01-15-2017, 05:58 PM
His nostrils flare, wide and hungry. She knows he can sense her presence.
She is right.
That smell is undeniable – cruel, even, because he has smelled it many times before. Except, like a ghost, those were figments of her damage and despair, writ inerasable all over this place. In broad, beautiful strokes that kept him up at night – restless and heckled. It had found a way to animate itself, to become insidious and ubiquitous – separate from her skin and tongue, forever sending him on wild goose chases.
Perhaps it had been she, even more so than Beqanna Herself, who had soured this place for him.
For everywhere, he saw her colour like the banner of his failings and her blasphemy;
He hopes she does not see it, the little princess.
He has waited so long for this.
Too long for this bitch to ruin it all with her mouth.
(Those lips, which he had stilled and left cold and… bluer, even than they were made to be –)
Then again, was this not the end goal he had been anticipating?
Had this not been exactly what he wanted?
In perfect working order, he would have her thoroughly. Entirely. Body and mind, she would be his and so, when it came time to set his bait, she would do so willingly. Graciously and loyally. She – Alight – would be the thing that brought them together again; she, maybe (with any luck), without the sorcery that bound her flesh together the first time around.
He is not a stupid man. He is a simple and base animal, to be sure. But the moment he had found his horns ripped from his head and set like a topper for a Christmas tree on that mountain, well…
—he used that big brain of his.
***
(In a wide, dark pine woods there sat a tall tower, made of brilliant, white stone. In that tower lived a beautiful princess and her guardian. ‘To keep you safe,’ said the queen, and she locked the door behind her.
The beautiful princess did not mind, for she loved her tower and she loved her guardian even more – from time to time, her family would climb the stairs, a hundred feet up!, to visit her there.
She wore a crown of rosebuds and he wore beautiful chains and shackles of silver and starlight.
There, the children played and danced, without worry... until, one day, that tower groaned and trembled and one-by-one, the stones began to crack!
The princess screamed out, but before anyone could come to the princess’ rescue, her tower tumbled to the ground.)
***
Alight can smell the dust and stale air on his coat. She does not find it unpleasant, though she prefers the smell of prettier things. (She does not say this, either, nor crinkle her nose... Terribly unladylike, indeed.) She finds herself distracted by the lines of his nose’s velvet, where she can swear she has planted soft kisses (like butterflies) before.
Giver, she thinks, and it draws her nearer to him still, craving the places that look most like her keeper: the flat of his cheeks and the curve of his neck; away from the dirty, old wing. The thing she feels now is related to the one that elicits such devotion in her for Giver. Except, of course, it is a much different affection she has pledged to Giver in her heart, now bound by the moorings of magic.
‘I am a king’ he says.
She smiles, giggling lightly, so very close to his chest.
***
His lip curls. (The girl is so close, now, he can feel the breath of her mirth cross his chest.)
His jaw clenches tight, the tension flexing the muscles there, pulling on the inelastic scar tissue.
He watches her, with flat, hard, angry eyes as she shifts from the trees. Not a figment, but hot-blooded and hard-bodied – here. He has no name to curse, so instead, he festers in silence. He lets that demon, yet unrevealed, eat at him – spur him; but stops it from devouring the parts of him that seek to keep his composure.
He can salvage this.
He is so close, now.
‘You,’ that unblinking, devoid stare says.
***
(...free from her tower, the princess was lost. She wandered very far away, looking for her guardian.
Instead she found the wolf.
He was, of course, hungry.)
***
“Mother?”
She hears her name, and the voice that breathes it is undeniable. She turns her pretty, slim head, blinking. The voice is, indeed, one that is an inerasable part of her constellation – it is the single, first thing she ever heard when, from her malformed head, popped two, tiny ears. It had been muffled, then, spoken through layers of fat and muscle and bone. But yet, it had been a powerful, internal, almighty rumble.
It had soothed her.
Then she learned the way it scolded, praised, laughed and cooed.
She loves it.
Now she hears it tremble, as unsure and sullen as she has ever heard it. Even when they first found father (and each other), and he has acted so strange and distant – even then she had been strong.
Mother, she has always thought, is strong. Above all. Present; a rock. She had been too... distracted, as of late, to recognize her mother’s distance and dissolution. Alight is a selfish girl, unfortuately.
‘come here’ she beacons, and Alight has never denied it before. She lingers, loath to distance herself from this King, then takes a tiny step back.
‘He is the beast from the forest.’
***
(the wolf)
***
Alight’s chest clenches and her head jerks away from the King, as a matter of instinct. “He says… he is a king,” she echoes, confusion heavy in each breath between words, she can feel (distantly) her mother’s touch and it is comforting still, even in her daze.
“A King cannot be a beast… besides…”
***
He cringes, his eyelids closing tight for a second.
He makes a small, exasperated sound from his throat.
Those lips.
That mouth.
The girls draws away, coaxed back by her mother-dearest.
The way his claws unfurl, forcibly, from her neck is nothing like the passion in which they desire to take the woman by her own. The girl was never the target. The girl was never the end goal.
But this had not been the plan. (How very… capable she is of fucking up his schemes.)
“Beast?” he says finally, in that low, glowering voice, though she will know how even he tries to keep – how much ire and slaughter he holds back. “Is that it?”
He does not move forward. It might scare her – Alight – away, poor pet. He stays, firm and somber, his eyes unmoving from the mother. “Is that how you speak about me to her?” He clucks his tongue – tsk tsk – “unfair. Unkind.” He shifts and turns, again, to the girl
(a perfect mixture of them both – it was inconceivable that she would be anyone but who she is, even if he could not understand how she came to be)
“I was never given a chance to meet you, Alight. Your mother chose to raise you away from me. And my kingdom.”
***
(The wolf knew the princess was his. She had his fur and the same love in her heart.
But the queen, she stole the princess from him, raised her with a pretender, in a tower he could not access.
This, the wolf did not like. But he was patient.)
***
‘Father,’
her brow knits together, bewilderment passing over her bright, brown eyes. She turns to her mother, lips slightly ajar. Before she can speak, the King retorts, his own words adding to the flail that jellies her brain for a moment. (Alight is a gullible girl – she believes anything with a good story.)
She thinks of her brothers and sisters – of Victra and Giver and Ivo and… but if, indeed, this is true…
(Alight clings, desperately, to her stories. She finds a way to reattach the torn pages of that leather bound volume.)
“Giver and I?” she stutters, tears, once again, wetting the line of her lashes, “we… we…” She closes her mouth, lips trembling, her eyes darting around her own feet. “Why would you lie?” she demands, suddenly, in the surly tone that mother will be no stranger to. She wants to be gentle – she loves her mother, even now; that foundation is stable as a rock – but like a child, she can only ever take so much stress.
It cracks.
“I… I. So… father?” he had played the part so well. She could not hate him for it.
She turns her ire to the one she loves the most.
It is a strange predilection of the brain.
She takes a few awkward steps towards her mother, her back now squared to the King. Her wings spark and hiss at her sides.
“If he is such a beast…” she says, in a low, reasoning voice, “then… why…” Alight flushes, dropping her eyes for a moment in shame. (In her stories, such things do not happen. In her stories, such things are explained as such: Mare and stallion love each other, and then there comes the idol of their affection. The end.) She knows better, she just chooses to jilt that unsavory reality.
“I,” she shakes her head, resigned for the moment. Her eyes close and when they do she feels a strange tug from her gut, and without her urging, something yanks free from down there. Her lips part to gasp, but it has been done. That strange magic from that stranger mare, in the strangest of moments, slips loose from the girl and passes through into the mother. Alight’s lips move slightly, worriedly. She knows what has happened and because she has sense enough to keep quiet about it, she does.
Magic is strange. It knows, sometimes.
***
He lets it go. He watches, quietly.
Soon, a smile splits his face wide open, like a crocodile.
***
(The wolf was not only devilishly sneaky, but horribly clever.
He could find ways to turn any plight in is favor.
He had his ways. He just needed time to think.)
She is right.
That smell is undeniable – cruel, even, because he has smelled it many times before. Except, like a ghost, those were figments of her damage and despair, writ inerasable all over this place. In broad, beautiful strokes that kept him up at night – restless and heckled. It had found a way to animate itself, to become insidious and ubiquitous – separate from her skin and tongue, forever sending him on wild goose chases.
Perhaps it had been she, even more so than Beqanna Herself, who had soured this place for him.
For everywhere, he saw her colour like the banner of his failings and her blasphemy;
He hopes she does not see it, the little princess.
He has waited so long for this.
Too long for this bitch to ruin it all with her mouth.
(Those lips, which he had stilled and left cold and… bluer, even than they were made to be –)
Then again, was this not the end goal he had been anticipating?
Had this not been exactly what he wanted?
In perfect working order, he would have her thoroughly. Entirely. Body and mind, she would be his and so, when it came time to set his bait, she would do so willingly. Graciously and loyally. She – Alight – would be the thing that brought them together again; she, maybe (with any luck), without the sorcery that bound her flesh together the first time around.
He is not a stupid man. He is a simple and base animal, to be sure. But the moment he had found his horns ripped from his head and set like a topper for a Christmas tree on that mountain, well…
—he used that big brain of his.
***
(In a wide, dark pine woods there sat a tall tower, made of brilliant, white stone. In that tower lived a beautiful princess and her guardian. ‘To keep you safe,’ said the queen, and she locked the door behind her.
The beautiful princess did not mind, for she loved her tower and she loved her guardian even more – from time to time, her family would climb the stairs, a hundred feet up!, to visit her there.
She wore a crown of rosebuds and he wore beautiful chains and shackles of silver and starlight.
There, the children played and danced, without worry... until, one day, that tower groaned and trembled and one-by-one, the stones began to crack!
The princess screamed out, but before anyone could come to the princess’ rescue, her tower tumbled to the ground.)
***
Alight can smell the dust and stale air on his coat. She does not find it unpleasant, though she prefers the smell of prettier things. (She does not say this, either, nor crinkle her nose... Terribly unladylike, indeed.) She finds herself distracted by the lines of his nose’s velvet, where she can swear she has planted soft kisses (like butterflies) before.
Giver, she thinks, and it draws her nearer to him still, craving the places that look most like her keeper: the flat of his cheeks and the curve of his neck; away from the dirty, old wing. The thing she feels now is related to the one that elicits such devotion in her for Giver. Except, of course, it is a much different affection she has pledged to Giver in her heart, now bound by the moorings of magic.
‘I am a king’ he says.
She smiles, giggling lightly, so very close to his chest.
***
His lip curls. (The girl is so close, now, he can feel the breath of her mirth cross his chest.)
His jaw clenches tight, the tension flexing the muscles there, pulling on the inelastic scar tissue.
He watches her, with flat, hard, angry eyes as she shifts from the trees. Not a figment, but hot-blooded and hard-bodied – here. He has no name to curse, so instead, he festers in silence. He lets that demon, yet unrevealed, eat at him – spur him; but stops it from devouring the parts of him that seek to keep his composure.
He can salvage this.
He is so close, now.
‘You,’ that unblinking, devoid stare says.
***
(...free from her tower, the princess was lost. She wandered very far away, looking for her guardian.
Instead she found the wolf.
He was, of course, hungry.)
***
“Mother?”
She hears her name, and the voice that breathes it is undeniable. She turns her pretty, slim head, blinking. The voice is, indeed, one that is an inerasable part of her constellation – it is the single, first thing she ever heard when, from her malformed head, popped two, tiny ears. It had been muffled, then, spoken through layers of fat and muscle and bone. But yet, it had been a powerful, internal, almighty rumble.
It had soothed her.
Then she learned the way it scolded, praised, laughed and cooed.
She loves it.
Now she hears it tremble, as unsure and sullen as she has ever heard it. Even when they first found father (and each other), and he has acted so strange and distant – even then she had been strong.
Mother, she has always thought, is strong. Above all. Present; a rock. She had been too... distracted, as of late, to recognize her mother’s distance and dissolution. Alight is a selfish girl, unfortuately.
‘come here’ she beacons, and Alight has never denied it before. She lingers, loath to distance herself from this King, then takes a tiny step back.
‘He is the beast from the forest.’
***
(the wolf)
***
Alight’s chest clenches and her head jerks away from the King, as a matter of instinct. “He says… he is a king,” she echoes, confusion heavy in each breath between words, she can feel (distantly) her mother’s touch and it is comforting still, even in her daze.
“A King cannot be a beast… besides…”
***
He cringes, his eyelids closing tight for a second.
He makes a small, exasperated sound from his throat.
Those lips.
That mouth.
The girls draws away, coaxed back by her mother-dearest.
The way his claws unfurl, forcibly, from her neck is nothing like the passion in which they desire to take the woman by her own. The girl was never the target. The girl was never the end goal.
But this had not been the plan. (How very… capable she is of fucking up his schemes.)
“Beast?” he says finally, in that low, glowering voice, though she will know how even he tries to keep – how much ire and slaughter he holds back. “Is that it?”
He does not move forward. It might scare her – Alight – away, poor pet. He stays, firm and somber, his eyes unmoving from the mother. “Is that how you speak about me to her?” He clucks his tongue – tsk tsk – “unfair. Unkind.” He shifts and turns, again, to the girl
(a perfect mixture of them both – it was inconceivable that she would be anyone but who she is, even if he could not understand how she came to be)
“I was never given a chance to meet you, Alight. Your mother chose to raise you away from me. And my kingdom.”
***
(The wolf knew the princess was his. She had his fur and the same love in her heart.
But the queen, she stole the princess from him, raised her with a pretender, in a tower he could not access.
This, the wolf did not like. But he was patient.)
***
‘Father,’
her brow knits together, bewilderment passing over her bright, brown eyes. She turns to her mother, lips slightly ajar. Before she can speak, the King retorts, his own words adding to the flail that jellies her brain for a moment. (Alight is a gullible girl – she believes anything with a good story.)
She thinks of her brothers and sisters – of Victra and Giver and Ivo and… but if, indeed, this is true…
(Alight clings, desperately, to her stories. She finds a way to reattach the torn pages of that leather bound volume.)
“Giver and I?” she stutters, tears, once again, wetting the line of her lashes, “we… we…” She closes her mouth, lips trembling, her eyes darting around her own feet. “Why would you lie?” she demands, suddenly, in the surly tone that mother will be no stranger to. She wants to be gentle – she loves her mother, even now; that foundation is stable as a rock – but like a child, she can only ever take so much stress.
It cracks.
“I… I. So… father?” he had played the part so well. She could not hate him for it.
She turns her ire to the one she loves the most.
It is a strange predilection of the brain.
She takes a few awkward steps towards her mother, her back now squared to the King. Her wings spark and hiss at her sides.
“If he is such a beast…” she says, in a low, reasoning voice, “then… why…” Alight flushes, dropping her eyes for a moment in shame. (In her stories, such things do not happen. In her stories, such things are explained as such: Mare and stallion love each other, and then there comes the idol of their affection. The end.) She knows better, she just chooses to jilt that unsavory reality.
“I,” she shakes her head, resigned for the moment. Her eyes close and when they do she feels a strange tug from her gut, and without her urging, something yanks free from down there. Her lips part to gasp, but it has been done. That strange magic from that stranger mare, in the strangest of moments, slips loose from the girl and passes through into the mother. Alight’s lips move slightly, worriedly. She knows what has happened and because she has sense enough to keep quiet about it, she does.
Magic is strange. It knows, sometimes.
***
He lets it go. He watches, quietly.
Soon, a smile splits his face wide open, like a crocodile.
***
(The wolf was not only devilishly sneaky, but horribly clever.
He could find ways to turn any plight in is favor.
He had his ways. He just needed time to think.)
![[Image: RS84HN4.png]](http://i.imgur.com/RS84HN4.png)
Pollock x Malis
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