"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
09-28-2017, 01:55 AM (This post was last modified: 09-28-2017, 06:50 PM by Ciri.)
Ciri
Today was the first day she felt truly better, stronger. Enough so that she confidently travels farther then she had since arriving on the shores of Hyaline. Her destination is the River. Just a quick trip, not too far and not too close. She itches to wander like she had before the Underneath, to know that she still can. The wounds were now sealed shut like a secret letter, thin razor lines ravaged across her dark flesh with their puckered white marks. The largest reminder of her time Underneath sprawled across her shoulder. Wounds that healed but would never be forgotten.
Tendrils of ebony forelock fall lightly about her face as swirling silver orbs look through the darkening forest. Perhaps she should have told Amet or someone else that she had left… But she had never had to do such a thing before. She wasn’t a child, she didn’t need a keeper to watch over her. She had survived worst things than a simple exploration of a river. Besides, the stars would always watch over her.
Once dusk has spread it’s twilight fingers over the sky, she had slipped into their cool shadows away from Hyaline. Purple turned to a cobalt blue before the sky was washed with inky strokes. The stars were bright above her in a cloudless sky by the time she travels through the trees towards the sound of rushing water. With a sigh of pleasure, she stops and lowers her neck to the flowing stream. It had been a satisfying journey, barely out of breath. Taking a cool draught of water, an ear swivels behind her. Catching the sound of snapping branches. Slowly she raises her head, stretching her neck and warming the muscles beneath her marred skin. Turning to face whatever was behind her.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
The thickness of the blood that had splattered across the shadow of her indigo flesh had long since washed away, whittled beneath the rough and raucous current of the unyielding river, but she could still feel it across her skin - the metallic scent of it lingered still, leaving her breathless, roused from her usual stillness. It had brought life to her she once thought impossible.
Her skin is tingling and lit with the festering flame of the adrenaline that coursed vigorously through her lithe, petite body. It had not taken her brute strength to steal the life of another, but nonetheless, the blood spilled had become a part of her, fueling a blistering ember of ravenous longing that burned brightly within her chest. She longed with an unquenchable thirst to take another life – to steal the breath away from the undeserving, to maim the unworthy, and it had stirred an inch somewhere deep within her that she longed to scratch – nothing, not even sex, could come close to the delectable euphoria she had experienced in the wake of her carnage.
She has been watching her, for some time. Quietly, stealthily - she is one with the darkness, slow and unblinking. A predator sheathed within the carcass of prey – a wolf cloaked in the skin of a sheep, watching, waiting. The river is ravenous and angry, swallowing the shoreline with thick, roving strokes of its raucous water, and though she is soothed by the hypnosis of its churning rotation, but drawn like a fluttering moth to a tantalizing flame by a vision cloaked in darkness. She is slender, and lithe, and drifting far too close to the edge of the water, tempting fate and mocking nature.
A wry smile finds its way to her dark lips, tugging half-heartedly at the corner while her two-toned gaze bores into her, tracing the slope of her spine and the curve of her hip with an insidious gleam in her eye smoky eye. She has been discovered - a single twig has given her away, snapping feebly beneath her weight (oh, how she longed to do the same to her skull, to crush it beneath her weight and spill her scarlet blood across the smooth river stones).
A low and dangerous chuckle emerges from her breast – humorless; dry.
Nonetheless, she had found what might soothe the beast within – what might bring her entertainment, and she can hardly conceal the wry and wicked smile from her dark lips.
”Foolish girl,” she croons as her sleek and agile silhouette is birthed from the darkness of the twilight painted woodland – as dry and brittle branches around her crack and tremble with the sheer force of her mental will, falling dully to the soft and fertile soil below. An omen of what was to come. ”you have chosen the wrong riverbed tonight.”
The sultry voice finds her long before she can make out it’s owner. Curved lobes pin back to become hidden beneath the tangle of inky forelock at the hint of threat within her words. The trees around them seem to crack and shake with a violent force as the blue roan steps forward from the shadows. Malice in her eyes and wickedness on her lips. She had been right to be wary.
The silver swirls start to move meticulously faster, her heart hammering against her chest as she senses the predatory nature of the one before her. Gazing into the endless black of one eye and the dull gray of the other. There was something seriously wrong with this woman, it’s the vibe she gives off. It makes her hair stand on end, that danger is near. Her thoughts instantly turn to Amet and she feels a pang of guilt and need, wishing he was here. That she had told him where she was.
However, she has faced worst things then a malicious mare. Her shadowy body, covered with puckered scars, speak of survival. While she wasn't in her best condition, she sure as hell would not go down without a fight. ”You must be mistaken.” She finally responds coldly, keeping her back end towards the river and watching Thana’s every move with a cautious eye. ”There’s no fools here.” She means to leave it at that but the way the roan mare looks at her sets a fire to her belly, makes her provoke the beast. ”Unless you’re speaking of yourself?” She finally quips, snapping her ebony whipcord against her haunches with decision. Regretting it instantly but still holding her ground.
The stars twinkle brightly above them, as if sensing her fear, and a shimmer starts to fall around her. They will protect their starry daughter if no one else can.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
"Ooh, aren’t you delightful?" she croons softly to her, a sharp intake of air following with a trill of laughter, as the shapely muscle beneath the darkness of her skin slowly moves with the predatory movement of her limbs. A gentle breeze weaves through the tousled tresses across her slender curve of her neck, brushing the ivory streak away from her insidious, mismatched gaze – roving the femininity of her own stature; the ridges and curves that simply do not exist in the presence of testosterone. There is a gleam of uncertainty (the moment in which her beloved must cross her mine – wondering why she had not brought him; why indeed) – and it is enough to stoke the effervescent hunger within her.
She knew scarring. She knew it intimately – she knew it did not always mean bravery; it oftentimes meant futility. Pride. Recklessness. So many that bore the scars of war, of combat, of survival were too foolish to know when to run; when to act as the trembling, quivering prey their instinctual drive urged them to be.
"That is where you are wrong, precious constellation," she muses, her dreary gray eye tracing the starlight moving closer, as if drawn down from the celestial sky by her sheer desire alone. Thoughtfully, she paces before her, while her lithe and agile limbs carry her to the east, and then to the west – and all the while, her hunger is growing, filling her to the brim with the insatiable desire to split her apart, to shed her blood and to taste her shuddering with fear. "only the most foolish prey stand idle in the presence of a predator."
Within the steady thump of a rhythmic heartbeat, she has shed her equine skin for that of the predator that lurked within – with thick, pitchless fur, claws extended (outstretched), and a hackling snarl drawn up from her throat, while her gleaming incisors drip with saliva, craving a piece of the what lay so defiantly before her. A rumbling growl reverberates through the length of her slender, yet wholly muscular frame, as her long legs carry her with might, lunging toward Ciri – her teeth gnashing at the tender crook of her jugular, while her claws lash out at her broad cheek, seeking to strike her eye and to render her blind.
Stirring the pot, pushing her luck. She knew better and yet she can’t help herself, being pushed into a corner. Having no way out. Nostrils flaring with defiance even as the white of her eyes shine as they widen with dismay. Muscles taunt and trembling with anticipation as she waits for the signal that will make her fight or flee. She is not ready for the shift, as the dangerous words fall from an elongating jaw, like something from her nightmares. Like something from the Underneath.
The provocative mare breaking and formed anew into the snarling beast of a wolf. There’s a thick rush in her pinned ears as the world seems to slow down around her. As the narrowed eyes of the predator find hers and she lunges with a clacking of spittle and fanged teeth. A shrill cry escapes her own tightened throat as she stumbles away from her attacker. Not quite quick enough, a back leg slipping into the cold water behind her, that a claw rakes across her cheek, just beneath her eye. Parting the skin and leaving savage tissue in it’s wake, crimson liquid pooling and oozing quickly from the exposed wound.
Her fore limbs rise to strike out at the wolf but she doesn’t except what happens next. The star power exploding in her fear, becoming a solid mass of stars and throwing the evil mass of fur away from her. She doesn’t waste anytime, she turns and flees. The adrenaline and fear pushing her to run faster than she has in a long time, to put as much distance between herself and the insane thing behind her.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
