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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


    Vulgaris;
    #1
    Shiya
    Shiya’s eyes tear open, her lungs desperately gasp for air. She is awake and alive, her body no longer submerged in the dark depths of the ocean. Although she aches (gaping wounds still continue to slightly drain from each shoulder) from where the world split her flesh, at least she is back on land. Rivulets of her blood streamed from her body into the cancerous soul of Pangea. There had been a few minutes that she thought herself dead; once, she thought death’s icy hand was clutching her throat, but it had been a dream. It had been the only illusion because everything else was entirely real. The pain, the suffering, the fear.

    All of it.

    The edge of hot air burns her lungs, the summer so heavily contrasted to the frigid ocean depths. As her heart panics against her chest Shiya tries to realize that she isn’t suffocating, that she no longer needs water to breathe. It takes a few moments as her eyes dart back and forth among the towering trees. ”Home,” she whispers, her voice a painful rasp. Although she truly has no home, she is at least rooted to the ground and no longer drawn to a gangrenous heart below the tide. Here is at least a place she can survive and live.

    But her mind doesn’t immediately revert to her personal necessities. Shiya instead allows her thoughts to roam and return to Vulgaris. Was it truly him on the ocean floor, disintegrated and lethal? Was it truly him that she had no other option than to kill? The look in his eyes were lethal, hungry, and she desperately tried to elude him, but he reached for her throat. There had been no other choice. The memory of it stabs and twists into her heart, drawing a tear from her slit eyes as they peer up to the sky. Knowing only one way to confirm, Shiya rises to her feet and retreats to Loess.

    She wants – no, needs – confirmation that he is alive or dead. Wasn’t it only days ago that she cradled against his side, pressing her scales to his own and resting sweet kisses along his jawline? With her heart in her throat, Shiya follows what she presumes to be the strongest trail of his scent, hounding him until her eyes blink to see him. Pressing onward with swift desperation, she reaches him but hesitates to touch. ”Are you really here?” It would be a confusing question, but the concern in her eyes laces into the trembling of her voice. ”I thought you were dead. I thought I—“ she doesn’t want to say it, hoping the silence of it would make it all a lie. She didn’t murder him, right? He is here, standing in front of her, right?

    With panting breaths, she wistfully groans, ”Hold me, and never let me go.”

    For you, I'd give my last breath


    @[vulgaris]
    #2
    Vulgaris
    He wanders along the usual trail that marks the border of Loess with a sort of idle hum in his throat to pass the time. The summer heat is relentless on his back and the glimmering scales brushed across his body. But then there is an unfamiliar sound and his ears twist to catch the noise as she approaches, scrambling to be near him. His eyes roam across the new wounds weeping on her shoulders. They are each marked there, though his are the claw marks of an angry pet protecting her queen while hers are the salve for a woeful heart. Always, they are mirrors of one another.

    His head tilts when she speaks. Dead? Him? His skin shivers at the thought but he draws closer to her all the same until her body meets his in a perfect embrace. Serpent sister, she is the awful reflection of everything he is not. She smells of salt and forgotten depths of some abyss he’d rather not explore if he can help it. Still, he doesn’t retreat from the cold chill of her skin despite the danger her presence brings him in Loess.

    If Leliana were to see or if Adna were to hear…

    But she is weak and he cannot leave her when she needs him most. His lips trail across her cheek and he tastes the sea on her skin. That sick want comes burning through him, sending his touch across her neck now as he explores her like he’s never discovered the curves of her body before. Why does he love her more when she’s so sick and vulnerable? What is it about him that craves her when she cannot deny him? (But she would never, he knows. She would sacrifice everything if he only asked. How awful to wield such power.)

    I’m here,” he says, muffled against the edge where her shoulders begin. “I’m right here.

    He feels her pulse beating wildly just beneath her skin and he dreams of what it would be like to just give in. If he bit down, would she bite back or would she just let him take it all from her? Vulgaris touches his teeth to her neck in an embrace only she would understand but he doesn’t follow through. This is the penultimate of trust. They could tear each other apart but whatever it is they have keeps them muzzled and content.

    I see you.
    " ancient language, speak through fingers. the awful edges where you end and i begin. "
    @[Shiya]
    #3
    Shiya
    Vulgaris succumbs to exactly what she wanted, holding her as he always has. It eases her pattering heart and gentles her labored breaths. He is here, he reassures, and she feebly whimpers into the groove where his neck meets his shoulder. To see him as he was under the ocean’s surface had been terrifying and so realistic. She stretched herself somehow and coiled around him until his vertebrae snapped. Would it be so easy to break him like that? Her hot breath fans across his scales, her fangs forebodingly pressed against him before she conceals them and concludes how difficult it would be. That wasn’t him underwater roaming Pangea’s cancerous hills and cliffs.

    It was all an illusion.

    Having experienced the nightmare and the turmoil that poisoned her mind confirmed what has always been on the outskirts of her mind (and heart). Life wouldn’t be worth it without him; it would be a torturous. Her meek heart would crumble into a million pieces and joy would never find her again. Darkness would remain a looming cloud until her final breath.

    With that conclusion, Shiya realizes how desperately she must hold onto him, how pinnacle he is to her survival.

    A jagged smile lifts the corners of her mouth as he traces down her neck, their bodies melting into one as the world sees fit. This, this is beauty and perfection. This is what their lives should consist of – their passionate and eternal love. And the other women on his skin? They are scum. They are hindrances to their happiness. Wiggling comfortably in his grasp, Shiya sweeps her emerald eyes across him. ”You’re mine,” she whispers with rising vehemence, ”and I’m yours.” The edge in her voice is new, brimming with a passionate need found in the depths of the ocean.

    And then, as she drinks in the most potent scent of a woman, she hisses, ”I refuse to lose you again.”

    For you, I'd give my last breath


    @[vulgaris]

    Sorry this is so obnoxiously fast lmao
    #4
    Vulgaris
    Even in his worst nightmares, he never hurts the ones he loves. Vulgaris doesn’t have even the slightest clue what sounds her bones would make if he squeezed her too tight or what her blood might taste like. These are things that have never crossed his mind even when the hunger was too much for him to bear. He doesn’t know the terrors she faced beneath the ocean surface or why she’s come to him crying so hard but he holds her close all the same. All he needs to know is that she needs him right now.

    He listens when her words are coated in venom and forged in the heat of some unspoken anger. There’s a sinking feeling in the depths of his stomach. If Shiya tried to harm Leliana, what would he do? Would he have to know the sounds of their bones breaking? For a second, his breathing shutters, and he realizes what a hell he’s built for all of them. He leans his head against hers and sighs into her warming skin.

    Shiya,” he says weakly as he kisses the curve of her jaw. “I want everything. I am greedy and I will take it all.

    His teeth trace the muscles of her neck and they grit across the scales adorning her skin like his. He’s always tried so hard to be honest with her and this time is no different. Vulgaris has a heart that seeks only to consume and collect rather than cherish a single woman in his life and he knows it. He is a slave to it.

    I love you, I love you a hundred times. But I will always be so hungry.

    Larva used to tell him of the mistakes he made in an effort to teach the young serpent. Maybe he thought his stories would make Vulgaris a kind of redemption. Maybe he wanted to break the awful cycle his forefathers had crafted. But his words fell on deaf ears and the son repeats the sins of the father, on and on, amen.

    He presses his lips to hers and dreads the days to come.
    He dreads the weight of all this greed.
    " ancient language, speak through fingers. the awful edges where you end and i begin. "
    @[Shiya]
    #5
    Shiya
    Shiya’s eyes drift slowly shut as Vulgaris traces kisses along the edge of her jaw, adoring her in a way she never has been. She melts underneath his touch, cradling herself closely to him and feeding off the heat radiating from his body. Hold me, she doesn’t say, because they are as close as they can be, and yet she craves more. Her warmth breath fans across him as he steadies his touch, refusing to tear apart.

    His crooning voice sends a welcomed chill down her spine, a deep wanting passing through her like a wave, but it never ebbs. The lust increases, burning her, and she turns her head slowly to nibble his mane. A warning, if that’s what it is, nearly falls on deaf ears. Shiya knows he wouldn’t – couldn’t – hurt her and so she smiles with jagged teeth, welcoming him. ”Then take it,” she hisses, mirroring so much of what they are – serpents – but twisting lust and need into her sultry voice. The longer he is here with her, enamored with what is meant to be, the less time he is wandering with the family he is trying to desperately to create.

    Shiya had once been so meek, so submissive, but something new roils in her now and awakens.
    Carnage helped with that.

    ”Show me you love me,” she whispers sweetly to him with an alluring grin and a softened gaze to meet his. ”We should’ve been a family – a real family – years ago.” She held them back and while she regrets it every day, acceptance has finally consumed her. They are perfect together. She could ensure this, perhaps, but questions leak in the back of her mind, always wondering what could happen. The words rise in her throat and threaten to interrupt the lustful tone of their touches and voices. Reining it back, she preserves it for another day, another time. What matters now is them, finally enraptured and entwined together. ”I’ve always loved you.”

    For you, I'd give my last breath


    @[vulgaris]
    #6
    Vulgaris
    His jaws part to trail his teeth along her skin as she commands him and he resists initially. The want of it burns between the skin and muscle despite his restraint. But then she’s smiling and whispering into his ear all the things he’s ever wanted to hear her say. Vulgaris breathes a slow sigh against her neck and lets the razor edge of his fangs prick at her skin. He can still remember pretending the first few girls he ever slept with were her and he used to feel so guilty for it.

    He closes his eyes and navigates his way down the length of her spine, dragging the scales of his shoulder against her. Then he turns and presses his chest to the curve of her hips. When he opens his eyes, he rests his chin along her back and memorizes the way she looks from this angle. Her scales shimmer in the light and he’s distracted enough that he doesn’t realize he’s already got his legs around her. Vulgaris lifts himself up and inside, thinking this is what he always thought it would be like.

    He doesn’t mean to snarl but the burning desire has become an inferno within him now as he surrenders. His teeth find her shoulder, gripping the rough scales until the taste of copper washes over his eager tongue. Somehow, it was never this violent when he imagined it. Vulgaris swore he’d be gentle and caring but now he wants to mark her so she knows she always belongs to him. Shiya had found her comfort in the caresses of others before him and he wants to make her pay for it now.

    When he finishes, he’s gasping for breath and her blood is dripping from his chin. He slides off of her with a sheen of sweat coating him. There is some inkling of shame already contaminating him but he’s too tired to care about it for now.

    Instead, he presses his shoulder to hers once more and lazily rests his head over her neck.

    I’m sorry for biting you,” he says quietly now. The apology is sincere and yet it feels odd in his mouth. This is the first time he’s ever felt bad for hurting someone, he realizes.
    " ancient language, speak through fingers. the awful edges where you end and i begin. "
    @[Shiya]
    #7
    Shiya
    Everyone knows not to interrupt the knot of mating snakes.
    Everyone knows better.
    Everyone knows how dangerous that could be.

    Shiya offers herself to him, crumbling in the face of her temptations and primal desires. She never realized how desperately she wanted this until he was navigating the length of her body, exploring each one of her curves with lust and hunger burning in his eyes. Slowly, her head turns to glance back at him with a venomous smile stretching across her lips. All yours, she doesn’t say, but her brows quirk daringly. Greed anchors them to each other and blots out the rest of the world, even for just a few minutes. But there is something more in Shiya, a greater feeling that has never before tainted her mind.

    When she breathes him in – he is on her now, marking her, claiming her – she can still smell Leliana and the innocence of a child. He has a family that she wants to destroy. Knowing how long Vulgaris has latched onto her and loved her, Shiya uses it to her advantage.

    He bites her, drawing blood and drowning his lips in it. A flinch is the only indication of her initial pain and shock, a hiss slipping like velvet from her tongue. Still, she doesn’t look back at him or pull away; she embraces the stinging of the punctures and pictures what beautiful monster will come of this. It will be beautiful because it’s theirs.

    When he apologizes he is draping his head across her neck, his breath labored from the exertion. Smiling, Shiya looks back and nibbles on his shoulder while noting the blood trailing crookedly down her scales. ”Don’t apologize,” she whispers as though afraid anything louder would shatter the tenderness of this moment. ”All of this is meant to be,” it took her years to realize it, but now she seizes the opportunity with an iron fist and open heart. All of her attempts to be loved were crushed and destroyed and mirrored by defective children. Not this time. Slipping out from underneath him, she melts back into his side, her hips adjacent to his shoulder so that she may trail her own fangs down his spine to his croup. ”I hope you realize, Vulgaris, that I’m the only one that can love you the way you need to be,” a hum vibrates through her core as a poisonous snarl hides against his hip, ”No one can truly love monsters like us.”

    For you, I'd give my last breath


    @[vulgaris]
    #8
    VulgariS
    take me, take me back to your bed. i love you so much that it hurts my head.
    say, i don't mind you under my skin. oh, let the bad parts in, the bad parts in.
    He knows that she will hunt Leliana just as he tries to hunt Dov, thwarted as always by the muzzle of diplomacy. But Shiya has no leash and no collar, and so she could hunt his lover as easily as breathing. Vulgaris feels the anguish that comes before the hunt and that is why he cannot bring himself to harm his sister. Instead, he resigns himself to the fate of exiling Leliana from Loess, from the danger that comes from loving a monster like him. Already it aches but he has no time to mourn his loss before Shiya reaches her greedy fingers into the deepest reaches of his heart. She finds all his most precious emotions and she crushes them in her fist. She doesn’t hesitate for even a second.

    I know.. I know…” he mumbles against her skin as she slips past him to tease the points of her teeth against his spine. “No one can ever love me but you.

    It aches to speak the words but he clings to the truth of them as though they’ll save him from drowning. He will be her plaything and he will be thankful for the opportunity to serve, he tells himself coldly. How could he ever have honestly believed he deserved someone as kind and soft as Leliana? How selfish could he be to deny her the life she was meant for? This pain is the payment for his narcissism, surely. Only anguish such as this could absolve him of his sins.

    He leans his cheek against the scales of her hips and sighs slowly as the last hopeful piece of him seals itself away in the dark recesses of his mind. He turns his thoughts to the grim future instead. Come spring, each of them will bring another of his children into this world. Vulgaris wonders what sort of awful thing will come from their coupling.

    Are you going to stay here with me?

    The idea of sleeping alone after having spent the past year with Adna tucked against him terrified him. There would never be another morning where he saw the way the morning light caught Leliana’s cheek. Now, he would only wake to the cold and the rain. To emptiness. Maybe if Shiya remained the sight of her scales would comfort him. Maybe they would drive him mad.

    "I'll make them all leave if you stay."
    @[Shiya]
    #9
    Deep down all you want is love
    The pure kind we all dream of


    The thought of having lost Vulgaris in the oceanic depths spurred this sickening madness in her to hold him and anchor him to her side. Shiya doesn’t hesitate anymore, relishing in his company and realization that life led them back together for a reason. Their purposes are each other, she confirms with a deep sigh while she rests her chin briefly against him. A malicious grin threatens to surface, but she suppresses it to retain the dwindling sense of innocence she possesses. ”Vulgaris,” she whispers his name with a lover’s tongue, cradling it in adoration as she rolls her eyes to look at him. ”You’ve always wanted this, so why so sad?” Before having seen his decaying corpse in the ocean, Shiya would have meekly sidestepped out of the way of his family; she would force herself to suffer if it meant his happiness.

    Carnage helped her see how critical and pertinent Vulgaris is to her life and happiness.

    Funny how another man she desperately fucked pushed her into the arms of her brother.

    ”We will have a family,” there’s a happiness blossoming inside her that hasn’t existed in decades. ”We will be a beautiful family again.” Last they had been such a thing was when mother and father were alive, pressing kisses to their children’s’ heads. Larva and Dillan had a brood, and yet Shiya can only remember a couple, most prominently Vulgaris. A family of gray, black, and brown snakes borne of love. If only mother and father could see their legacy flourish. ”Of course we will stay with you,” a scoffing laugh echoes from the chasm of her throat, surprised he would consider her abandoning him. Shiya’s head slowly shakes before it stills enough for her to resume nibbling his hip while he rests his cheek on hers.

    Then, trying to hammer the nails in the coffin, she sideways adds, ”I’ll remain here with you so she can go back to her other man.” Shiya doesn’t know the validity of the statement, doesn’t know about Leliana’s history with Dovev and Vulgaris, but it doesn’t stop her from trying. ”There’s no need for her to live a double life anymore,” an adoring kiss is pressed to his hip and her eyes drift slowly shut in innocence, ”I’ll always love you.”

    SHIYA

    But we cannot escape the past,
    so you and I will never last

    original html by Jassal



    I'm dumb and forgot to change the username
    @[vulgaris]
    #10
    VulgariS
    take me, take me back to your bed. i love you so much that it hurts my head.
    say, i don't mind you under my skin. oh, let the bad parts in, the bad parts in.
    Why is he so sad, if this was all he used to dream of? He asks himself the same question but he can’t see clearly into himself anymore. It’s all muddy and everything he thought was certain before crumbles between his fingers now. He’s left scraping at the pieces of what his life used to be and trying to piece together some semblance of a happy future like some ransom note for his heart. But he comes up with nothing and so he doesn’t reply. He just lets the moment die like every other opportunity he had before today.

    She assures him that his new family will be beautiful and he lets her words pacify him for now, tries not to think of Adna’s first steps or the day he found Leliana again. It chokes him up but he bites his tongue to keep from thinking about it. No, all he has now is the unborn child in Shiya’s belly, whatever awful thing is spawned from their love. Her laughter almost sounds like broken glass when he asks her to stay, but she promises she will so that’s enough for now. He just wishes she would sink her teeth into his hip instead of teasing the venomous point against his skin. It sends a sick shiver up his spine every time and he’s ashamed by how much he enjoys it.

    Her other man,” he parrots back to her, dumb and empty. She’s right, he thinks. She won’t have to pretend to love him anymore. Leliana can seek out whoever it is she really loves while Vulgaris remains here in the perfect cell he’s made for himself. Shiya can pick him apart and stitch him back together into whatever shape suits her awful needs best.

    I’ll always love you.

    Whether he means Shiya or Leliana remains unclear, as he doesn’t elaborate on the words any further. He simply closes his eyes and waits for sleep to bring him those nightmares where everything is red and pain, where he gets everything he deserves.
    @[Shiya]




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