"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
let me pick your brain, girl. and tell me how they got that pretty little face on that pretty little frame.
She was many things. She was a daughter. A former princess—albeit through illegitimate means. She was a girl, made woman. She was a born diplomat, trained as such by her mother. And she was beautiful. Thanks to her father.
Thanks to both, she was not a fool.
She came to a more shallow part of the stream where they were swimming, and stood in front of him, her large body smooth and curved. Warrick—her king—seemed content to let her lead the conversation, as any gentleman might, but there was something in his body language, and the way his eyes were soft, that seemed to say that he was thinking of something other than their swim, and other than what they were talking about. It is when he asks about her plans for Tephra that she laughs outright—an airy, boisterous sound—before turning her gloring eyes back to him with a sardonic smile on her face.
"My dear Warrick, we have just established that I have never even left Tephra." And then she thought about all her plans for the future. Would she stay near her beloved volcano after her parents left? Or would she venture forth into the world to make a name for herself? Or maybe..."However, my place is here. It's far too lonely to venture out on my own, when I know this land as intimately as I do. Perhaps someday, I can aid it like my mother did back in her youth, in the old lands, you know. Before the Reckoning. But until I am called to do such, I will linger, and become whatever life has for me."
She is serious for the first time, showing a sense of wisdom that is above her years. She smiles at Warrick again, giggling to herself as the cold water rushes back over her back. "That's cold." she says, to mostly herself. She looked up at Warrick again, her heart in her eyes. There is so much unsaid... So much she'd like to say. Or do.
But until Warrick makes the first move, she finds that she is simply content to be by his side.
Though she hopes that one day it will be so much more.
There is more beneath their twinkling stares than either would care to admit, but both are left in the dark by the other. He dare not ask her to leave, or for he himself to depart from her, for he would only wander quietly on the ashen shoreline until he reached the underground spring fed by the volcano’s heat, where he would stare into the steam and water until time reached a new day, and he would begin again. The thought of that, the thought of prying himself from the cool waters they were in, the thought of upheaving himself from the stream and to go his separate way, was entirely too sad for him to even consider.
Their conversation turns back to gentle banter, and the navy-bay stallion is glad. The smile on his lips is an easy and simple one, reaching the blue of his eyes and causing his features to remain strikingly handsome beneath the afternoon sun. It had already been hours that they have spent together, and slowly the heat of noonday is waning, giving way to what soon will be a summer’s eve, or perhaps the blackened thunder clouds that float dangerously low on the mountainous backdrop will finally burst along the valley-land, riddling the air with more humidity and moisture.
Ceara’s voice is slick and taunting as she moves into the shallows, wading there where the curves of her body are accentuated pleasingly with the water’s surface, as well as the droplets that cling tightly to her ebony skin, hugging every impossible angle and slope in a way that makes his eyes slowly meet her own. Her laugh brings his eyes snapping to hers.
“It’s good to know you will be here if I need you - your knowledge of Tephra is vital for anyone who wishes to serve it.” He adds the last part quickly, without hesitancy or thought - he would feel guilty if he hadn’t otherwise.
Before the Reckoning.
He suddenly feels cold, and when she says that she is too, he glances up at her with warm eyes. “Let’s go then,” he suggests, moving through the water and towards the shore, his large wings heavy with water as he brushes past her - innocently, accidentally, he tells himself - until his hooves solidly plant on the river-bottom. Water spilling over his back and catching between the navy of his feathers, that now are haphazardly strewn from their deep-water swim. Warrick turns to look over his shoulder, the water spilling off of his thick mane and forelock to run down his neck and back into the stream, to see if she is willing to join him once again.
12-10-2017, 07:52 PM (This post was last modified: 12-10-2017, 07:56 PM by Ceara.)
let me pick your brain, girl. and tell me how they got that pretty little face on that pretty little frame.
There was something wrong with Warrick.
They had spent the entirety of the afternoon together, in perfectly respectable company, and yet, as the sun was setting, she was noticing that his eyes were getting heavier, and he was more hesitant to take his eyes away from her. He was getting closer to her, touching her with with a wing, or with the point of his shoulder, or his soft lips--the rich velveteen that had brushed the crest of her cheek, the head of which she still felt every time she looked at those eyes. He exhuded cool, and yet she found his bright blues singed her every time they bored into her, or whenever he raked his gaze against her body. And for a child born of smoke and magic with red eyes, that was saying something.
He speaks, an easiness to him as he seems to relax further into their conversation. Talks of politics clearly put to rest for the moment, but there was another note to his words as well. His words were rushed, almost breathy—caviat that said he was inwardly pleased that she had chosen to stay in Tephra. Why would she go anywhere else? She had given him no indication otherwise. Her heart was in Tephra... and right now, the beating effigy of that was staring her in the face. She shivers, reiterating the decreasing temperature of the falling sun as it cascaded warm red light on Tephra, almost lighting the volcano up. Tephra's real glory was in its summer nights and the way the trails of the ever-flowing volcano gave them the constant glow and warmth of its heat. Even so, Ceara was unconscionably cold here In the deeper water.
Warrick noticed her discomfort, and he presses close to her, urging her to follow him to the shallows, closer to where the magma was flowing. Lets go then he says, moving to warmer, more shallow water. He lifts his wings out, and then lifts his head his wet mane falling in distracting tangled masse around his face, giving him a wild look as he eyed the black and velvet colored girl. She smiled, her eye lids lowering. She walks up to him then, and presses herself into his side as she smiles. Easy. Relaxed. Her warm honey rich voice rises from her mouth to his ears, and she rises up, moving his haphazard forelock out of his face so she could better see his face. "You are so beautiful, Warrick. Especially as wild as you currently are."
Warrick has always been an open book - the sharp and rigid angles of his face often give way to every emotion, every detail of his thoughts. His face will soften and his eyes tell all, and he is unafraid to do so. He wishes he could mask the feeling that now lingers in his chest, and pretend it is not there and that it does not exist - but then he would not be Warrick.
She pulls herself against his side - smooth, warm, soft - and he does not protest. He turns his head towards her, his dripping forelock falling into his curious eyes as he turns to meet hers, not realizing how close that simple movement had put them.
He stares into the fiery red of her eyes that glow like embers, for the life of him stuck to the very spot he found himself in. Her lips sheepishly yet carefully pull the tangled mess of his forelock from out of his vision, his heart thrumming wickedly in his chest. He begins to falter, afraid of what the next few seconds would allow him to do, but thankfully, her voice awakens him and an easy smile broadens across his lips, a chuckle reverberating in his throat.
“Wild?” he repeats incredulously, a bit breathlessly, “I am anything but.”
Compared to you.
As the summer’s eve begins to burn into dusk, alighting the tall grasses beside them in red firelight of not only the sun but of the glowing streams of magma, he pulls himself up onto the muddy shore, ready to dry the water from his skin and to begin his patrols for the night - perhaps he would run into Longclaw at the borders, or even Diable Rouge returning with news of Solace. He tries to convince himself these were all things to look forward to, but he knows that soon he will be parted from her.
Water cascades down his barrel, fitting into the smooth ripples of his muscled shoulders and legs, gathering where his hooves melt into the sand and pools there, before slowly melting back into the spring. Droplets of water sparkle on his wings and on his russet skin, shimmering brilliantly in the last of the sun’s light. A mischievous look finds his face, and with a quick shudder, the droplets spray from his large wings in all directions, sure to further dampen her in the process.
“Oops,” he says with a laugh, muscles bunching beneath his auburn coat just in case she attempts to retaliate, or run at him.
12-12-2017, 07:46 PM (This post was last modified: 12-12-2017, 07:48 PM by Ceara.)
let me pick your brain, girl. and tell me how they got that pretty little face on that pretty little frame.
Ceara's eyes were heavy when she met his. It almost felt as though, in that moment, he would have taken her into his embrace. Instead, he laughs off her comment with a warm, easy smile, his eyes lighting like the blue of the water they had just been swimming in. Wordlessly Warrick makes his way to the shoreline. Ceara, giving an audible sigh, follows him, her heart thrumming with the seriousness of the moment.
Was that it? Was this--whatever it was-- over?
Maybe she had imagined it all in her head. She had come, after all, only to swear fealty to the king. Not to take an intimate swim with him in the evening of an indian summer. She was such a young thing, after all. Trained up right, wild to the extreme. Didn't Warrick have children her age? Older? There was something wrong with this.
And yet, it felt so right.
Ceara shook herself off, her mind heavy with all these thoughts and more, when she screeched aloud, blinking her eyes rapidly from the sudden downpour of her oh so serious King showering her with all his access water. She immediately dissolved into giggles, shying away from those big navy colored wings, laughing again when she heard him say Oops. Warrick was toying with her, teasing her.
He was having fun.
She smiles at him then, straightening her neck and posture, a wicked smile on her face. raising her rather drenched tail up in the air, she saunters over to where he is standing, and sidles up to him. The heat of her body--and her wet coat--is enough to make him wet again, and when she circles around--sponging off her right side, and then her left--his backside, she take her raised tail and swats it forcefully against his backside, sending a loud snapping sound into the air. She does so playfully, and with a grin on her face, walks away from him, swinging her hips as she does so.
If this was about to end, she was going to get what she could out of it. If this was a dream, she was going to make it her fantasy.
In the moments they have spent together, he’s temporarily forgotten about the matters at hand - Karaugh’s captivity, the disappearance of Gryffen (would he return and what of his followers?), and he is even able to push from his mind the fact that a piece of himself is missing, wherever Tang is in her exploration. Summer’s heat will soon give way to the chill of autumn and then the intense frozen winter, leaving Tephra flourishing and wild, and reminding him of days lost beneath the volcano’s beating heart. Their romp in the waters and even their banter in this moment, however innocent he claims it to be, is soothing the sharp angles of his auburn face and mending the emptiness that he cannot seem to fill.
He can tell that he has surprised her, and his brows raise in amusement as the droplets rain down upon her, glittering in the setting sun. Her laughter causes a chuckle of his own, nose wrinkling slightly as she shies away from him, stretching his neck out and grasping at the air where she once stood, as if in attempt to keep her to stay nearby.
Then, with a coy smile and all the gracefulness of a woman, she grins mischievously and does not hesitate to use his body and feathers to dry herself on him. His wings flex instinctively as the ebony and red velvet of her body pressed against him, his laughter fading into a stillness that is overwhelmed by the brilliance of his stoic blue gaze, following her as she circles him. As she glides past, the cobalt of his muzzle reaches towards her, lipping at the wet tendrils of black mane that still drip.
She flicks her tail against the sleekness of his haunch and he dances away, pivoting on his forelegs with a sharp snort, feathers rustling as his wings stretch with one strong flap and then tuck into his sides, a nicker leaving his throat that sounded much like a laugh.
“What else you got?” She asks him, and he tosses his head as he moves to stand before her, a small smile on his navy lips.
“That’s about it,” he admits with a snort, “No more tricks tonight, I promise.”
let me pick your brain, girl. and tell me how they got that pretty little face on that pretty little frame.
This evening was winding down to an end. She could feel it. The sun was officially down now, leaving nothing but the stars for company, looking down upon them, lighting the path, and showing them the way. Ceara was young, but she had parents who taught her to know her mind, and to not be afraid to go after what she wanted. She was a fiery girl who looked like her father and took after her mother--a perfect blending of the two. They had experienced love one night under the cover of darkness amidst broken hearts, and then had pretty much gone on to live their own lives. Together, yet separate. Always at the crux of touching, but never embracing. And in all that time, Ceara had wanted for nothing. She knew her parents love, and had the love of the land, and of her brother. There were others, she was sure, but it didn't matter. What did matter was she was happy - the difference being, she knew her parents were miserable.
And she did not want her story to be like theirs.
She believes in happiness, and fate - destiny. And, in all her childish wonder - despite being a fully grown lady, dammit - believes that Warrick could be that destiny. She has always loved him. Always watched him from afar with a thudding heart and a secret smile. She is determined to chase down her dream. And though today did not start out as what it becamse, Warrick's acceptance of her as a woman has given her all the reason in the world to hope and to dream that, maybe, one day - he might care for her too.
That he might even care now.
And so, she playfully - sexily, though she knows not what she's doing - dries herself off on his washboard body, she laughs again when he dances around her. But her body stills, and her breath becomes heavy when he lips at her hair. And then, the seriousness of those bright blue eyes sits like lead in her throat. No more tricks tonight, I promise.
She is breathing. She must be. She's awake, and this is not a dream.
Ceara gulps, and pivots slightly on her on hoof, rotating her backhand so they are staring face to face. Her black velvet muzzle reaches up and places a shy kiss to the side of his cheek, unsure if her attentions are wanted, of if she will be spurned. Her floating red eyes search his face for any revelation - anything at all. She takes a step back, and smiles at him. She says nothing - because for once, she does not know what to say.
She knows this night is ended, but she will know before she leaves this place where she stands with Warrick. Where she stands with her King and Overseer.
The night calls him away, yet he stays. He lingers beside her with ruffling feathers, still damp from their swim. The kindness in him and his heart draws him to her, and he cannot help the feeling that rises within him when she is near - he continues to try to push it away, to ignore the need to press his lips against her cheek, or to brush her forelock from her blazing, fiery eyes. He thinks of Offspring and Reagan - two very powerful equines that hold precedence within Tephra’s country, and how perhaps his very innocent day spent with their daughter is now nowhere near innocent, and what kind of trouble he is throwing himself (and Ceara) into.
This thought resounds loudly in his mind as he feels the warmth of her lips against him, a shy and tender kiss against the strength of his jaw, placed perfectly and purposely. Her gaze does not dance away from him like he expects, and the cool blue of his eyes meet the warmth of hers. She smiling, happy - she is beaming. He is too, for a moment, and then it fades. “Ceara,” he begins with a bit of a frown, his brow furrowing confusedly, his mouth lingering dangerously close to her own.
“Ceara,” he says her name again (it feels right on his tongue), his eyes pleading as he takes a few steps away from her, towards the shore of the beach in the far distance. “I must go,” His indigo legs bring him further away, broad wings flexing outwards as he begins to ready himself for the short flight across to the beach.
Warrick
@[Ceara]
Itsa poopy post. I sorry. D:
You can reply if you want to try to get him to stay, or make him feel bad for "leading her on" or something!
But I'm thinking we wrap up soon and start a fresh one soon with more lingering moments and ya know, guilt and stuff <3333
