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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


    god make me pay like the devil i am; any
    #1
    make me pay,
    like the devil i am
    The chill of autumn hangs precariously in the air, the heat from summer still simmering quietly as the sun rises. There is no wind to rustle the branches of the evergreen trees that protrude out over the river, a somber silence filling the early morning. A mist, hauntingly white and thick, slowly moves in, shrouding the many rocks that line the river with its vaporous cloak. The sunlight begins to spill through the dense canopy of trees, mostly a mixture of thick spruces or thin, spindly branches of birch. The leaves had hardly began to change their colors, but the bite that the air brings seems to make the trees shiver in anticipation for the colder months. The morning mist continues to grow and swirl, the steam and spray from the rushing river mingling with the evaporation. The sunlight is not strong enough to begin to burn away at the fog, as it would in the warmer seasons. It continues to hover over the bank and its whispering waters, as if drawn to the rumble and boil of the gentle rapids. 

    Within him, it simmers and churns, meticulously lying in wait in the dark depths of his soul. Hours before, in the dim light of the sun’s first light, where even the crickets have stopped chirping, an evergreen and lavender colt stands upstream, staring down at the frothing and hissing water. His large, dark eyes bore down into the clear and crisp water as if he is under a spell, ears listening to the murmurs and hushed voices that call to him from the water’s depths. The river croons to him, the gentle pull of its current tugging encouragingly at his fetlocks, beckoning him to join in its treacherous path as it winds downstream. 

    The ocean, the rivers, the lakes, and even the rain will call to him, a familiar voice that serenades him almost incessantly. Its voice clouds his thoughts, allowing nothing but thoughts of the deep, dark abyss that hums to him with such a sickly sweet sound. 

    Young and inexperienced in appearance, the colt was now rounding his second year and was more skilled in his gift than he had ever imagined; the water bends to his will easily now, almost lustfully, wanting nothing more than to please its master. The water was his lover and he, its puppeteer. 

    The cool and damp air of the morning sticks to his painted skin, the sunrise beginning to paint the sky with oranges and pinks. His skin shivers, cracked and dry lips quivering as he lowers his head to the water’s surface, letting the frigid waters dribble delectably from his pearlescent chin. He steps in further, the cold water pulling at his knees with fervent, icy kisses. Fluidly and without interruption, the water begins to trace upwards on his legs, erasing the color of green and pearl that cling there to a point where it was impossible to tell where the water began and where he ends. It moves methodically with expertise, slowly climbing upwards to his chest and haunches, growing and pulsing with a life of its own. 

    In the dim morning light that begins to peek through the treetops, the shape of a young horse glitters perfectly, entirely made from the river’s water. It is there only a moment before the figure shatters like glass into droplets, falling into the rushing waters with a soft and gentle splash. 

    A bird calls sweetly in the distant forest. 

    It is here, moving and flowing as water itself, where he feels the most at ease. He feels himself moving with the current, rushing over smooth rocks and splashing against the ones that protrude from the surface. He does not know how long he will continue to let the river take him downstream; maybe he will stay here forever, never emerging from the dark abyss.

    That is, unless, something interesting catches his eye.
    m a u g r i m.
    Reply
    #2
    Femur broods;
    Beneath the wide blaze on her face is a mouth pinched in a frown, as much as it can be given the fangs that protrude from betwixt her lips on either side of her slim muzzle. Pangea has fallen, this is why she is perplexed and angered. The wastelands to which she was born are no more; she has been cast out of the dusted cracked land of that dead kingdom and spat upon greener, nicer shores that make her sick to look on - too much, too lush, she thinks to herself before slowly turning invisible.
     
    It is easier to exist in that invisible state, to blink in and out of existence. Femur prefers it, and the frown starts to lift from her face as she skips along the bank of the river unseen. She might not have been all that easy to see in the first place since the mist is thick this morning. It looms, large and dense, and she can feel the faint moisture pepper her face as she pushes through it, unhindered. The bite in the air warns well of the winter just after this leaf-changing season, and she feels a shiver shake deliciously through her as she stops her childish skipping to stand on the riverbank and consider.
     
    She’s not exactly sure what it is that she is considering, mayhap turning visible again or just enough. No, that’s not it… she considers a cool drink from the river, takes it and considers again what she’ll do next. Femur answers to no one, has not since Sinew cast her off from her dried up teat and bared her teeth at her as she drove her away. She remembers that her mother was much kinder to the orphan hatched from the egg that her older brother had stolen; no matter, she tells herself, that was Sinew’s way - she raised them up right and hard, a bit of cruelness to temper any kindness she would show them.
     
    It is in the midst of her long pause on the riverbank that she hears another splash through the cold water. She remains invisible, her black eyes picking apart the bits of mist lit up by the sun and she catches sight of the horse made entirely of water. It is artful and precise, from the knob of knee to ridge of spine then it shatters with a splash. Magic is afoot, she thinks as she wrinkles her slender nose. “Do it again,” she calls out, revealing just her fanged mouth so that it is a cheshire grin floating from somewhere above the water-magician.

    ooc: still working out her character, next post should get better. <3
    Reply
    #3
    i'll use you as a makeshift gauge
    of how much to give and how much to take
    Though he is to return home by nightfall, neither of Ivar’s parents have ever given him an hour too early to leave Sylva.

    They likely think that he is sleeping (if they are thinking anything at all, and not lost in their own pre-dawn dreams), but instead the yearling colt is weaving his way through the shadowy woods of Sylva, heading north to the river. Overhead, the trees look nearly dull and grey, nothing like the autumnal blaze that will appear once the sun reaches them. As he walks, the forest around him grows lighter, and by the time he reaches the bank of the river the sun is sparkling off the free-flowing water.

    His attention is drawn to the brightest sparkle, and it takes him a moment to place the odd shape. There is a horse in the water – or the water was a horse. The tobiano colt stands very still, his head halfway lowered to take a drink. He is about to attribute the vision to his imagination when he hears a voice call out to ‘Do it again’. The voice did not come from the water, but rather from further down the riverbank.

    Ivar raises his head, repositioning his pale legs that had been splayed to drink, and looks more closely at the water and riverbank. He can see nothing, but the wind smells of a young female not far off. He hesitates to call out, but remains watchful in case either the female or the water horse decide to appear.
    IVAR
    Reply
    #4
    make me pay,
    like the devil i am
    In a strange turn of events, he has caught the eye of another.

    She is barely there, a whisper on the unwavering air, scarcely seen from the shroud of mist that encases the entire river; but he hears her. The water swells in response to her, rushing unnaturally in the opposite direction of its current, boiling and rumbling as he stops his liquid-self before her. He is still part of the water, unseen save for the irregular stillness of where he was amidst the otherwise easy flowing river. He stares up at her from its clear and frothing depths, considering her. All he can see are the sharpness of the fangs that protrude brightly against the stale grey of the mist, a cunning grin as its only accompaniment. 

    Do it again. The demand resounds in his mind, her youthful voice sounding like a muffled chime from beneath the water. She knows not what she is requesting from him; he does not respond to wishes, as if his power is only a mere trick of the eye. It is so much more than that. However, the interest that has pricked in the sound of her voice causes him to linger, floating himself curiously before her. Her own phantasmal floating has caused him to give her his attention. For a moment he considers his options, the most prominent one being how easy it would be to pull her into the water with him. Sure, she was invisible; a ghost on the breeze, but her delicious grin gave away her position. He could draw her into the water, feel her legs as they enter the river that he is now a part of, and drag her under with one swift and forceful pull. 

    If he had eyes, they would be glimmering hungrily.

    Instead (at least for the time being), he decides to entertain her. In the stillness that is his now liquefied body, the water begins to twist and rise, thinly leaving the surface in a snake-like weaving motion. It twirls and spins, using water from the river to thicken and grow, sparkling in the morning sun’s soft light. He spirals it before her, an extension of himself, tauntingly close to her fanged smirk as if it were a creature of its own volition, eyeless as it stares at her. It finds her chin, somewhat hesitantly and clumsily, with only the appearance of her mouth to guide him. He presses firmly beneath her grinning mouth, lifting it slightly as if inspecting her. The fangs that hang from her invisible lips did not frighten him in his water form. As a solid horse, he would have been more pensive and wary.

    The sound of another approaching causes the twist of water to falter, immediately splashing back into the depths as he draws it back to himself.  The water where he floats remains strangely still while the rest continues to push by him, allowing himself to continue lingering before the invisible creature with the catlike grin. The other who approaches is fully visible, unlike the two that were coyly taunting each other. Maugrim considers his options – he didn’t think he would have a choice. It would be too risky to try to grab both of them at the same time; it was a feat he had not yet attempted. 

    He wants the two to join him, to submerge under the depths and to succumb to its relentless power. 

    There is a pause; a growing silence that falls between the three, even though two were barely there. 

    Maugrim decides to focus on his first visitor, the water bubbling and rising before her to form a rippling and fluid head and neck, matching perfectly the young stallion’s make and stature that had been seen moments before he had disappeared into the river. It rises from the water’s surface, stopping at where his shoulders would be, had he been completely solid. He allows his head and neck to remain completely transparent, his body still completely liquid beneath the thrashing river’s current. He blinks at her, droplets of water spraying out from his form.   The other one – the black and white yearling – can decide what to do with the scene that unfolds before him. Will he come closer to investigate? Will Maugrim be able to coax him into the river as well? 

    “Join me.” His voice is bubbled and warped by the water, but is haunting and deep on the morning air. The transparent figure watches her patiently, staring at her pearl-like fangs as they shine in the soft rays of sunlight. If only she would step forward a few feet, show herself a little bit more, he could then drag her down with him so that he could continue on his way through the winding river with a companion.

    Maybe the boy could join, too.
    m a u g r i m.
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    #5
    Her invisible nostrils flare at the approach of a colt just down the riverbank from her and her eyes almost flew to him until part of the river moved unnaturally against the current and gathered before her. Riveted, she almost revealed more of herself but caught herself just in time and left only her fanged mouth visible. The water flows out and away and all around the shape of a colt that is almost a stallion grown, and the stare from those watery eyes hushes her, changes the shape of her fanged mouth into a frown. It’s stare is almost threatening but the art of it is so very subtle that it leaves her uncertain and frozen in place on the bank sloping down to the river.
     
    (He may not respond to demands or wishes, but he still responded all the same and came to her, in a flurry of current and power evidenced by the way he floats, and seems so easily in command of the river beneath him.)
     
    Femur looks from where his eyes ought to be to where the water begins to twist and spin itself into a serpentine stream. It is a tendril that the magician (his magic may be limited only to water but he has still mastered it as if it were just a one-time trick) has spun out from him that finds her invisible chin and lifts it this way and that as he looks her over, she feels him looking her over at least. She cannot help how her lips draw back further from her fangs, though the waterhorse will only see more of the fangs sliding into view.
     
    Fangs may not be all that threatening at the moment but she still considers biting the river-tendril that lifted her chin but just then, it falters and withdraws, splashing where her pasterns ought to be and for a moment, they are visible until she blinks them out of sight again and soundlessly shifts herself a pace or two closer towards the colt she’d smelled earlier. The tobiano is a welcome distraction before things became too dangerous, likely only for her but she would have given the waterhorse a fight because her bloodline does not go gentle into that good night of blissful black death. She looks his way, noticing the watchful expression on his painted face but an ear moves, catching the sound of the river again.
     
    Her attention diverts back to the bubbling river; it assumes the shape of a stallion just become that, there is inexperience but surety in the fluid muscle of his water-self as she stares at him, gape-mouthed though only her fangs and flat herbivore teeth show it. Sound finds her, haunting and bubbling, stallion and water and she cannot help the pull of it - not for the moment that almost reveals her to him again, so close! But she balks, plants her unseen feet firmly in the riverbank and can feel her tail lash against her hocks. No, no that’s not right! His tone was deceptive but familiar, as was the coaxing compulsion that sounded so alike to her father’s. The krampus-king could do that with his shadows and his fear, and she recognizes a similarity in their powers that gives her reason to reconsider the command that she almost wants to obey - almost, but having balked, she is firm and her cheshire grin comes back.
     
    “I think not,” she tells him, rolling her unseen eyes towards the painted colt to see what he makes of all of this.
    Reply
    #6
    i'll use you as a makeshift gauge
    of how much to give and how much to take

    There is nothing on the riverbank, nothing that he can see with his narrowed brown eyes.

    There is something in the river though, something that he can see.

    It rises, reminiscent of a water moccasin that Ivar had once startled from its bed of reedsand rushes. Yet it keeps rising, still smooth, still sinuous. Its only water, yet must be something more, and to Ivar – who loves the water – it is something that must be seen from a closer distance.

    The smooth stones of the river are unsteady footing, especially with his gaze locked on the tendril of water. It seems to reach for something, and Ivar can see the invisible female the moment the water begins to explore her. It turns a head that must be attached to the empty space of a muzzle, and Ivar can see the protruding fangs that had avoided him before.

    And then the water is gone, and Ivar appears to be alone again. He looks back and forth, from the water to the floating fangs, and at last something happens. The water horse – Ivar knows it must be the same one from before, and the same thing that had reached out of the river – begins to rise.

    Ivar does’nt have the shield of invisibility over his own features, and the entranced curiosity is quite plain on his pale face. He too, draws parallels between the water horse and his father, but it only emboldens him. The water horse tells them to join, but the invisible girl balks. Ivar pauses with one pale foot lifted above the water, turning back to look at the empty space where her face might be.

    “Why?” He asks her, and while the first word is merely curious, there’s a dare in the rest of it: “Are you afraid?”

    IVAR
    Reply
    #7
    make me pay,
    like the devil i am
    He is a young predator, still learning his techniques for the hunt so that he can be satisfied with a kill.

    Still bubbling and completely transparent save for the outline that creates his sloping neck and face, a hint of a frown sculpts onto the young colt’s features, despite the intense wavering of the water that generates it. He takes note of her reaction to him; the way her lips had obviously drawn back to reveal more of her teeth, the shining fangs threateningly bared at his watery finger. He has apparently chosen a rather smart victim, or at least a cautious one. Despite her unwillingness to tread further into the water, Maugrim wonders how hard it would truly be to drag her in by her ankles. Would it be worth the fight she would so clearly give him? Perhaps a struggle is just what he needs to perfect his skill.

    He has all but forgotten about the black and white painted boy that still lingers on the shoreline, the watery figure watching intensely as he allows the water begin to rise up onto the riverbank, gingerly trying to search for her unseen legs so that it - so that he - may taste her sweet skin.

    The sound of the other colt causes Maugrim’s attempt to flood the shoreline to pause, turning his clear and wavering face slowly towards him with indifference. The predator watches him with an emotionless gaze, though intrigued by the boy’s proposition to their invisible counterpart.

    “Yes,” he says, his voice slithering as it bubbles once again, slowly turning his head back towards the faceless girl, eyes on her shining canines. He then allows himself to become fully solid, the watery surface that once held him now breaking free. Maugrim grows taller, no longer just a head and neck, but an evergreen and pearl patterned colt, dark eyes carelessly staring before him. The water rushes at his knees, though he bends it so that it is not trying to tug him under with the current, but instead laps passively against him. There is almost a haunting whisper that floats around them as the river continues to churn and mist behind him.

    “Fear does not suit you.”

    He does not turn his dark gaze towards the colt, but a single pale ear flips in his direction while the other remains on the floating smile that tauntingly hovers before him. His patience and attempts to gain her trust would only last so long before he could no longer ignore the hunger that cries out for its quelling.

    Maugrim is not sure if the pied colt will try to stop him or aide him when the time is right (if that time ever comes), but he is sure that he can disappear beneath the surface before any harm comes to himself.
    m a u g r i m.


    @[Femur]
    @[Ivar]
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    #8
    Femur scoffs, but they can’t see it.
    “Afraid? Hardly.” The scorn is apparent in her voice. She is not afraid but cautious, because there is foul magic afoot and she can sense it as much as she knew when to avoid her father and his peculiar hunger for the fear he could inspire and suck out of others. Or the way she learned to avoid her mother’s chiding nips despite the fact that she had no fangs to make the bites more painful like Femur does. No, she is not afraid of water and the thing in its midst but she is mindful of its presence and its power and it is not a thing to be lightly trifled with like the painted colt seems of a mind to do since he takes a step then another, entranced less by her invisible state and more by the water and what it wields.

    Still invisible but more mindful now of the tendrils of water that seek to touch and flesh her out, and the muck underfoot that would belie the prints her hooves would sink deep into it, she moves a few feet to the left and just back of the bank as it slopes down to the river. She thinks this is a wise but imperfect stratagem  to keep the water-horse at bay - she doesn’t quite think the way it looks at her, thoughtful and frowning, is any less predatory than the way a wolf eyes a potential meal. Her own thought of him being predatory is confirmed the moment he sends out watery feelers that search for the slender low portions of her legs, things to grab onto and make visible…

    The water pauses and she realizes that he is distracted by the other colt; this distraction makes the water-horse reveal himself in shades of pearl and evergreen - almost pretty, she thinks, but gives a small shake of her head to dispel such thoughts - wolves are pretty too, but no less dangerous, she reminds herself. She laughs; “Fear does not suit any of us now does it?” Femur would smile but she conceals her fangs beneath that cloak of invisibility that she so easily wears. No, she’d not make this easy for either of them in this dangerous game they play at. Granted, they had but to use their noses and sniff her out like the very wolves she keeps comparing them to but sometimes, as horses, they forget their own basic instincts and rely heavily upon their gifts.

    “What if there is no fear left in me for you to feed on?”
    She half-guesses at this; there is something the look of the pied green-and-white colt that reminds her of her father, the original Krampus. How can she fear him now? He might pull her under but something tells her he won’t, not fully - he might maim, might make her less trusting than she already is, less quick to tangle and flash her fangs at them but something tells her he just can’t do it, not like her father could or would. Still, she does not tempt him further but she is curious as to why he thinks fear does not become her. If it is not fear he seeks, then what? The struggle? The thrill of the kill? Her own eyes narrow, considering.
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