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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


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    i'll burn it down; Camomila
    #1

    A sick thought can devour the body's flesh more than fever or consumption.

    She is veiled in moonlight, following a beaten path in the snow beside the heart shaped lake. The cold is biting, it sinks past her flesh to find the marrow in her bones, but it is worth it. The next step is important. The next step is critical, because nothing is going to plan, at least not yet. It’s taking too long when every second costs as much as it does — when every second is one more moment that the world is infested, that everything becomes contaminated.

    But Phasus can fix it.
    She has no choice but to fix it.

    “Hello,” she mewls into the frozen air when she sees the tangle of a body in the dark before her. The sound of her own voice is grating, like she is pitiful, like she is a desperate, stupid thing when she is only one of the three. She burrows deep inside herself and conjures her softest smile, snuffing the wildfires from her eyes as she starts to speak:

    “Are you the one they say has laid claim? I hate to bother you, but I’m worried we’re running out of time to do what needs to be done. The sick are everywhere, and we can’t trust the fairies that in these places we are safe from them. They’ve lied to us before. The sick already have safe passage through the other safelands to heal and become better. We need a space free of contamination in case things go south, in case this island becomes the only salvation — for our friends, and our families. I’m worried that the longer we wait the more likely it is that this place is compromised, too. We have to act.”

    She doesn’t wait to see if this is, in fact, who she has been seeking. The monologue and the mask are not wasted regardless of who she has stumbled upon in the night. She needs every ally she can manage if she is going to pull this off, if she is going to save her skin. 

    “It will be hard to turn them away, but I can do it so you won’t have to.  Let me help, back my claim. In exchange, you can have this place for your own when the world is safe again.”

    And then she lets the silence settled between their bodies.
    And then she waits.


    phasus



    @[Camomila]
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    #2
    She stayed until she found herself standing under the cloak of night. Camomila found that there was something unique about the isle that she had not been aware of until now. At first glance, there was nothing but snow and ice in the north, an empty tundra. It was like a world with no color. Until now.

    The isle showed its true and hidden beauty once the dark curtains fall. Lights danced in the sky, flowing like the elegant slither of a snake. A beautiful blue hue shone on the white land, enveloping it in a glow that added more mystery. She watched the dancing light with amazement, unmoving, seemingly enchanted. The more she stayed on the isle she more she came to love it. 

    The north was different from the south side, however. The south was more inhabitable, definitely the place for her subordinates (those who couldn’t handle the merciless temperatures of the north) to live if she were to win the land. Smiling to herself, she lowered her head away from the sky. 

    That’s when it happened.

    A mare came to her, seemingly distressed when she spoke. Camomila’s icy eyes stared at the mare widely, blinking from startlement. “Yes?” She replied with more of a question, wondering what it was the mare was wanting, and where exactly she came from. She hadn’t noticed her before, but she had been distracted by the northern lights. Her startlement then subsided and was replaced with curiosity, as well as a hint of suspicion that only shone in her cold eyes when the mare spoke once more.

    She listens to what the distraught woman has to say, her ears raising and eyes widening with alarm as each new word passed off her tongue. It was disturbing news indeed, mainly because it was proof that her suspicions were indeed correct. There was illness going around and making others ill. But from hearing this mare’s words, it was highly contagious. It made sense to separate the ill from the ones whom haven’t been infected yet, but her conscience believed that it wasn’t quite right. 

    “Calm down,” she finally said, her tone even and serious, showing no signs of her inner concerns. She could understand why the mare would be feeling the need to show urgency; spreading illness was certainly something that called for quick action. But Camomila wasn’t entirely convinced by her words that this was the best course of action. True, separating the ill from the others is a good idea indeed, and it didn’t necessarily suggest abandonment. But how could they be cared for on their own? And, there was something else. 

    “Why do you need me to back your claim?” She asked, eyes narrowing questioningly. “I am magicless, and I have no power. What could I possibly do that no one else can?” The mare’s offer was tempting, but she knew better than to believe words so quickly. This mare clearly had a different insight on what should be done about the ill and the lands use. But why? The mare’s plea was very convincing, but Camomila needed to hear more before deciding to do anything.

    @[Phasus]
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    #3

    A sick thought can devour the body's flesh more than fever or consumption.

    She is a clever, pretty thing.

    For as delicate as she appears to be, Phasus has never been dainty or demure — but now, for the sake of her passions she buffs her edges and smoothes them out as though she is made in the image of those words, as though she is only doing something as simple as ironing wrinkles from fabric. She looks soft when she needs to look soft, and small when she needs to look small. She extinguishes the wildfires in her eyes, replacing greed and smoke with concern at all of the most pivotal moments.

    God, give them the strength to withstand the furl and unfurl of her eyelashes against the tops of her cheeks because she is poison, even if she looks like an angel with the halo of moonlight that cradles her face.

    Every-so-often the light reflects off the sheen of the exposed bone in her wings, but the beauty of this isle is not something that occurs to Phasus as she listens, biding her time while the other mare speaks. In fact, she doesn’t even notice the sky as it flickers a thousand shades of blue, like some sort of oceanic kaleidoscope. She is too busy agonizing over her own skin, over the disease that creeps in on them like a cool wind; gently enough at first, until the chill finds you and settles in deep inside your marrow to take root.

    But she’s got it right, at least.
    This is the one she has been looking for tonight.

    The green mare confirms it herself when finally she asks why she is important to Phasus’ cause. The truth is that she isn’t, not desperately so, but that it is easier to catch flies with honey — to have them bend to her whims rather than break by them. For a moment though, Phasus pauses to humor her, tracing with her eyes the lines of her companion’s face now that the moonlight has thought to light it. To Camomila it will look as though she’s simply quietly contemplative, but she isn’t. Phasus already knows her lines, had crafted them carefully word-by-word and sentence-by-sentence hours before these moments.

    She’s only acting.
    She’s only showing Camomila exactly what she wants to see.

    It would be easier, she thinks, to stand before a man — to let him traces the bends of her slight body with hungry eyes and make him think he has a chance. Negotiating with women, at least most of them, was different. They weren’t driven by the same primal desires. Their knees didn’t quake when she looked up at them from under the curl of her dark eyelashes. She had to adjust her methods, appeal instead to a finely balanced sense of compassion and practicality, rather than sex.

    “Quite frankly,” she says at last, sighing deeply partially because the cold could steal the breath from her lungs and partially for the dramatic flair. “I don’t need you. If you reject my offer I’ll be inconvenienced, certainly, but not reeling by any stretch of the word.” There is just enough edge left in her voice to make it real, to coat the words in truth so they won’t taste so sweetly going down, like powdered treats. The words that follow become music that she conducts to rise and fall as she pleases, invoking a gentle sense of sincerity to them where there is certainly none.

    “I would like your support though. I would like for you to believe that what I am trying to accomplish here is in everyone’s best interest. Contrary to popular opinion, I am not a heretic, and my ideas are not radical simply for the sake of it.” This part is mostly true, though it is layered,  muddied at best, and peppered with gentle lies. Mostly, she is acting in her own best interest, though she is far from the only one trapped on this wasteland acting selfishly. At the core of it all every one of their reasons is selfish, isn’t it? Phasus is simply more transparent with her motives given that she speaks them all aloud, albeit in prettier ways than she is thinking them.  

    Camomila is desperate for something to call her own.
    Leilan is desperate to fall into his Queen’s good graces.

    Phasus is desperate to save her own skin,  no matter the cost, and to have the world know His name again.


    And at last, it comes, her finally tuned crescendo:

    “We don’t have the luxury of time to bicker amongst ourselves. I’ve already tried to reason with him. It occured to me very quickly, however, that you are likely the more reasonable of the two that have also laid claim. It is my hope that you’ll see it’s in all of our best interests not to put all our eggs in one basket. I only thought that if you could see that, too, perhaps he would be forced to acknowledge it for himself. The incentive is simply a gesture of my goodwill. Take it, or leave it. I won’t offer him the same deal, and speaking candidly, I don’t think he’s rational enough to rule himself let alone a nation in times of crisis.”

    And for all that she is (a predator, a snake in the grass), she comes across well. If they only knew that brimming behind her dark eyes is something so much darker.

    They don’t know that she will keep them out at any cost.
    They don’t know how badly she craves a cure.

    They don’t realize that she loves her own existence enough to threaten everyone else's.


    phasus



    @[Camomila]
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