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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


    [mature]  could i use you as a makeshift gauge - wishbone
    #1

    I V A R
    i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
    There is one last place to check.

    Nothing more than a shadow beneath the waves, Ivar looks for her. He watches each figure, trails their travels up and down the cliffs, observes their sparring and their interactions. None of them are Isobell though, and none of them are Lothbrok. Surely they'd have come to the sea by now if they had returned to Nerine, and Ivar - who tastes the sea with each breath he tastes - would have sensed it.

    The days stretch into weeks by the time he accepts the truth of it. When he does, at long last, he growls deep in his burn-scarred chest and dives into deeper water with almost supernatural speed.

    Hours later, when the sun is just barely starting to turn the eastern sky from pitch black to tar black, Ivar lets the tide wash him into the beach.

    The waves had crashed against the granite cliffs all through the night along the wild northern coastline, and Ivar had crashed with them. Throwing himself against the sea at the last moment, fighting to avoid being crushed between the waves and the stone. It had filled him with sharp sense of satisfaction, pride in his own physical prowess and in his mastery of the sea.

    Though his muscles still burn pleasantly, he knows that soon the warmth will blossom into a wildfire. He'd rather be asleep by then, so as he rolls to his feet in the gray sand, the kelpie's eyes are flicking along the coastline in search of shelter.

    There, a cave half-hidden in the shadows. Ivar must brush uncomfortably close to both walls, but the strong smell of saltwater encourages him onward, and does not disappoint. The narrow entrance he'd come through was not the only one, and he rounds a sharp corner only to find the sea again.

    Overhead, granite provides protection against most of the open sky, and Ivar barely has time to tuck himself into an extra-dark corner before sleep over takes him. By the time he blinks open his eyes again, the stars have begun to appear in the small windows to the sky


    kelpie mimicry | dragon scales | tactile hypnosis



    okay in my head where he is looks like this but like with grey rocks and sand
    #2
    haze like a fever
    i fell like a dreamer for sweet tea and lemonade; it clings to my t-shirt it’s loud and it lingers, designed to suffocate. i light up to find what i’ve known all this time, there’s some beauty here yet
    To keep her thoughts away from the impending prison of her coronation (a prison or a liberation, depending on how the girl looks at it), Wishbone explores. It’s been an entire year since her hooves had first touched Nerine’s border, yet still she finds piece of the kingdom that she hadn’t noticed a day before. The caverns that freckle the shoreline are numerous and deep-set, allowing days of exploration.

    She’d gotten lost for three days in one cave system and when the sun had kissed her chilly skin, she’d almost cried.

    Yet that adventure didn’t scare her from the thrill of discovery. On nights when she can’t sleep, her feet will often bring her to the shoreline. Sometimes, under the spin and dance of a thousand constellations (most that she can name), she will toss her headstrong body into the waves to swim out and then allow the tide to drag her back in. If she goes out far enough, the songs of the whales will vibrate against her heels and tickle along her sides and she will linger for a few moments, watching them breach against the moon’s light.

    Other nights, like tonight, her feet will guide her toward the uncharted caves. Wishbone walks along the shore, the lackadaisical waves caressing her heels. Her amber eyes look into the depths of each cavern until she finds one appeasing to the tingle of adventure in her stomach. The charged energy of the night works against her muscles and she darts into the waves, splashing the cool of the salty water against her mahogany chest before turning back toward the sand, offering a wild buck into the starry sky.

    Lower half dripping with ocean-water, Wishbone curiously peers into the mouth of the cave. Granite cliffs rise on either side of her, but the shine of the moon and the laughter of the stars provides enough light that she can see dimly. A low snort jumps from her nostrils, the faint scent of a stranger reaching her sable nose.

    “Who’s here?” Her honey-whiskey voice echos off the walls of the cave, mingling with the rush of the waves over her shoulder and the quiet vibe of energy in the atmosphere. It’s a thrilling night, maybe just for Wishbone, and her skin feels almost tingly from the character of the evening.
    credit to eliza of adoxography.

    @[Ivar]
    #3






    I V A R
    promising everything i do not mean
    Months have passed since the piebald creature had slept somewhere other than the sea, and there is a long moment of disorientation when he finally wakes. The sea is too loud and his body too heavy; his muscles still ache from the previous night’s exertion. Ivar cannot think of the last time that he has felt quite this miserable (though to be truthful he does not try especially hard to remember; he does not care to dwell on the past).

    The beach air has dried the unkempt mane of the kelpie and the waves have left imprints on his black scales in crusted salt. He takes a few steps toward the sea only to see a dark silhouette against the mouth of the cave. Is that what had woken him, some sense that his temporary shelter had been compromised?

    He stills in the shadows, not even the flick of an ear betraying his location. Just one, he realizes, alone and female. The kelpie cannot make out her features from this distance, but she smells like nothing he knows.

    ‘Who’s here?” she asks in a gentle voice, and his ears turn forward. Young. Weak.

    (prey.)

    “Who’s asking?” He replies, moving toward the center of the cave, where the moon streams down across his back. The light is dull on most of his body; the matte of his black scales absorb it. As if to make up for their dullness, each white scale glimmers like the heart of a pearl. The kelpie is not flawless; a long scar stretches from his belly to his hip, and one elbow is a mass of dull grey scars. The old injuries do not detract from his appearance, that of a stallion in his prime, hard-muscled and impossibly handsome.

    His pale head tilts curiously, as if he is trying to identify her. Perhaps this is her cave - though it had smelled of nothing but sea and salt and stone.

    “Is this your cave?”

    Ivar does not smile when he speaks; he is still tired and stiff and thinking of his failure. The stallion's dark tail flicks at his hindquarters and is distressingly dry. He glances away from the stranger to the sea, and leaves the moonlit circle in favor of standing in the shallows. He moves neither farther away nor closer to the mare, but rather keeps the same distance between them by angling his path. He stops only when he is knee deep in the water, looking out at the horizon.


    I know my lies could not make you believe
    in my dark times, baby this is all I could be
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
    #4
    haze like a fever
    i fell like a dreamer for sweet tea and lemonade; it clings to my t-shirt it’s loud and it lingers, designed to suffocate. i light up to find what i’ve known all this time, there’s some beauty here yet
    For a few fragile moments, Wishbone wonders if it was just her imagination. The caverns of Nerine have been explored by many wanderers, especially the courageous young children of the kingdom, and it wouldn’t surprise her if the scent she had gotten had been stale from time. Perhaps the slender arm of a breeze had strengthened the power of the scent, causing her to think someone might be hiding in the depths of the shadows.

    She is about to move forward from her still position when a voice replies back — low and masculine, echoing off the high walls of the cavern. A stallion. He steps into the moon’s glow, revealing the handsome white-and-black of his face (and the lines of his muscle, which the moon doesn’t fail to reveal; Wishbone’s eyes find themselves wandering there) and, while her belly should chill with dread, she finds a daredevil smile upon her face.

    She doesn’t answer his initial question, swept away in the features of him, but his following words bring a laugh to her throat. Wishbone is still swallowed in the darkness just outside the circle of the moonlight and, to any eyes who might seek her out, she could look akin to a slender shadow echoing impulsive laughter into the hazy night.

    But he’s moving now, sliding into the shadow before stepping into the whispering waves, and she is turning to follow his path. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.” (I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.) There’s a hint of something sultry in her voice and she rolls with it, even as it surprises her. The waves call to her (quieter than he, but still whispering tunes of salt-soaked teasing and undiscovered depths) and she steps up from behind him, touching the seafoam that rides on the breeze with her sable nose.

    The shine of the stars and the glow of the moon is stronger here, casting her in an astral light that suits her far too well. It adds years to her body, providing hazy shine to the curve of her hip and the slope of her shoulder while also shadowing the angle of her cheek and the bend of her chest. Her dark, unkempt mane holds auburn highlight along the tangled tips, bleached from the severity of the sun. Her amber eyes find the constellations above, searching out the shape of Orion.

    “Someday soon, this cave will be mine. Along with all of Nerine.” It could sound maniacal — perhaps on the lips of a tiny dark pony with a bright-red clown nose — but against the hush of the waves and the honey-whiskey of her voice, it is serene. Wishbone’s gaze turns away from the starry sky to find the slope of his face again, hellbent on making sure this night does not go toward politics and kingdoms. “What is a handsome stranger like you doing here?”
    credit to eliza of adoxography.

    @[Ivar]
    #5
    I V A R
    promising everything i do not mean
    Though he hears the soft scuff of hooves against sand, the stallion does not turn anything more than a single dark ear toward the stranger. This is an encounter he knows all too well; even when he is disinterested, his innate lure remains. She is not the first woman to follow him to the water, but she is the first that he does not immediately try to draw deeper.

    Ivar's gaze remains on the black horizon, where only the starlight reflected on the waves differentiates the sky from the sea.

    Somewhere beyond the darkness is the faint rise of the Ischian islands and beyond them only the open sea. It whispers to him, familiar and tempting, yet he does not move from the shore.

    It is not often that the kelpie denies his instinct, but the memory of what is not in the sea feels inexplicably stronger than what is. There is only so much that the scaled creature can do to push away the past before it catches up with him, and it is unfortunate for this approaching stranger that she catches him at the same time as his memories. Her voice is warm, her tone enticing, but the pale faced stallion does not even look toward her until she gives the last answer that he had been expecting.

    All of Nerine will be hers, she says, and the words are hauntingly familiar.

    He's heard them before, he thinks, and they'd been said not too terribly far from this cave. Isobell had said them and left him as alone as he was tonight, drifting in the sea without direction. The hollowness in his chest feels the very same, and the kelpie  finds himself mindlessly tracing the profile of the filly beside him. It is almost a distraction - she is lovely and her voice sounds sea-rough - but Ivar is always easily distracted.

    He knows he could lose himself with her for a while. She'd be warm and willing against him, her breathy cries a counterpoint to the crash of waves. It would be entertaining, for a while, and then he'd be alone again.

    "I'm here as a right of passage, it would seem." Ivar replies, making no effort to charm her (if anything, the scowl on his face seems designed to do the opposite). He doesn't have to make an effort though, not Ivar, whose entire species had evolved to ensnare Wishbone's with carnal allure. "Fate seems to enjoy putting me in the path of you Nerenian queens."

    At that he smiles, amused at the internal path of his own thoughts, though he gives no indication of that to the bay woman beside him other than his next comment. "Or perhaps it's been putting you in mine."

    I know my lies could not make you believe
    in my dark times, baby this is all I could be
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .




    @[Wishbone]
    #6

    she’s got jumper cable lips
    she’s got sunset on her breath. now i inhaled just a little bit, now i’ve got no fear of death

    His words bring realization with them like a chill to the pit of her stomach.

    “Watch out for a stallion named Ivar. He’s handsome, but he has the potential to murder you simply for being an heiress of Nerine.” Scorch’s words ring loudly in her mind, laced with caution and the husk of warning. Wishbone had pushed such thoughts from her mind — she often finds herself teasing and prodding danger with her bare fingers, waiting for it to lash back — but they resurface now, pulled from the depths by the sound of his sea-soaked voice.

    “Ivar.” Her voice is husky and not entirely childlike now, but rather tinted with flavors of moonlight dust and underwater shadows. The barest hint of a smirk finds her sable mouth; this night is proving to be very interesting, indeed. Scorch might have had good intentions with her warnings, but Wishbone has never been one to shy away from a “Danger!” sign and this night will be proof of that. “Someone warned me about you.”

    There’s a laugh in the back of her throat, threatening to break the quiet of the midnight. His eyes are on her, alluring and tempting, and the echoing siren song of his species sings to the warrior beat within her. Wishbone does laugh, then, and it’s a low sound that contains remnants of the angry waves pressing against the strength of the granite cliffs. The moonlight is encouraging her (or perhaps it is the continual beat of his lusty song, one that ties its handcuffs around her slender, freckled wrists and tugs her closer) and so she is stepping nearer.

    It doesn’t take long (or much effort, on his part) for her mouth to touch his scaled throat. Scents of brine and drowsiness linger on the shadow of his throat as she huffs a warm, soft breath against him. She’s burning all of the sudden, most notably in places she hadn’t truly been aware of before… At least not like this. But it’s a fiery feeling, reminding her of the heat of Tephra, and it brings an electrifying chill against her spine. It’s an itch she can’t quite scratch alone, an adventure she’s more than willing to go on, and a daring jump off a long, long cliff all rolled into one.

    Wishbone’s lungs exhale lusty smoke across his neck as she drags her mouth along his crest, pushing aside salt-saturated locks in favor of the muscle beneath. “And does your reputation precede you, oh-so dangerous Ivar?”

    wishbone



    @[Ivar]
    #7
    I V A R
    promising everything i do not mean
    The sound of his name is unanticipated, most especially on the lips of this stranger. Though Ivar has spent the better part of the last two years at the edges of the map forgetting Beqanna, he is not oblivious to the consequences of his actions before that time. He’d taken a queen and then her crown, and further solidified his reputation with the abduction of a princess. But he’d brought her back, he thinks as Wishbone closes the space between them; he hadn’t kept her.

    He should have, he thinks as Wishbone’s warm breath ghosts across his throat. He should have kept her.

    Maybe he’ll keep this one instead.

    She is brave - almost foolishly so - but Ivar has had his fill of mild mares and their sweet compliance. They are easy prey; they are not a challenge. This one, with her curious mouth and her talk of danger, she might be a challenge.

    Though the worn ache of his body remains, the last remnants of drowsiness leave the scaled creature as Wishbone’s lips drag along the crest of his neck. Her mahogany shoulder is almost black in the moonlight, and Ivar finds it tastes as much of salt as of skin. His touch is fleeting but not entirely tender, more tooth than lip. Someone warned her about him, she had said, and he wonders what that warning had entailed.

    “Do you feel like you’re in danger?” He replies to her question, taking a step forward to mouth the flesh just below her withers, painless pressure even as his teeth hold her fragile skin. It is autumn and she is unmarked, he finds, piecing together her age and boldness with an unexpected smile. Perhaps it truly is Fate, placing these too-bold Nerinians in his path when he least expects them and when they are the least prepared for what he means to take.

    “I’m perfectly harmless,” Ivar tells her as he tastes the dip of her spine and then the start of her curved hindquarters with another step forward. The kelpie is not immune to her warmth or the autumn chill in the air, and there is enough of a pinch in his last touch to contradict what he has only just said.


    I know my lies could not make you believe
    in my dark times, baby this is all I could be
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


    @[Wishbone]
    #8

    she’s got jumper cable lips
    she’s got sunset on her breath. now i inhaled just a little bit, now i’ve got no fear of death

    The pensivity leaves the expression of his face easily and replaces itself with something better, in Wishbone’s opinion. She’s heard the stories of Isobell and the others (though their names are quickly fleeing her mind at this moment), of drownings in oceans and rivers, and they had come mostly from Scorch’s mouth. The specifics especially escape her when he reaches in to nip at her shoulder and a blossom of sweetly-intermingled pain and pleasure brings a smirk to her sable mouth against his crest.

    He’s moving beside her, a question falling from his rugged mouth, and Wishbone is moving with him. Her own mouth finds the slope where the withers meet the back and she puts pressure there, enough to feel beneath the protection of his scales. Her answer is said along the length of his spine, husky and low. “I fuckin’ hope I’m in danger.” Wishbone lives for the thrill of it — the dances with death and oh, death is now nodding its mangy head in her direction and opening a bloodied hand to invite her closer.

    She takes that slender hand, releasing a breathy moan to the sky when his teeth contradict the innocence of his sentence. The cocktail of pain and pleasure draws her closer to sinful drunkenness with each touch of Ivar’s mouth, but the woman will not succumb so easily as the others. They are aligned in opposite yet parallel directions and it gives her the perfect opportunity to do something impulsive.

    Wishbone’s head drops below the tobiano’s stomach. Though it is only for a matter of moments, it might certainly feel like longer for Ivar. When her lips trail against the inside of his thigh and back up over the point of his hip, there’s a devilish smile working against her lips. She might be young but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know what men want. She’s reckless though observant.

    Finally a reply to his comment drags from his lips, fashioned by the fire of lust. “Then I suppose I’m harmless as well.” Wishbone twines around him, though the action holds perhaps too much pressure than normal given her inexperience, and when she reaches the opposite side of him her face leans upward to mouth at his ear. She is mimicking him, perhaps to learn or perhaps to seduce, and thus there is more tooth than lip as his touches had been. Touches that she has found a great deal of enjoyment in.

    wishbone



    @[Ivar]
    #9
    I V A R
    promising everything i do not mean
    He feels her smile against his neck and the boldness in her touch as she tastes the salt-crusted length of his spine. Though he does not move his cheek from the warmth of her thigh, the kelpie slows his exploration of her mahogany skin. For a moment Ivar considers hypnosis, but finds (with a breath inhaled sharply between pointed teeth) that the young queen needs no enhancement for her avidity. The thin scales of his inner thigh are for more sensitive than the thick armor of the rest of his hide, and the kelpie involuntarily stamps that hind leg in the sand, exhaling the inhaled breath in a low laugh.

    “I don’t think you are,” he tells her. To a creature most accustomed to being the hunter, Wishbone’s treatment of him makes him feel almost like prey. It is an odd sensation but it is not nearly as unpleasant as he might have thought. If anything, it is kindling to the ever-present hunger, and the kelpie follows her twining figure with heavily lidded eyes.

    (want. need. wait.)

    The last is unexpected (he wants swallow her whimpers of innocence until they are cries of wanton need), but he is not one to deny instinct, not this deep into the autumn. Instead he leans into her touch, to the sharp tug of her teeth at his tender ear. His own mouth rests at the point of her shoulder for a moment, sliding up the dark line of her neck until he can taste the rapid flutter of her heartbeat beneath his lips.

    (mine.)

    That is familiar. He lingers there for a time, and presses into her the command for stillness as his canines close around the rise of her throat. A wrong move on either of their parts and he might rip out her jugular, but he only wants a taste. Just a small taste, enough to stain his sharp teeth. His eyes close as her blood hits his mouth, a few drops of coppery warmth that smear against his pale lips when he slides his muzzle up the line of her cheek.

    “I would like to tear you apart,” he murmurs into her dark ear, brutally honest in a way that he has not been before. “But I think you might like it too much.”

    I know my lies could not make you believe
    in my dark times, baby this is all I could be
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
    #10

    she’s got jumper cable lips
    she’s got sunset on her breath. now i inhaled just a little bit, now i’ve got no fear of death

    With her advancements, they are both stroking a forest fire that had been only a flame moments ago. Pride works itself into the framework of her insides (among the pleasure and the pain and the excitement and the adrenaline-high she gets from dancing with death) and it’s a worming, delicious sensation. She’s flustering him in a way perhaps no woman has done before, pressing one tender finger against the pulse of his instinct and coaxing it further down its bloodied path.

    “And I don’t think you’re harmless either,” she banters back and her words are a breathy low in the back of her throat. There are far more advanced thoughts on Wishbone’s mind than her next witty comment, like the way her spine is tingling as his mouth slides from her shoulder to her throat. She’s never felt this way before, with every inch of her body ignited in a way she can’t dare control, and it makes her feel as if she is endlessly running toward something that will make her fall to her knees before getting up and running again.

    Before she realizes it, Wishbone’s body is stilled into silence under the pressure of his touch. She goes willingly, as quiet as a doe sensing danger among the forest, but a soft exhale of a moan leaves her lungs when his teeth pierce the tender flesh of her throat. To be caught like this — pinned against the wall, as it were, with his mouth bruising her neck and his tattooed hands holding her wrists from wandering — brings thick, warm tendrils of arousal to swarm her body.

    His mouth is dragging away, leaving beads of dark red to form and then drip down the length of her lithe neck. She is still caught under his control, feeling a thin streak of blood dash across her cheek with the movement of his lips. When those words, raw and honest and dark, run devilishly into her ear his power loosens. And Wishbone is caught in a whirlwind of wild lust, as if she were drowning in an ocean of it.

    “Oh, fuck,” she moans and her teeth reach up to grasp a dread of his brine-soaked mane. Wishbone tugs hard on it before opening her mouth to run her dull teeth along his scaled crest once more. It’s a pleasure alone to feel the muscle ripple beneath her touch. “And how could you know me so well, after just meeting me?” There’s a subtle hint of a low laugh in the tune of her words, and even though they are teasing they are also laced with something as dark and purposeful as his instinct’s intentions.

    wishbone



    @[Ivar]




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