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  • Beqanna

    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


    are you ready for a perfect storm? any. {M}
    #1
    so you want to play with magic?
    you should know what you're falling for.
    She stretched her back, her grey body going black as jet as she moved through the trees, sleek, dangerous like a cat. Shadows of color tore through her body as she was on silent hooves through the trees. These forests were her home; her second skin. She wears it like armor around her, and they bend to her will. She would die for them—indeed, she almost did.
     
    But those days are long over.
     
    She breathes in the air of freedom, silver eyes shuttered to the weak sun, tinted green to show that there was something more underneath the mask of seductive composure that the lady wore around her. Something far more sinister. More powerful.
     
    Reagan had just needed to remember her place in this world—moreover, that she had at one time ruled this world. Gripping the scepter with a gloved hand, it is out there ripe for the plucking should she desire. A coy smile rides her face as she turns away from her trees for the first time in ages, heading towards the river. A new land, bestowed upon them by Fairies. The Gods of Beqanna.
     
    Reagan’s dark eyes think back through her past. In her heart, she is still clutching those rosary beads to her breast—the one who is devout, a loyal subject. At one time she loved God; loved them. But what has love ever garnered her?
     
    Nothing.
     
    She snarls, a hint of a fang dropping below her lips, as she smiles again, eyes intent on the coastline.
     
    The trees fall away, and she is simply a dark lonely girl standing at a river bank, looking across into nothingness. Nobody would ever take her dignity from her ever again.
     
    She’d not let them get close enough.
     
    Not again.

    Reagan
    Reply
    #2
    something has been taken from deep inside of me;
    the secret I've kept locked away no one can ever see.

     The air is still – unusually so, and as such, it is stagnant with the tepid humidity of summer. Though its grasp has not yet taken hold of the land, it brushes along the rim of the atmosphere with its spindly fingertips, leaving his skin dampened with sweat, trickling slowly along the length of his behemoth form.

      He is not tucked away within the thicket as he might usually be, though there is a deep preference for silence and solitude that he cannot cleanse away. Rather, he is but a pillar of stoicism at the rustling shoreline, as the frigid water roaring before him gently splashes against his fetlock beneath the setting sun, while its vivid brushstrokes of tangerine and lavender casts its dim light across the smooth boulders lining the river.

      His breathing is shallow – he is weary, and tired, but that is not unusual for him. Fatigue had long ago settled into the tender marrow of his bones, and he had grown accustomed to exhaustion festering away at his temperament. He is restless, and the sinewy muscle lining the statuesque physique is terse, and twitching, as he quietly shifts the heft of his weight from one side to the next.

      Above him, darkness descends, and with it, a blinding moon rises above the horizon in a clear, bright sky, littered with bright, glimmering starlight – but he does not care for any of it. His eyes, with an intensity not unlike a burning ember and as deep of a red as glowing magma, stare intently at the churning water before him, wondering why the current had not swept him out to sea when he was younger – much, much younger than he is now – and why it hadn’t drowned him when it had the chance.

      Instead, the fire within him burns fiercely, leaving his mouth dry and his mind on edge. Where ice had once lingered, now there was only a hot, scalding flame – one hot enough to burn any who dare tread on it.

      He is soon stirred from his contemplation by the rustling of movement to the north – and as he turns the broad expanse of his cheek towards it, his steady yet fiery gaze quietly analyzes the feminine figure standing a mere yard (or maybe two) away from him. She is as dark as he is, blending in with the darkness of descending nightfall, but her eyes are glowing a pale green in stark contrast to the dark tresses that lay across her forehead and jawline.

      There is tension coiled in her limbs, much like his own, and though he is initially wary of speaking to her (there is something unnerving about her, and if he were even slightly more mindful and alert, he would have felt the presence of her magic in his veins – alas, there is a trace of familiarity in her eyes that he recognizes).

      ”There are no answers hidden in the river, if that is what you seek. I’ve looked.”

      There is a faint lacing of amusement in his tone, but the humor does not quite reach his eyes.

      ”You look different. Less .. colorful. No antlers.”

      Perhaps he is wrong in his assumption of her identity, but there is a tingling in his skin that says he isn’t.
    wounds so deep they never show; they never go away.
    like moving pictures in my head, for years and years they've played.
    Offspring
    Reply
    #3
    so you want to play with magic?
    you should know what you're falling for.

    There was a silent thrumming that took over her body. The warmth that blew through her blood pricked her skin like a sixth sense. She can feel him coming, squeezing her eyes closed with lingering emotion. They were two strangers who shared a daughter. A link that they had never even known that they’d had. No reason to ever suspect it, no reason to ever explore it. She barely knew him, but when the warm tones of his voice washes over her, Reagan finds she is relieved.

    And yet, when Reagan’s world began spinning out of control, she felt her magic slipping away, taking over her body, she was anything but relieved. Her tarnished crown had tipped the scales, and when it fell toward the earth and splintered her body and soul, there was nothing left to explore. No wishes to make her children choose. She breathed in deep, and had turned away, allowing peace to her forest—at the expense of her soul.

    Looking back bitterly, the Grey Lady wondered what the point of it all had been. She was no closer to the Taiga than she had been. Only the rejuvenated relationship with her daughter allowed her to continue… to find footing in a ground that would surely take pleasure in seeing the Taigan queen fall.

    And fall from grace she eventually did. Swallowed up into the embrace of Hell’s dark fire, she sees clarity. She was never capable of being something other than what she was. And what she was, was a woman who craved power. Who liked to throw dice against the odds. She would gamble her life with everything she had… never again would she allow the stack to be against her.

    She focused her eyes crisp and clear on the opposing shoreline, the shadows of ghosts and memories fading in between the trees. Happiness that would never be hers. A life gone. The moon shadow that casts its faint glow is one that she is long familiar with, and when he makes his approach, her body warms. A low iridescent glow that plays underneath the vibrating color of her pelt. There are no answers hidden in the river, if that is what you seek. I’ve looked. She smiles at his sardonic remark, but she says nothing, not sure just how much his words are intended for humor, and once more, she is grateful for his presence. The breeze is blowing through her hair, and though she settles, she does not turn to face him.

    Reagan hoped that Jinju would continue to pursue a relationship with her birth father, and she found that she could always be grateful to the obsidian stallion for giving the fiery princess to the wayward magician. The only reason why Reagan was still standing here with any sense of sanity. The love a daughter—one that could not be replaced. Thinking of Enfys, her guilt balls up in her throat, but the woman is still recovering. Still finding her footing. One day she would return.

    But not yet.

    Reagan straightens out her posture and turns to face Offspring, a cool resting look of hardness settling on her face as she tries to make out the details of his muscled body in the dark. The angles of his face. All that stands out against the moon is the red of his eyes, and the fiery brimstone that lay just barely buried underneath his skin. He was a man almost as old as she was—Two beings embittered with pain, and disappointment.

    The sting of immortality.

    He speaks again, his eyes noting the curve of her body and the color of her skin. Thankful for the dark, and her magic, she is able to hide her embarrassment, and put in its place the serenity of the moment. She smiles openly this time, leaving the hard twinkle in her eyes—the soft glow of her body.

    Her effervescent mask.

    “If the river does not answer your questions, then it is because you not ask the right questions.” Reagan tips her head downward, the zephyr catching her tangled mane and throwing it away from her face. She looks down at her body, looking over her back and glimpsing the glow. Flipping her tail, she looks back at him. “And yes, the disco-tek is over. I’m afraid that when one is given too much power, it tends to stick its ugly little head up in places it does not belong. If you do not control it… it will invariably control you.” She scoffs, and then takes another step towards him, showing the curve of her shoulder to its best advantage flirtatiously, eyes bright with ironic laughter. Sarcasm bleeds over her words, laying it thick and making it obvious that she is just trying to have a laugh.

    It has been so long since she has laughed. Or felt this at peace with herself. “The antlers are gone, but I could make them reappear again, if you think it makes me cuter. Or a lion tale… A giraffe’s neck. I would appear darling, don’t you think so?”

    Reagan
    Reply
    #4
    something has been taken from deep inside of me;
    the secret I've kept locked away no one can ever see.

     Life was ever changing – a winding road shrouded in thick, dense fog, unveiled only when the delicate hand of time permits. He had lived a thousand lifetimes, or so it felt to him – every heartbreak, every lingering moment of longing and loneliness etched into the solid mass of his muscled form; each puckered, pink scar a symbol of what he had seen. Of what he had done.

      Though many looked upon him as a pillar of strength, as an intimidating force, the scars he bore were not simply from the toil and drudgery of battle – but rather, many were a mark of the multitude of times his immortality had kept him tethered to his unfortunate existence.

      He had attempted to end his life more than once (admittedly, he had lost count long ago), and the memory of him falling away into the sea, being swept into the current, and pounded against the unforgiving coastline, strewn with jagged rocks stayed at the surface of his mind, even years later. Still, his immortality prevailed, and he eventually washed ashore, his body battered, bleeding – as broken as the spirit trapped inside of him.

      The deafening roar of the river is a reminder of his weaker moments, entrenched in a deeply-rooted depression, drowning in his own misery – and even now, as his steady gaze is settled upon the smooth boulders protruding from the powerful pull of the water, he does not feel too far from the frail, enervated man that now lay dormant – dead – inside of him.

      There is a light illuminating from the soft curves of her body, and his attention is yet again drawn away from the allure of the rushing river. Instead, he traces the solid line of her shoulder, and the thick curve of her neck, before searching the plane of her feminine features. Though the moon is warm and generous in its glow, the shadow of evenfall has cast a darker presence, and he can barely make out more than her bright, vivid eyes in the dark.

       A rumbling chuckle bubbles from somewhere within the hearth of his chest – humorless; with a tinge of bitterness. He had asked more questions of the river that she could likely fathom. Why, he thought (thinks, even now). And why was the most devastating, grievously unanswered question he had asked of the cruel hand he had been dealt.

      ”Perhaps not, but I have yet to find an answer in my many years, and I doubt that I ever will.”

      He does not linger on it, though – she does not need to hear of his wretched past, nor of his never-ending existential crisis. He pauses, then, searching the darkened plane of her rounded cheek in the dark, his browline creased in thought. ”Magic," he murmurs then, with no shadow of doubt in his tone. A statement; not a question. ”I sensed it long ago. You are a magician, then.” and there is something undiscernible laced in his tone. He had known too many magicians in his lifetime, and all but one had caused him grief and agony.

      Magic had festered in his blood, and left him burning hot, searing on the inside – with a flickering, scalding flame burning brightly in the hearth of his chest, aching to seep through his skin and set the deciduous forest into a scorching, sweltering inferno. Yet he, made of fire and brimstone, knew nothing of the power and prowess she inevitably had in her own blood.

     He only knew that if the fire alone could do to him what it had, he could only imagine how magic consumed her. He didn’t want to.

      ”My daughter,” he murmurs, but his blistering eyes of red are settled upon her, searching. our daughter – she has fire, as I do,” He pauses then, uncertain. ”but it is a part of her – it has never been a part of me. It was a gift,” a curse, he doesn’t say, as an acrid taste rises on his tongue. ”a gift that I have never been comfortable wielding. She does so with such ease, but I ..” he looks to the river again, with its unyielding waters. ”if I do, it will consume me. I can feel it, at times, becoming more a part of me with every passing day. It is not a part of me, the way it is a part of her. It is me.”

      And then, a shaky breath, his browline furrowed in thought.

      ”And if I let it in, if I let it take hold ..”

      A confession hanging on the edge of a precarious precipice, unspoken.
    wounds so deep they never show; they never go away.
    like moving pictures in my head, for years and years they've played.
    Offspring
    Reply
    #5
    so you want to play with magic?
    you should know what you're falling for.
    The power was all-consuming. It was a heady scent that was like a drug to all who tasted it of its purest form. True power didn’t come in the form of titles. The true essence of power comes from the simple knowledge that you could take whatever you wanted—whether or not you acted upon the urge. When other people recognized this fact, that is where the true point of fact lay. Offspring was one of those men whose dark past and his unsettling demeanor proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that power was his for the taking—and all he had to do was outstretch his hand to take whatever he wanted.

    Land, women.

    They would all fall at his feet, if he so desired.

    But Reagan was not most women. She lifts her head to look over his shoulder. The barest hint of twilight is on the rise, a red glow that clings to the horizon, as if the whole expanse has been set ablaze. That sense of sheer power claws at her throat, desperate to get out. She swallows it down, and her color is muted down to that of pure black. Her eyes, they revert to her natural emerald green, and in the cold of the dark, she makes a connection with the way his brimstone colored gaze settles upon her skin, and she burns with the heat of it. Her body is muscular, weathered with age and experience. But though she is no mere mortal, she could feel herself carving her body to match his roving glances, thinking that perhaps she had underestimated the power that he would have on her. On anyone. That he would have the power to command—even her… it was unknowing. Unthinkable.

    She starts when he speaks again, and her thoughts are pulled in, roped like a horse at the tether, chomping at the bit to be free. But she cannot stop the thundering in her heart. “If you have a lingering question that goes unanswered, perhaps putting audible words would help you find the answer you need. Though I gather you do not trust many for guidance.” She darts her eyes to the babbling brook at their feet, the low-toned whistle gathering in her ears. Her magic allowed her to view the world in a different way than most people, and while she was grateful for the power she wielded, his prevue was precisely right—the curse of bearing so much power was cumbersome if not meticulously cared for. And she had let It get away from her.

    He speaks again, and the fire on the horizon grows, beckoning the slow entrance of the sun’s arrival. His accusation—albeit correct—that she is a magician. At that, her eyes widen, and she laughs airly, drawing herself a step closer to his heat, desperately trying not to touch it… lest she be burned. “Your wife must keep you under a rock if you have not heard of me,” she smiles. She had thought that the magicians were so few that their names were considered commonplace. “I was friends with Magnus, before he..departed. Taiga was friends with Tephra.” Reagan then falls silent, not wanting to deal with politics just then. She is no longer a Queen, no longer an Alpha. The need for such talk is over. Reagan simply wants to be.

    And for the moment, she wants to be with Offspring. For whatever that might mean. Reagan trembles—every sensory organ she has is on fire, sensing all the world around her. The heat, the cold, the river. The wind, the water, the rough and smooth of the rocks at her feet. Him. Her. She has never been so present in her life.

    He changes the subject once more, giving Reagan time to appreciate his countenance. A man with such troubles. Such age. He turns the conversation to something much more personal, and the breath catches in her throat, before she exhales slowly. Bringing up Jinju—their daughter, such an odd connection, that even pulled at her heartstrings to think about—and his fire. The darker side of their blood. That, perhaps, those with power, are not the ones who want it. A curse that befalls them all.

    A curse that Reagan knows only too well.

    She steps closer again, her nose at the point of his shoulder, a mere breath away. His skin is burning liquid fire from his heat, and she feels herself shudder once more. Her voice is hushed, and she does not look into his eyes, but the intent is clear. “Jinju is a strong girl. And she reminds me so very much of you. Your blood flows in her veins, and she has embraced it. She will be very powerful one day.” She breathes, her breast falling slowly, and speaks again, dropping her voice even lower. “Do you ever think…that if you gave in to what you fear, you would not be trapped? Instead, you would find your freedom? That you could free yourself of the life that you are so badly trying to cleave away from?”

    Reagan
    Reply
    #6
    something has been taken from deep inside of me;
    the secret I've kept locked away no one can ever see.

       He is unbending; a towering reckoning of rounded, spiraling muscle, with height, weight and prowess creating undeniable power in his presence. He is an intimidating force, even without intention – perhaps, it was with wisdom of age and of time that had carved into him such a deep indifference for power. He had seen many wield it, and he had seen nearly as many fall because of it – foolishness, born out of greed and a lustful voracity for something intangible and uncontrollable. He had once been a King – and alas, he was a King yet again, but neither title had ever brought forth the same inescapable, ravenous hunger that so many others felt.

       The same inescapable, ravenous hunger that stirred deep within the fiery pit of his burning hearth, born not of any title, but of a gift that had been unwanted - but of a curse that had become every bit apart of him as the blood pumping through his veins or the collagen of his tired bones. An insatiable craving that touched the frayed edges of his self-containment, stoking the burning fire festering within, fueling its blistering prowess, though he tried in vain to suppress it.

      He can feel the flames touch his pounding heart, even now, rousing a part of him that he tried desperately to contain – stirring a part of him he longed to forget. His throat is thick with emotion, and with something he does not dare explore, though his gaze is steadfast and settled upon her own, watching her pale jade eyes change into a vivid, delicately pared emerald. Her words are careful, plucking gently at his threadbare thoughts, and he cannot silence the vibration of his laughter rising in his throat, nor the wry, sardonic smile tugging at the darkest corner of her mouth.

      ”Do not be foolish enough to think that you know me, Reagan,” he warns, his voice deep, yet laced with a tendril of amusement, willfully choosing to ignore her reference to Isle. ”and do not be arrogant enough to assume that I am not familiar with Tephra, or its affairs. I founded it,” his eyes are steady upon her now, with a darkness lingering somewhere within their crimson depths. ”alongside Magnus. I moved to the shadows, but do not mistake that for being caught unaware.”

      His skin is burning yet again, increasing in temperature as a festering anger seethes deep within, though the terse muscle of his jaw tenses as he tightly presses his teeth together, willing the flickering flames down. He averts his gaze, then, knowing that she would see the feverish fire growing in his eyes, looking towards the two-toned horizon as dusk gives away to dawn, its warmth casting a shadow across their dark, colorless skin.

      Soon, the ferocity of his anger wanes, and he is left with little else but a glowing coal in his chest.

      ”Seeking a confirmation of peace is not the same as an alliance or friendship, Reagan, and being unacquainted with your power does not equate to not knowing who you are.” he murmurs carefully, seeking her eyes once more, though his heart lurches forth as the space between them has become less with each fleeting, passing moment – she is close to him; close enough to feel the burning heat of his scalding skin exuding its warmth – close enough for him to feel the delicate touch of her breath across his shoulder.

    .. His broad, thick neck curves, then, as his crimson gaze observes the dark hollow of her cheek, and the mischievous glint of her deep eyes – laden with secrets he could never hope to fully unearth. His heart is pounding, yet again, and he can almost hear hers, beating in time with his. There is a stirring within him (lustful, wanton, but he quells it, quiets it), alongside his fear. Alongside his uncertainty. Her words are truthful, and unabashedly honest – brutally so, carving into his self-preservation and splitting apart his carefully woven mask; and she asks a question of him that not even he has had the strength, nor the will, to ask of himself.

       And though he does not, and will not admit to it, she does know him - perhaps more than he knows himself.

      ”I do not want to lose myself, Reagan,” he confesses, the flicker of anger long gone, and within his hushed murmur, he is vulnerable – as the delicate thread of what has barely kept him together is tugged away at the seams by her careful observation, by her curious wonderment. ”and if I allow it to take hold, there will be something of me lost to it. Magic does not come without a price,” his breath is soft on her cheek, though his skin burns hot still. ”a price I am not certain I am willing to pay.”
    wounds so deep they never show; they never go away.
    like moving pictures in my head, for years and years they've played.
    Offspring
    Reply
    #7
    so you want to play with magic?
    you should know what you're falling for.
    There was a small moment in her head that reminded her that perhaps she stood a chance for another life. That perhaps, once she had recovered and controlled herself once more, that she would go home… to the forest that she had helped create. The trees that bowed to her, and called out to her even now; she could feel them tugging on her heart, drawing her away from the river banks and back into the embrace of their shadow. Into enveloping presence of their protection. She let out a small gasp as she breathed in his scent, taking in the smell of heat and sulphur. A scent she was unfamiliar with. An intoxicating musk that made her want to know more. Tephra, all those years ago. Taiga, the home of her heart.

    The man who had held her heart. And then had crushed it.

    Offspring speaks, his voice gruff, bubbling with agitation at the mere mention of her home, and her head jerks slightly, emerald green eyes finding his. “Do not mistake my powers for idiocy, Offspring. I do not have to lean on my blood to make me a smart, albeit dangerous woman.” her voice is crackling like a sparkler. “It was I who named the trees, and called them the Taiga. Romek and Demian faded into nothingness, And It was I who looked after his daughters and took care of Maribel in his absence. I sought Magnus out of peace, and did come to an understanding of friendship.” She looks at him then, the politician coming to the fore, her voice back to a pointed matter of fact tone. And then the softness returns to her face, and she reaches forward, touching the curve of his shoulder with the tip of her nose. “I am not your enemy.” Reagan breathes against his skin, stepping towards him once more. “And It would not be the first time that those who hear of me as a magician first… before they have any interest in me as a woman.” Her voice is sad—distant, and she looks up over the crest of his back, seeing the sun continuing its slow crawl up the horizon, tinging the world pink, setting the tops of the trees ablaze with color. The beauty is not lost on her, and a single, solitary tear drops from her eyes, down the side of her cheek.

    “I was deposed,” she says, dropping her eyes to the ground, giving vocal utterance to it for the first time. “My relationship imploded when the current leader stopped talking to me. Wanted nothing to do with me. He found solace in the friendship of others. And I…I make one mistake, and I am cast aside. I was nothing to him.” Hushed words. A broken heart.

    She sniffs, clearing her head and taking in his scent again, setting her heart thundering against his body as she draws herself into his skin, resting against his heat. The strong shoulder that he gave her to lean upon, a crutch to keep her standing—for it had been he who had cauterized the wounds left to her by her ex-husband. The one she still wanted.

    The one who did not want her.

    Offspring stands like a stone statue, a lee in the storm of Reagan’s turbulent life, her stormy heart. And just for the quiet moment, she rests her head upon his back, and breathes. “I just want to be free,” she says. “To do what I want to do. To be who I want to be.” She continues to watch the sun rise, and lifts her head, stepping far enough back and tilting up to level her gaze with his. To make sure he was paying attention to her. To let him feel her heart rattling against her breast. “There is a price that comes with everything. The price for life is death. The price for power, is privacy. The price for magic—it is your soul. But fire can be used, to fashion something perfect—to weed out its imperfections. To make something that was wrong, right again.” And then, without asking, she steps fully into his embrace, taking in his heat with her own, ebony skin on obsidian carved muscles. Reagan slides her body down his, until her shoulders rest comfortably in the crux of his hips, and she once again is watching the fires of the day overtake the cold damp of the night. “I would take you as you were. If your heart were for purchase, I would pay the price of magic… and more. Anything to see you be free again.”


    Reagan
    Reply
    #8
    something has been taken from deep inside of me;
    the secret I've kept locked away no one can ever see.

      There is an undeniable tension filling the air, thicker than the stifling humidity he had grown accustomed to – it touches his skin lightly, pressing into the supple curve of his flesh – a constant presence; a slightly uncomfortable one. A shuddering sigh emerges from his broad, but tired lungs – lungs that had breathed in the thick blackness of smoke, the frigid polarity of winter, the gentle prickling of flora and fauna.

       A body too old, sheathed in its own immortality (the fire, slowly burning in the hearth of his chest, has already begun to ebb away at the delicate edges of his eternal youth, though he would not recognize the change for years to come). His bright, searing eyes steady upon her, observing the soft curve of her face, wondering how long she had walked the Earth, and if she had ever longed for Death as he had.

      Her tone is different, then – sparkling with electricity, but his gaze does not waver, steadied still on the deep, seemingly endless viridescent irises that bore into his own. Her words are careful, but bristling – a defensive stance slowly filling the space in between her coiled muscles and the bone that lie within, causing her to stiffen – perhaps with indignation. He, himself, had been known for ire. He had patience, but it wore particularly thin with cryptic dialogue, or thinly-veiled lies – he had no time, nor any tolerance for it. Even those given everlasting life grew tired of the echo of what had been said before.

      Her explanation is heavy, but a vivid image is painted within his mind – an image he realized now had been diluted with a lack of information. He can hardly stifle a scoff at the mention of Romek; the pathetic excuse for manhood that had betrayed him, stolen his daughter away, and faltered as so many of the ill-fated power-hungry did. He had trusted him once – nearly handed him the throne, before the frigid land of ice had crumbled beneath him, reformed – reshaped, and lost forever. He had trusted him once. He would never do so again, and perhaps that is where his bridling wariness of her is born.

      But her mouth, warm and dark, presses against the heat of his shoulder, and his wariness is brushed away with the soft, soothing caress of the breeze. Her words are soft, hushed - I am not your enemy, and somewhere, deep within, it is a truth that he already knows. When he casts a glance to her, her eyes are looking elsewhere – somewhere beyond, lost within the vivid color of a falling sun, where a starlit sky illuminates what pale sunlight once had. There is a soft, melancholy wistfulness to her voice, and the corners of his mouth deepen into a frown as the salty brine of a fallen tears trickles down the plane of her cheek.

      ”Ruan,” he murmurs, though without any indication of resentment – only indifference, really – he knew what distant names oversaw the borders of which kingdom, though he had no face to place alongside it, nor any awareness of him in any actuality. ”the isolated King of Taiga." His gaze is settled elsewhere – lost somewhere within the rippling, roaring waters before him, watching the way each turbulent surge of fresh water folds into the next. ”If he has found it so easy to cast you away, to replace you, well, the truth may be that he never loved you at all.”

      Gently, he touches the warmth of his mouth to her neck, feeling her blood pulse beneath his touch.

     ”You deserve more than that, Reagan. Do not give him the satisfaction of your misery. What is not meant to be will crumble, and with it, the weak will crumble, too.”

      And the fire burns brighter, suddenly, nearly taking the breath from his lungs, causing him to grimace with discomfort. It so longs to be let out, to be released, to take to his skin and surge with the same prowess of the rumbling volcano of his domicile, or the fury of the river before him. His teeth, faintly yellowed but perfectly aligned, clench tightly as the discomfort courses through him, leaving him altogether scalding hot to the touch before leaving his skin slick, and dampened with sweat.

     Freedom - he has never known such a thing, at least not since the distant, far-off days of his youth, before his mother had been slain before him, her dead and decaying body left to rot where he had cradled her close – her blood still splattered across the darkness of his skin. Trapped within a lonely, eternal life, or beneath the frigid hand of winter, and even now under the hot suffocation of his fire, he has always been held captive by something deeper, darker, larger than himself.

      He has never known freedom, and to hear her speak of it leaves a void of longing within him.

      He can feel the warmth of her breath across the length of his spine, and an involuntary shiver traverses the vertebrae. His heart is pounding inside of his chest - thump, thump, thump - rhythmic and steady, but its pace quickens, as does the adrenaline flooding through his veins. The flickering ember in the rolling pit of his stomach has grown tenfold, yearning to be released, aching to be exposed to the caress of dawn’s light. He can feel her heart pounding, too, against his flesh, disjointed but then beating in time with his own, and his mind is rampant with thoughts moving as swiftly and as freely as the rushing water before him.

      Her skin is hot against his own, which stirs him from his brief reverie, as the darkened, glowing flames tucked within his watchful gaze set upon her. She is flush against him, her shoulder tucked against the high curve of his hip, and uncertainty weighs heavily on his mind. She is powerful (it oozes from her very pores), yet vulnerable – intriguing and mysterious, yet open. His whiskered mouth presses against the curve of her own hip, as a fleeting thought crosses his mind – a lustful one, giving weight the idea that he is nothing extraordinary – just another man, bestowed with a curse, but still wholly mortal.

      ”My heart is worthless. I have done little with it but hurt those I love,” and his mind drifts away to somewhere off in the distance, to Isle and to her gentle embrace – to her watchful, hesitant gaze – she loved him, and he had been unfaithful, hurtful – scalding. She deserved so much more than he, but still, she stayed. He often wondered why. ”trust me when I say, it has no price worth paying.”
    wounds so deep they never show; they never go away.
    like moving pictures in my head, for years and years they've played.
    Offspring
    Reply
    #9
    so you want to play with magic?
    you should know what you're falling for.
    She is a magician. She has been created to be adaptable to the world around her. That is how she has survived all this time. Reagan’s ability to recognize power, aside from her own, to forge her pathway through life, is why she has stayed relevant to those around her. She is always needed. Always wanted. But for what she is, what she can do.

    Never who she is. Never that.

    She had thought, that perhaps, the forest, those trees that she loved so dearly and had wrapped her life around, were going to be the end of her wandering. One mistake. One draw in the wrong direction, and it shatters around her feet like broken ice that drains to tears. The wolf that pushes into her heart and mind is a violent and almost constant endeavor that she screams to put away; that part of her life is over. She had tried. She had gone to him in the forest, and he had shattered her world when he turned away. Unwilling to listen, unwilling to accept. Unwilling to perhaps put some of the loyalty he espoused forward in perhaps giving back a little of that love that he said he felt. Instead she got nothing. Further, the scars that lined the side of her body were proof that maybe, just maybe, there had been nothing between them at all. Another childhood fantasy drained away in a puddle after it rains.

    Offspring speaks, his warm voice vibrating against her skin as she presses into him. His words are quiet, but purposeful. And she can feel the tears continue to fall, openly this time. That she was so easily discarded. What is not meant to be will crumble… And she realizes, he is right. The words seem heavy, but she gives him the privacy of his own mind. His thoughts are his own. Perhaps one day, if he allowed her, she would find her way around his innerworkings. But for now… she does not feel comfortable in her own skin, let alone someone else’s. All she can be content with is the way he reacts against her. Molten heat singes her skin, but it does not burn. Instead, it ignites her soul, and her every thought of the past is swept away with the coming of a new tide. She feels him relax, and press into her, the manner of his body becoming less rigid, moulding around her as it shelters her from the sunrise, from the fire and the light. Anything to pull them back to the darkness. Anything to pull them back into the moment that can stop time. Reagan’s magic is powerful, but to stop time—it is something that is currently beyond her. The coming of the day was inevitable, and with it, real life. Lives and kingdoms, and children.

    And estranged spouses.

    The fire of his skin continues to bubble over, and she slides against him as a thick layer of moisture congregates on his skin, the internal agitation coming to the fore. Perhaps he is not as relaxed as he might have seemed. There is a turbulence inside his eyes when she levels her gaze with his once again, hungry eyes that she has seen time and again in her many years of walking this earth. She is no goddess, to be held to a higher standard. She just wants to end her days in the ways she was never allowed as a girl. To use her talents to her own whims. And perhaps, chase the dream of a normal life. But there is no peace in a normal life for creatures such as they. The only peace that can be had must be taken—must be decided on.

    Their hearts thunder against their perspective cages, itching to be let free, and to soar among the clouds. Together? Maybe. But that is entirely up to him. Reagan’s eyes return to the horizon, and the way that the birds have begun their morning calls to their lovers. The seasons are changing, and the briskness of the morning has dressed the world in a blanket of white frost that hugs the ground, and she finds that his heat is a welcome blanket against the autumn chill. His eyes behind her, presumably looking at the water, but his breath. She can feel it all. The rise and fall of his knotted chest, the beating of his heart. But most of all, his breath. That warm pulse that shows that he is a man still very much alive, and that breath is blowing over the most tender parts of her. She shudders—a minute motion that ripples across her skin, but one that she feels to the deepest heart. And then when he presses his mouth to her body, she starts. She rakes in a desperate, heated gasp, but she makes no effort to move. Instead, she pushes further into him, moulding her curves to his body. Then he speaks of his worthless heart, and her body lurches, wanting to calm the storm she sees there. Knowing she could do all and more.

    “If your heart were worthless, you would not find yourself in the position you do,” she says, her voice surprisingly upbeat and noncommittal for someone who is thinking about anything but politics. The cold waves lapping against her body would feel really good against her. Tender ripples licking her sides, stoking the fire…she gulps. Change the subject, she says to herself. “Thrice a king, a friend and confidante. Those who have been hurt by you are fragile creatures capable of killing themselves with the sunrise.” She speaks of herself then.. someone who has hurt many in her own life, and knows of what he speaks. “You cannot change yourself to please them all. If you are changing, and they do not change with you… that is not necessarily your fault. There is too much pain in pretending to be something you are not…for the sake of someone else.”

    She stops then, drawing back from his slick body, a rush of cold air replacing the space where they had been pressed against each other. She misses his warmth immediately, but instead, she looks up at him, placing her velvety mouth in the cook of his neck, drawing her teeth carefully down the side of his profile and across the point of his shoulder. Her words are hushed, but they are heated. “If your heart truly were worthless, you would not have cared if I lived or died. Your fire may take life, but it also gives it.” She presses her mouth into his shoulder then, her eyes willing the sun to go down—but the peak of the star is warming up the forest and casting shadows across the trees. Her words are muffled, but she cannot help but touch him. She can’t not touch him.

    “You don’t need to be afraid, any longer. You shouldn’t be afraid any longer.”She sniffs, keeping the emotion from her voice. She speaks not of the purchase price. She would have to prove that to him over time. Not one night next to a babbling river would prove such a thing, no matter how many words she tried to put to it. He would either eventually believe her, or he wouldn’t. For however long their acquaintance remained.

    She once more takes a step, pressing her head against his neck. “I don’t know what I will do now. I have lived so long away from…well, anyone.” She gulped. “One thing I do know. I cannot stay in the forest any longer. But being away from you… it could be unbearable.”

    Reagan
    Reply
    #10
    you can have my isolation,
    you can have the hate that it brings.
      There is nothing that has kept him apart from what his heart has longed for but his own selfishness; his own suffering. He is, beneath the façade of strength and stoicism, a simple man – longing for affection, desiring stability, craving attention from only one.

      Yet, in the absence of her affection (she is wary of him; frightened of him – he cannot blame her), his mind is wandering – provoked by a loneliness stirring from memories that haunt him still within the deep, enveloping embrace of slumber. An isolation that can only come from the survival of such horrors that left deep, festering wounds that the naked eye cannot see, open and infected – his heart, splayed open, with the vivid image of his beloved and their children, bleeding, dying.

      He can still see their lifeless bodies, bloated and swelling, whenever he closes his eyes.

      He pushes it further, and further away. Deeper and deeper into the recesses of his mind, but there is no abyss large enough to swallow the imagery whole. He cannot escape it, try as he might. It is a pervasive nightmare (so much so that he cannot bear to look at her, at times – not with her pleading, watchful eyes). Isle does not know the extent of his heartache, of the visions of death and decay he has seen. Only one has ever known his anguish (her own sister, at that!), but Malis has drawn away into herself, grieving the loss of a loved one, drowning beneath the smothering hand of an unkind world.

      Alas, he is alone – utterly, and completely alone, and though he yearns to share the deepest, darkest parts of himself with her, he cannot. She is carved of strength, and of purpose (a wonderful mother, a beautiful lover, kind and gentle – his Isle), but she is not made of impervious material, and he worries that she might surely crumble beneath the weight of his secret.

      Beneath the weight of his darkness.

      He is lost to his own memories as she presses against him, her own heat stirring beside him as her gaze is settled somewhere beyond on the horizon, as sunlight slowly touches each crease and crevice kept in the shadow by a dark and dense woodland. He is quiet – though he cannot hear anything else over the pounding urgency of his own heart; not even the deafening roar of the rushing water. The darkness is stirring within him again, and his chest is hot – scalding, even, as he attempts to quell it, struggles to quiet it – but he cannot.

      It is slowly touching the very edges of his heart (thump, thump, thump it goes), and the surface of his mind, and he is listening, but beneath a stoic surface of calm, a war is waged.

      ”There is not weakness in fragility,” he murmurs softly, thinking of the vulnerability of love, of childbirth, of comradery.  ”there is only weakness in greed.”

      He knows too well.

      He is weaker than he has ever been.

      The darkness searches the line of her feminine curves in a way he might not have (he might have turned away, pulled away, but the darkness reaches for her, for her power, for her strength), and the lustfulness is stirring yet again within him. Her mouth is pressed upon his shoulder, untouched by the blistering heat burning inside of him, unphased by it – and his dark gaze follows the slope of her spine, to the curve of her hip.

      She is rife with emotion, torn between falling apart and pulling him closer, and he is caught between. Captured within her embrace, as the darkness presses nearer to her, the heat of a fervent kiss left upon her neck, her shoulder, down the length of her spine – she is beautiful, with thick, feminine curves longing to be touched and bitten, and he does not wait; she has writhed against him long enough to stir the beast from within and a primal urge has risen with a dark shadow.

      Greed - the word echoes in his mind as his weight is settled onto her, drawing her nearer, pulling her closer. His teeth press into the delicate nerves of her withers, gripping her flesh between as the heat of his breath falls across her shoulders; he is inside of her and a part of her, and she, a part of him, but his mind is heavy with lust, with a blackness that is stifling and overpowering and he is not himself. The rhythm is as heavy as the loud pounding of his heart – his need flooding through him with thick, clawing urgency – a growl rumbling within the confinement of his throat.

      The sun has already begun to rise into the morning sky, touching the surface of his skin – hot, burning, a flicker of flame trailing the length of his spine as he is spiraling into a pleasurable descent, spent, sliding away from her body with soft, but rapid breathing. He mouth touches the curve of her hip again – warm, from the heat of his body, tasting of sweat and of summer and of sex, as the darkness of his eyes (no longer red, no – but black; a dark insidious black) searches for her own, vivid and green.

      ”You hardly know me, Reagan,” he says, breathlessly, his voice gruff and laced with hunger still. ”you have no idea what I am capable of; what I can do – magic cannot protect you from darkness,” and his teeth press into her hip, as he grips a piece of her flesh between the alignment of his mouth - guilt has already begun to settle in, as the darkness begins to fade away, leaving a broken and worthless shamble in its wake. ”and I am nothing of what you want or need.”
    you can have my absence of faith,
    you can have my everything.
    OFFSPRING
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