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    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura


    show me, who i am and who i could be; ruan
    #1
    show me, who I am and who I could be,
    She had been dreaming of family again, of the days before the Reckoning, before the world was torn apart and remade into something new, something different. Something that, although she tried not to notice, felt somehow less. Maybe it was because in those days, her family had still been whole. All her siblings, by blood and by bond, and her parents still together in the hills and caves of her Tundra sky-kingdom. But now, in this world, everyone was different and scattered, so apart. Mom and dad still lived in Tephra, but Nevi and Lieschel had disappeared. Eione, too. She saw Argo occasionally when their visits overlapped, but certainly not often enough. She might’ve gone to find him today, to nestle into his warmth if only she knew where to find him, but the stallion drifted just as she did, never staying in one place for too long. At least Maribel had taken up residence in a kingdom with her ever-growing family, so it is to the Taiga that Australis wanders with homesick in her chest.
     
    Homesick for a place that no longer existed, a time buried so deeply in the past that even her dreams had started to forget the details.
     
    She travels northwest from the forest, wandering through an endless maze of trees until she comes to a river she knows splits this half of the land from the other, connecting the opposite sides of ocean together. She crosses it without concern, wading in to her knees, her chest, her chin, until she felt the soft riverbed beneath her feet again and climbed up on the opposite shore. The trees were different over here, thicker than she was long, and tall enough that she imagined the stars must get tangled in the topmost branches each night. It was damper here, too, with such a network of branches overhead that it blotted out the sun, kept it cool and shadowed and foggy here in the below. She had skirted this place before, stayed politely on the outskirts in a desire to not intrude. She could remember how much they had disliked people wandering in unaccompanied to her snowy kingdom of before - so much that even a wall of immense ice and snow had not been enough to soothe them. A smile curls hazily across her mouth.
     
    But today she does press further, her body soft and curious, submissive, her face solemn with the ache in her heart. She wanders over ground that is soft and almost spongy, a strange shade of rust and gold and brown, tie-dyed with the stages of decomposing pine needles from the branches all around. There are faint furrows dug into the ground between some trees, paths she realizes belatedly, lowering her nose to trace the outline of a hundred curved crescents. She follows one for a while, expecting that it will lead her to a resident or a guard before she can trespass too far, someone she can ask to see her sister, her Maribel. But a smell in the damp air carries to her, a smell she knows in the deepest parts of her heart, and she turns, suddenly frozen, eyes straining into the dimness of the trees.
     
    A voice carries to her, so quiet, a faint humming etched in the same weight she felt in her chest. It was almost involuntary when she left the trail, glancing back once with an apologetic kind of softness, and made her way through the forest with the growing volume of the voice to guide her. She isn’t loud, doesn’t stomp, but she isn’t silent either, has never been predator-stealthy at anything in her life. Still, she is glad to find that he is curved toward her when she comes, not away, that it is easy enough for him to glance up and see her through the whirling, skittering snowflakes.
     
    She does pause, does hesitate when she notices the small teal girl in the crook of his side, her small gleaming face soft and slumbering, pressed to the warmth of his armpit. Should she leave them alone, this girl and her father? He was clearly upset as he rocked her, tears damp on a dark, handsome kind of face, with winter swirling all around him. It was a fair guess that the winter was him also, fair if only because it was so out of place in the fever-heat of summer. One of them must be manifesting it, and the girl seemed too small, too asleep to create something this strong, something that swirled like a wayward blizzard around them. 
     
    She takes a step, another, and another. She cannot help it. It is the combination of this impossible snow she loves so much, of a dark face with bright eyes so sad and broken, of a father curled so lovingly around his girl. More than she can walk away from. So she approaches quietly, carefully, body soft and submissive, dark eyes peering out gently from a head that droops low to the ground. “Hi,” she breathes when she is close enough, standing away from the small, translucent child out of respect (she remembers how overprotective her own father had been), “my name is Australis.” She reaches out reflexively to trail her lips along the crest of his mane, tasting snow and ice with closed eyes and an aching heart. Oh, she misses it so much. Her expression falters from its soft solemnity, deep furrows in her brow and cheeks betraying the longing in her chest as she crumples to the ground beside him gently, her nose under his mane to stroke his neck in an absent, distracted way. “You have no idea how much I needed this.” She says quietly against his neck, vulnerable, those soft brown eyes lost in the swirl of snow falling around them. “I came from before, from the Tundra. I still dream about that place. I never needed anything more than the snow and the mountains and my family.” But they’re all gone now, she thinks, all scattered. Still, as the snow settles over her, too, darkening the gleaming red-brown dapples of her skin, she feels almost quieted.
     
    Her face turns and her eyes drift to find his, that startling blue reminding her of how bright the sky had looked from the tops of her Tundra mountains. The furrows soften a little, those copper-flecked eyes hesitant from behind the unruly tangles of a dark forelock as she reaches out to brush her lips across his forehead, smoothing his hair aside in a quiet kind of way. “I came to see my family, Maribel and Romek, but,” she pauses, hesitant, leaning back to trace the hurt in his face, “can I stay here with you instead, for a while?” Her voice is barely a whisper, barely a hum, as she glances back down at the girl sleeping so peacefully beside him. "You make this hurt less." Her nose drops to touch her chest, to gesture at the broken heart beating beneath. 

    initiate the heart within me until it opens properly
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    #2
    He crooned so quietly and rocked her so carefully. Even though she was long lost to deep slumber, he continued, his voice low and lilting on the lyrics he only spoke in his mind. Every so often, he brushed his tears off on his shoulder to keep them from falling on her and waking her. And though she was already nestled deep into his side, he found himself time and again tucking her in with soft nudges of his nose and warm breaths on her glassy skin. He couldn't help but comfort himself with touching her.

    When the forest whispered a sigh, little unseen fingers walking down his spine, his eyes lifted. No other part of him moved from where he lay, ducked and wrapped around his sleeping child of glass, but those bright, piercing blue eyes locked on her like a silent target. Wary as a wolf. The low rumble of his quiet humming didn't falter, didn't hesitate as she hesitated, this stranger. And he continued, watchful and still with a lullaby pressed behind closed lips, lips that were pressed to a smooth, fragile neck with soft, tender kisses.

    Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral..
    Hush now, don't you cry.


    She stepped forward. He watched, his voice lowering further, going softer. Quieter. "Hi," she barely said, and her head drifted low to the ground, deliberately not approaching nearer to Polaris carefully sheltered in her father's embrace. Flakes of powdered white melted on the woman's face, close enough to be surrounded in this supernatural Winter even as she took another step closer.

    "My name is Australis," she said in a voice as carefully quiet as his so as not to wake his girl. He released her from the sharp glow of his gaze as it returned to settle once again on Polaris, seeing and sensing that she meant no harm. He brushed another kiss gingerly to the smooth glass of his baby.

    Too-ra-loo-ra-li--

    His humming ceased abruptly and he tensed as she touched him, her mouth grazing across the arch of his dark hair. Strands teased free and struck out as wild and free as the man, and he looked up at her again, searching her eyes and her face. He found a deep yearning there, a soft longing as she tasted the crisp snow lightly coating him. Not a longing for him, of course. They were both strangers to each other. Yet still his heart raced at her nearness, and he swallowed, casting his eyes back down again. That moment wasn't between him and her, but between her and the cold, the snow, the ice.

    She lowered gently beside him, her nose burying deeper through his hair and to his neck beneath, stroking absentmindedly. His lips parted with a puff of hot breath, trying not to think of a face of gray as each pass sent electric ripples through his muscle. His wife was the only one to have laid so close and touched him so openly this way, and he found his mind silently echoing the words she said: You have no idea how much I needed this.

    She came from Before, she said. From the Tundra, a place he'd only heard of in passing as he'd wandered for many years before returning home to the Valley he was born in. With the wolves. And Kilter.

    "I never needed anything more than the snow and the mountains and my family," she continued. He wondered at the past tense, if she felt she needed something different now, or something more. But he didn't ask, only met her gaze as it turned to him. She watched him a moment, hesitating, then reached to brush her lips to his forehead, sweeping his hair from his eyes. He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes, allowing her for only a brief moment before he slipped carefully out from under her touch. It was too much, it hurt too badly.

    The pain of his loss reflected in his face again, the ache in his chest expanding. He did need this, maybe. But he didn't want it.

    "I came to see my family, Maribel and Romek, but," she paused, looking over his face that must surely show how pathetic and broken he was just then, "can I stay here with you instead, for a while?" Her eyes fell to Polaris, still cradled and sleeping against him. "You make this hurt less," she added, tucking her chin to gesture at her heart. But he'd seen how she was drawn to the snow, and knew it wasn't him that made her pain hurt a little less.

    He said nothing, only nodded slowly after considering it a moment. He should have offered his name in return, he knew, since she didn't seem to know him. But if she knew his name from Maribel or Romek, he didn't want his position to force her away or change her manner toward him. So he only softened quietly, and gently blew a long breath of his minty winter against her face. It unfurled and stretched, gliding across her cheeks and down either side of her neck, blanketing her body in the brisk chill. A layer of snow manifested on top of the cold, tiny shards of ice glittering in its surface each time the persistent moonlight peeked through the trees. He worried it might make her too cold, but she seemed to like it.

    His eyes held hers for a few moments, before he dropped them to Polaris again. "This is Polaris," he offered so very quietly, a deep rumble in his throat. "I found her, abandoned. Have you ever seen anything like her?" he turned to ask her, genuinely curious for the answer, though, naturally he couldn't hide the subtle hint of awe in his voice. She was such a rarity to him. Was she such a unique creature to the rest of the world too?



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    #3
    show me, who I am and who I could be,
    She feels electric with those eyes pinned on her, blue like the flowers she had seen in the meadow, impossibly rich and soft like a piece of the sky trapped forever. Blue like the glaciers she remembered from the shores of her Tundra, somehow pale and bright and always lit from behind, from within, glowing and alive and the kind of beautiful that kissed chills up her spine. Yes. Blue like that, and she’s realizing that blue must be her favorite color because there is no other reason for the blush that spills pink across her face or the hummingbird thrum of a heart beating unnaturally fast in her chest when he finally, finally looks away and she remembers how to breathe steady again.

    It is so reflexive when she reaches out to stroke his mane, to trace the curve of that powerful neck with the soft of lips drenched in white and silk whiskers, that she almost misses the way he tenses beneath her. She forgets sometimes how they do not always like this, like her touch or her closeness or the easy way she always wants to be tucked against a stranger. There is comfort in touch, in quiet closeness - though she is often accused of ruining such quiets, of talking too freely - comfort in the whisper of life, of breath, from someone elses lungs, in the soft vibrations of a heart buried deep in the safety of a chest.

    Not deep enough, not safe enough.
    So hard to keep a heart safe.

    She means to pull away except he lifts those eyes to her again and she is like stone, like quartz, so perfectly immobile and wide-eyed and soft and all she remembers how to do is let her limbs spill onto the ground so she can bury her nose beneath his mane. Memorize a scent she never wants to forget. Like deep forest and earth and cold because cold has a smell, has a taste, and she is drowning in it now. Cold is the wind beneath steel skies, it is the gray before snow, the dark before dawn. It is a man of faded black and pewter and purple.

    Purple is not such a bad color either.

    He looks away again, drops his nose to that impossible girl where he leaves clouds of fog across her skin, kisses in all the curves and hollows. It is so tender that she cannot help but glance away, soft and blushing and apologetic because why, why did she think it was okay to bother them. She should go, leave them be. Instead she speaks, whisper-soft and uncertain because words are all the knows, all she is good for. It draws him to her again except his forelock is across those eyes and she is reaching out without thinking, brushing that soft hair aside to reclaim the blue and the bright and the instant weightlessness they poured into her chest. But she lingers too long, too distracted, and his teeth clench, muscles tight beneath her lips when he finally ducks out from beneath her.

    Those dark eyes go wide and sorry, closing so quickly as if she can trap that slippery embarrassment inside. As though he won’t see it anyway in the way she ducks her head, or in the loud flush of pink beneath the white of that beautiful nose. “I’m so sorry.” She whispers, she breathes, still looking everywhere but his face. At the ground and the patterns in the snow, at the grass bent beneath it and the outline of leaves etched in silver with a half-melted and refrozen glaze of ice. “I shouldn’t have, I didn’t mean to -” she stumbles over the words, barely speaking, barely audible, barely looking at him until finally she does and everything feels worse because there is new hurt and new pain and new loss in his face and it is all her fault.

    But he doesn’t tell her to go, doesn’t turn from her and render her invisible and unwelcome. Instead he nods, accepts her request to stay, and she is so confused, so uncertain, so relieved for a second chance. He softens and it pulls those dark doe-eyes to him, pulls a face of enameled white and russet dapples into the sway of his impossible gravity in time to feel him exhale across her cheeks, gift her winter and calm and ease the flutter of worried wings in her chest. She lifts her chin to him and there is a smile against her lips, soft and nostalgic and so beautiful with remembering. Her eyes close but it doesn’t matter because they are already hidden behind the dark curtain of her forelock. She doesn’t need to see it to know that she is like the leaves etched in silver, that she is lace and trapped starlight and glittering beneath the chill of his beautiful winter.

    There is a sigh on her lips, a smile against her mouth and it is soft and radiant and warm enough to thaw even him, perhaps. Her eyes open to find him watching her - and oh that blue again, that impossible blue - so she offers him a softer smile, forgets herself and kisses his nose in wordless gratitude, surprised at the softness. Like freshly fallen snow, like velvety down. She blinks, is glad for a reason to look away, to follow his gaze to the slumbering glass child in the crook of his body, watch the strange heave of an impossible chest filling with breath. “I haven’t,” she answers honestly, leans a little closer to better see, “she’s beautiful though.” But that was dangerous. Beautiful things are for coveting, for loving too much and too harshly. “She’s lucky it was you that found her.” There’s a pause in her voice, a gentle hesitation when those plain brown eyes return to his face and search for something in that beautiful dark. Then, so quietly, “Do you always hold so tight to the lost souls you come across?”

    Me, she doesn’t say, will you hold tight to me.
    Just for a while, just until this storm in my heart breaks.

    initiate the heart within me until it opens properly
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    #4
    Each time his gaze cut to hers, she froze. Like a doe caught with a predator. And her eyes would go just a little wider. A blush would color her face. Just as it did now, but this time it was in apology, embarrassment, when he carefully extracted himself from beneath her innocent touch. He was sorry to cause that reaction, but he'd needed to be free of the contact. It hurt too badly.

    “I'm so sorry,” she breathed, ducking her head and looking away, looking at anything but him. “I shouldn't have, I didn't mean to - “ He gave the barest hint of a nod in understanding, but he didn't really have to as her eyes finally lifted again to him, and his pain was there for her to see whether he wished it or no. She hadn't done it on purpose. To anyone else, her gentle touch probably would have been welcomed. Maybe he was the one that should have been apologizing for making her doubt herself.

    He nodded again, that she could stay here for a while, and slowly gifted her a taste of his winter. That was really what she wanted anyway. Her chin lifted with a soft smile to welcome it, and he almost smiled too, just an added hint of warmth in his eyes at her enjoyment. Then her eyes opened to find him again. She turned that warm smile on him, and reached to kiss his nose in quiet thanks.

    He broke that moment, the one that felt too good, too nice, was too welcome, and directed her attention to Polaris. “I haven't,” she admitted. The glassy child was as rare to her as she was to him, and a small smile found the corner of his mouth. “She's beautiful though. She's lucky it was you that found her.” He nodded, still watching his baby sleep, knowing that for the simple truth that it was. He may not have been a good husband, or lover, or leader, but he knew he had always been a good father. He'd always loved children, always hoped to have his own. Now he did.

    But he really didn't.
    And probably wouldn't again.

    His brief joy slid away and was replaced with a mask that was carefully passive, reminded of why he'd been in the state she'd found him in. Quietly weeping over his sleeping baby, mourning his painful losses along with the death of a future. His wife, his children, his life. He tucked his nose to Polaris again, shifting his legs and body a little to cradle her in closer if it were even possible. He found such comfort in this fragile little thing that still had yet to speak with her voice.

    “Do you always hold so tight to the lost souls you come across?” the woman asked him. Australis, he remembered. There was something in her voice though, and there in her eyes when he looked up, that whatever he was going to say instantly left him. He studied those forest-wood eyes, eyed the delicate lines of her face, trying to understand what she was really asking. But he'd never been good at that, and took the question as it was.

    “Perhaps not tight enough,” he replied vaguely, his gaze falling. Had he held tighter, no matter that he hadn't been in the wrong, maybe he wouldn't have found her with another man. “It is tragic.. the way one’s mistake can devastate so many lives and yet they walk, they carry on and it never affects them.” He spoke quietly, sadly, holding his gaze on Polaris though he hadn't been speaking of her. He did so now.

    “Someone abandoned her, made her feel worthless and unwanted when she should be cherished. They probably don't even think of her, too busy with their own lives and what they want.”

    He hadn't meant to draw parallels, though it didn't make it any less true. Polaris deserved better. He deserved better, too. He was content in that she had found her better in him, he would always be her better. And as a father, he was getting better too.



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