was last modified: 06-02-2024, 12:44 PM by Adriana.)
i showed him all my teeth & then i laughed out loud, because i never wanted saving, i just wanted to be found
He turns to her, and she recognizes the change in him almost immediately.
The anger that simmers just beneath the surface is such a stark contrast to the man she had known prior that if she were a more timid creature she might have withdrawn. Being how she is, she merely gives an almost imperceptible tilt of her head. She wonders if the change is because of her—and then wonders if it is conceited of her to think such a thing. She is not (as she has learned) the only thing in his life, and it has been so long since they last spoke that she has no idea what kind of things have transpired that could have led to this transformation.
She could not fault him if it is, because surely she deserves it. She has relived their last moments together over and over, and even though each time that flame of jealousy reignites at the thought of him with someone else, the regret that follows is stronger each time. She knows that she should not have left, or at the very least, she should have returned quicker, before the wounds caused had festered into this poison.
Guilt is still such a strange thing to feel, even stranger than want and love, and she wonders if the echo of it will live in her chest forever even if she did manage to find his forgiveness.
Just moments before she had been wondering what she would apologize for, but now, standing before him and recognizing that frigid stare that she so often wore herself staring back at her, she now knows. She knows that she had damaged what had existed between them, that whatever thread had been weaving itself had snapped when she turned her back. “I’m sorry that I left,” she tells him, her ocean-blue eyes fixed steadfast to his, as if she could stare hard enough to make him understand, to make him accept her apology.
It’s only in this moment that it occurs to her that he could very well reject her, that perhaps the divide that has grown between them cannot be mended.
Her jaw tightens against the strange ache in her throat, and she swallows down the burning sensation and does not let that level of emotion reach her eyes. But the sincerity is still there, in the soft lines of her face, and in eyes that still do not leave his even though she is uncertain what she will find. “And I’m sorry that I did not give you a chance to explain anything.”
