what if the way we started made it something cursed from the start; vulgaris

[leliana]

I know what it is but I'm hoping that all is well
no harvest of green but it's still my heart to sell

 
Leliana had never imagined that one day sadness would swallow her whole.

She had never imagined the fissures that would run through her skin, the canyons that another could place within her, dragging their fingers through her flesh—leaving her hollowed out. She had grown up loved, if not misplaced. Her sister and her, sitting with their necks across each other’s back in the humid glory of Tephra under the watchful eye of Magnus. Her sister and her taking to the skies, wings unfurling gloriously underneath the painfully bright sun. It had been carefree and beautiful and easy.

So easy.

But then the skies had turned stormy and she had turned to face it. She had been swallowed by the hurricane, whipped by the winds and battered by the driving rain. She had been drenched in the tsunami—and the worst part, the part that she could never come back from, is the seed of desire it had planted in her. It had turned something pure within her and morphed it into something she did not recognize. It had turned into something she could not understand or name or, more often than not, even confess.

It left her hazel eyes peering into the shadows more times than she cared to admit.

Looking for the ivory sheen of skeletal armor and the coppery tang of blood in the air.

So she finds herself in the dark tonight, near the roar of a river she has never seen. She finds herself exhausted from a flight that pushed her to her physical limit, elegant neck slick from the effort. Her dapples sides heave as she drinks in the autumn air, the silver of the moon washing her with milky light. Her wings are leather and bone, the red dragon of them curled protectively around her  as she tips her head back to look upward. She does not know how she ended up here. She does not know who she is or what she is doing anymore. She cannot dip her fingers into her chest and find a heart that she recognizes. 

She is lost, and she has no idea how to go about finding herself again.

 

I put everything I had into something that didn't grow
like going on a wild hunt, shooting arrows without a bow

@[vulgaris]

[vulgaris]

Vulgaris

"  when she's coming for my heart it feels like armageddon. "
As a child, he lived in the shadows of his parents. He was always hurrying, hurrying to keep up with their long strides and praying he was enough. All his elder sisters carried their heads so high he could only dream of them, looming over him in their greatness while he huddled tight to the darkness of the night. The tiny boy had prayed for something to make him rival them, to become paramount in his father’s eyes so nothing and no one could ever look down on him again. He grew tall and strong, learned to balance the world on his shoulders and keep his chin up as though he balanced some mighty crown on his handsome head.

Then the curse turned its gleaming emerald eyes on him.
It ripped him apart and put him back together, stronger and hungrier than ever before.

He can remember the morning he woke up with hard scales tracing the chiseled angles of his jaw and cheekbones. Fury consumed him and he cursed his father for making him into a monster. Vulgaris wanted nothing but to set fire to the world he had finally grown to be a part of, wanted to crush them all between his new sharp teeth and drive them from their undeserved joys. Even now, sometimes he wakes and forgets what he has become, remembering only the face that the gods had crafted with such tender care. (That face is still there, looking out beneath the gray scales and sage colored eyes.)

Loneliness beats steadily against his chest as he looks out over the bodies occupying the land near the river – lovers whispering so excitedly to one another, friends giggling between secrets. He turns in on himself and grows bitter still. The slit pupil rolls back and forth in search of something, anything to keep his mind from all these tiresome woes. That’s when he sees her dragon wings folded so tightly around her. Vulgaris has a weakness for any girl with scales. In fact, his legs are moving before he’s even come to realize it.

The moonlight is just enough to glimmer across the snakeskin of his spine and the muscles of his shoulders when he slithers forward. He doesn’t take any precautions in his approach, doesn’t worry himself with stealth. He wants her to hear him coming. The tip of his tongue finds the point of one of his fangs as he draws closer.

“Your face is too soft for that expression,” he says in a voice like summer fires. Vulgaris offers a faint smile, a welcome mat straight to all the tender parts of him that he swore he buried out back some years ago. Truth be told, the serpent is a masochist when it comes to love and he’s always waiting for the next woman to break him open. (It’s only fair since he does the same to them, isn’t it?)

“My name is Vulgaris.”

@[leliana]

[leliana]

I know what it is but I'm hoping that all is well
no harvest of green but it's still my heart to sell

She hears him coming but she doesn’t move. Not at first. Instead she closes her hazel eyes and breathes the starlight deep, taking them into her chest and letting the starfire fill her lungs to bursting. It feels like hope and possibility, cauterizing the edges of her wounds until she can almost pretend that they no longer exist. Until she can pretend that she’s whole again.

But she’s not entirely rude and she doesn’t ignore him for long.

She takes a steadying breath and drops her chin, slanting her head toward him as he approaches, the space between them taut. Her breath catches in her throat at the sight of his scales, at the way his body slithers beneath them—unnatural and yet perfectly formed. It is almost akin to the bones that had crept out and around him, almost like the hardened armor that had slowly taken over his body. It is close enough to cause a shiver to run up her spine.

Next to her, the dragon wings morph without conscious thought, turning emerald and oil to match the scales that cover his form. They press into her as a shadow of a smile sweeps across her delicate features. “Oh?” Her voice is honey in the air between them, soft and sweet, the syllables dripping from her mouth slowly. “What expression would suit my face better, Vulgaris?” She likes the way that his name sounds, her mouth finding the edges of it suitable.

She lets the silence sit a moment more between them before she gives a light laugh, the sound kind and gentle, bells on the wind. “My name is Leliana,” she offers, her eyes turning from him for a moment to find the night sky, tracing the constellations as they splatter along the horizon.

“I am glad you are here. It is too beautiful of a night to be alone.”

I put everything I had into something that didn't grow
like going on a wild hunt, shooting arrows without a bow

@[vulgaris]

[vulgaris]

Vulgaris

"  when she's coming for my heart it feels like armageddon. "

He watches her and his expression is lost somewhere between starving predator and dreamy-eyed lover as he tries to decide between the two. Vulgaris is so many different kinds of hungry that he never knows which need to satisfy first. Still, just standing here is rather nice and something like a reptilian purr trills so quietly in his throat. His eyes watch her wings change and something deep within him stirs in its slumber. She’s like delicate spiderwebs already burdened with morning dew – he wants to run his fingers through her and rip her apart for being so beautiful. Later, he will dream of painting his mouth with the red of her blood.

But for now, he muzzles that urge and forces himself to play the part of the cordial gentleman. Her lips take on a warmer shape and he focuses on that as best he can. Hearing his name in her sweet voice draws him further in and his gaze drifts to her throat like the weak creature that he is. In the right light, he could probably pick out the twitch of her pulse from the movement of her speech. But she’s asked him a question and he must reply.

“This one is nice. Or maybe I’m just glad your attention is on me.” He smiles with those rows of sharp teeth all showing, unabashed and unconcerned. She gives her name and he repeats it a few times in his thoughts, holds it tight to his memories for later in case he sees her again. Leliana. But Vulgaris does not repeat it, does not want to taint it with the sound of his own voice while it’s still so pure and perfect.

The smile on his face dims for a moment when she says how happy she is to have company. Would she have said that had someone else come to sidle up to her tonight? He lets the question die in his thoughts before it ever becomes words across his tongue. It will reemerge later when he’s alone with nothing but his creeping insecurity to intrude upon his peaceful night.

“Is it? I’m honored to share it with you then. Tell me what makes this night so lovely to you.”

He takes a few steps closer to stand beside her, just enough that she might feel the heat of him radiating onto her, but he doesn’t let their skin touch. Vulgaris just wants to see if she’ll shy away or give into longing, for the most part. In the meantime, he keeps his head turned toward her just enough to admire the curves of her body that he can see between her wings, though he’s greedy and eager to see what hides beneath.

@[leliana]

[leliana]

I know what it is but I'm hoping that all is well
no harvest of green but it's still my heart to sell

She should have more of a sense of self-preservation.

There should be alarms that sound in her head, a ringing in her pulse, a pull in her belly that drags here away from hungry eyes. She should turn from this. She should find haven in Tephra or with her sister. She should be protecting herself from the gale force winds that she instead throws herself into—the danger that she so willingly swallows and invites into her chest. Instead, she angles her head so she can continue to watch him as she approaches, feeling the warmth seep from his scales and hang between them.

“You most certainly have my attention,” she says quietly, guileless, and helpless beneath the piercing of his gaze. There is enough of him that reminds her of Dovev. Enough of him that quickens her breath, and causes the scars to nearly break open under the pressure—but, he is not Dovev. There is something about him that is more refined, more practiced. Dovev was all brute force and violence, and while she has no doubt that Vulgaris could resort to such measures, he does not strike her as turning to that first.

So she gives into the curiosity and closes the distance between them, her hazel eyes roving over his hard-edged face. She reaches out and presses her lips to his jaw, the coolness of him surprising. A slow hum begins to build in her throat as she taps into that which comes most naturally to her. “Shh,” she says without thinking, her mouth roving down the muscular arch of his neck. “Don’t move.”

The healing blossoms like a rose in her chest, the warmth spreading through her and into him. She follows the golden light of it, trailing it as it loops and swirls, tracing it down his veins as it branches out into the furthest parts of him. He has no massive wounds to speak of. No fractured, splintered bones or weeping lacerations—but he has lived and thus there are aches. There are bruises. There are knotted muscles. Her healing spreads out and over them all, unknotting and untangling and knitting back together again. She frowns in concentration, a faint sheen on her neck, as she traces his neck mindlessly.

When the healing curls back unto itself and comes to rest in her chest again, she smiles, eyes still closed.

It had been too long since she had done that, and the satisfaction is tangible.

It etches clearly onto her features when she finally flutters her eyelashes open again to find his gaze, the shadow of a smile chasing around the ghosts that haunt the corners of her mouth.

“Possibility,” she finally answers him. “Tonight is lovely because of possibility.”

I put everything I had into something that didn't grow
like going on a wild hunt, shooting arrows without a bow

@[vulgaris]

[vulgaris]

Vulgaris

"  when she's coming for my heart it feels like armageddon. "
She says all the right words to cast a spell over his tired head until he finally resigns himself to the comfort of her grasp. Does she know that flattery and scales are all it takes to woo him, though? Is she even aware of what he would do for her if she but only asked him right now? God, he’d set fire to innocent kingdoms and rip apart her enemies if she just said his name in that breathy voice, but he does not confess such weakness to her. He’d ripped himself open and laid everything to bare before only to be left without a second thought. The unspoken offer dies within him.

A shiver runs electric along his spine when she touches her soft lips to the smooth skin of his scales. The feeling lingers in his muscles and buzzes like static between his every nerve ending when she tells him to stay still. Does she plan to harm him now that there is no space between their eager bodies? (Wouldn't he like her more if she did?) But she does quite the opposite and he finds himself in a daze. It feels like slipping into a warm bath in the middle of the autumn night – so close to too hot but he finds himself calmed by the sensation. The hunger for untold violence subsides as he becomes certain of her usefulness.

He keeps his neck exposed to her touches like a cat content with its worshipper until he feels her lips curl into a smile. Finally, he brings his eyes to rest on her face and he notices the glimmering sweat across her now. She seems quite pleased with her work despite the amount of effort it seemed to take. Filthy thoughts flood his mind and he slips into them like old habits. Practically does the backstroke in a pool of perverse ideas.

But then she finally speaks again and he’s curious if she really means that. It’s already too late for him to ask, though, as his teeth drag along the soft curves of her neck and taste the sweat of her skin like it’s the only drink he’s ever had. Maybe he’s too rough and maybe he leaves little bleeding love bites across her but he’s not stopping to check now. There is some sickness in him and he seems to think his only salvation is this.

“Love me,” he mumbles with his lips now on her shoulder, eyes closed as he breathes her in. "Just for tonight, love me."

@[leliana]
we can end it here if you'd like. poor vul is gonna have a crush now as it is.

[leliana]

I know what it is but I'm hoping that all is well
no harvest of green but it's still my heart to sell

It had started sweet—it had started innocent.

He had been still water on a cool autumn night, the edges of him unbothered and calm.

He had simply been there, and it had been easy to trick herself into thinking that the stirring in her belly was nothing. It was easy to trick herself into thinking that this was different—that she was different. But that sweetness has an edge, and it drags out a jagged breath from her when he begins to travel the length of her neck, his teeth pulling at the flesh in a desperate hunger. She pulls in the cold air, her head spinning, as her own blood begins to rise to the surface and smear against the mahogany of her coat.

The wounds quickly heal, the golden light of her gift racing along the edges of her skin and knitting it back together again, but the blood remains, washed against her, leaving the air coppery and bright. She pays no mind to it. She pays no mind to anything but the riptide that he pulls her into, until she is suddenly lost in the urgency of it. She leans against his broad, smooth shoulder, trembling, the delicate velvet of her mouth tentative as it explores him in turn, tracing patterns along his scaled flesh.

This was entirely the same.

This was entirely different.

Her heart swells painfully in her breast, emotions far too fresh for the years that have past sweeping through her—leaving her with an aching nostalgia, a bitter anguish, and an entirely new yearning that curls in her belly. She is raw in her pain and yet endlessly hopeful, and although she knows better than to give herself over to this fresh hurt, she has no way to guard herself from it.

She cannot tell him that her heart is a malleable thing. She cannot tell him that what may be a dalliance for him will forever change her. She cannot tell him that she has never walked this path with anyone before—that she is a relatively young thing, never before a mother.

So she doesn’t.

She keeps such secrets tucked away and instead closes her hazel eyes on a sigh.

Instead she simply nods at his mumbled request, ignoring the twisting of her gut, the emotions that rise like a tidal wave within her. “Yes, Vulgaris,” she breathes his name against him, the promise so clear. A shuttering breath as oil-slick wings rise and fall. “I will love you,” but she cannot utter the last word, she cannot bring herself to say for tonight—because even now, she can feel the columns within her shifting.

But she cannot bear to admit that to him.

(She cannot bear to admit that to herself.)

I put everything I had into something that didn't grow
like going on a wild hunt, shooting arrows without a bow

@[vulgaris]

okay, i had to write that, but we really can end it here if you'd like. <3

i'd be happy to pick up another thread somewhere else immediately or wait or whichever you prefer for your muse / vulgaris plotting. (otherwise, i will be entirely selfish with your words.)