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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


    Anyone;
    #1
    Deep down all you want is love
    The pure kind we all dream of


    She walks into the valley of death with frigid stoicism. They are crumpling in pain, screaming in agony, and silently dying. Blood is splattered across the leaves, evidence of Beqanna’s suffering. A look of contempt crosses her face, her lip curling in distaste. Sick things they are, but she walks without fear among them, her barrel heavy with child. The safe lands are not a necessity, but a luxury at this time. While she played a small part in this chaos, it at least paid off and she cannot be touched.

    She is strong. The others are weak.
    Perhaps this will thin out the population. Survival of the fittest, after all.

    A clap of her jaws silences her mind from roaming to the flea, her mere existence parasitical. It could have been solely Shiya and Vulgaris; that is what’s meant to be, but it’s slipping through her fingers like every one before him. This is simply her life – past, present, future – and her thoughts often tumble over anger and sorrow. Each of her children have been discarded for their defects and weaknesses and so she is alone in this cruel world. As desperately as she has craved affection, Shiya comes to a pause and attempts to nail in her mind that she can be independent, that maybe she isn’t destined for a life like mother’s. She’s more dangerous than Dillan anyways.

    Leaning to her left, Shiya scrapes her scales along a tree, removing dry snakeskin in the process. The sound echoes through the forest but she barely heeds her surroundings, her arrogance fooling her into a sense of full security. She cares not, however, no matter how foolish that may be. There are other dangers in the world, but with her thoughts tucked back and reeling she is too distracted to take notice.

    SHIYA

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

    original html by Jassal
    Reply
    #2
    Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,
    With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,
    And eyes squeezed shut ‘neath rusty mane;



    Their second meeting had been as brief as the first, with no consummation this time (though wracked with desires of all kinds, the particular drive for procreation is no longer so strong upon him).
    Yet he has thought of her in the time that passed, of the sun on her scales, the way she had looked at him, known him. He’d been too forward, he thinks now, to confess so much to a woman who is all but a stranger (‘I died,’ he said, ‘you’re still so beautiful,’ he said).

    And in the interim, Beqanna was struck again – disease, this time. He received the warning, the visions, but he did not heed them, did not flee to a safe land. Perhaps it’s foolish, an ideation (he knows he’s already so sick, what are a few physical symptoms, piled atop it?).
    He has never been particularly frightened of death, after all.
    He excepts to see illness, here, horses sick or even dying, and he is prepare for that, stone-eyed. He does not expect to see her again – he’d thought, if their paths deigned to cross again, it would be years and years.
    “Shiya,” he says, greeting, nervous, “how are you?”


    Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;
    I never saw a brute I hated so;
    He must be wicked to deserve such pain.


    Reply
    #3
    Deep down all you want is love
    The pure kind we all dream of


    She didn’t expect to see anyone, not here, not now.

    So many have fled, wanting an escape from the pestilence consuming Beqanna. Their thunderous footsteps echo in her ears as a disinterested glance lifts her eyes to see them fade in the dust. Goodbye, she thinks to them, wondering how long until their bodies fall to the ground and die, succumbing to the sickness that spreads around her like wildfire. The few who remain are brave – or stupid, or immune – but she doesn’t pursue them. Shiya remains steadfast, quietly observing until a voice says her name. It’s gentle, far sweeter than her brother’s jaded criticism that he has since adopted. The familiarity soothes the wounds Vulgaris has since carved into her.

    In truth, she is awful, but the words never come to fruition as she slowly turns to face him. What remained of her bitterness toward the world melts away when their eyes connect – his orange to her green.

    ”Garbage,” she savors the tingle across her tongue when she tastes his name, her eyes brightening in surprise – and admittedly, joy – that he even remembers her. Such a shy and meek girl she had been when they coupled. Times have changed, but even then, her walls crumble in front of him. ”I’m well,” a hollow lie that cuts deeply into her as she looks down, suddenly ashamed of her showing pregnancy now that he is here. Why? Their meeting had been so brief – they weren’t lovers, not in a fairytale way – and yet shame poisons her underneath his Halloween eyes. ”I’m alive,” she half-heartedly adds, knowing well that she is merely surviving and not truly living. Happiness and fulfillment are prerequisites, and she has not experienced either. Her children are all defective, her heart has been ripped from her chest and shredded, and she serves no purpose.

    She is just here, existing.

    With a slow, contemplative blink, Shiya lifts her eyes to him again as a feeble grin climbs across her scaled lips. ”And you? Are you not worried of infection?”

    SHIYA

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

    original html by Jassal


    @[garbage]
    Reply
    #4
    Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,
    With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,
    And eyes squeezed shut ‘neath rusty mane;



    He only notices the swell of her stomach when she faces him head on. He feels a pang, a kind of distant sadness for the child, which will be born into a strange and sick world. He doesn’t know the effect of the disease on children, assumes it’s nothing good.
    She responds to his questions with frivolous niceties, tone dry enough that even he notices it. He wonders what her reasoning is, for being out here, if she shares the same ideations he does – not any kind of bravery, but a sort of apathy, a disinterest in health.

    “I’m glad,” he says, and maybe it’s his attempt at a joke, his response to her statement of livelihood. He even smiles, a little, though it takes him a moment to curve his lips in the right way.
    “I…well, what’s the saying? ‘I have no fear of death after what life has shown me.’ The idea of infection doesn’t give me much pause.”
    Stupid, perhaps, to make it so obvious, how little he values his own life. But he is often so stupid.
    “What about you?”


    Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;
    I never saw a brute I hated so;
    He must be wicked to deserve such pain.


    Reply
    #5
    Deep down all you want is love
    The pure kind we all dream of


    I’m glad, he says, and Shiya wants to both curl into herself and also press into him. The conflict arises in her soul, coiling with the contractions branching through her body. Was it the guilt or the lust that tickled her first, she wonders, as her eyes trace across the youthful edges of his face. ”I’m not sure anymore,” the confession slips unbidden, and her eyes widen with the realization before falling to her feet. Silence blankets across her. One heartbeat, then another. Emotions choke her, but she desperately swallows them down to save herself from drowning underneath the weight. Her words hang limp in the space between them, sodden with a painful truth that corrupts her thoughts.

    ”Death,” she echoes upon hearing it spoken in his voice, as lighthearted as it is. A fleeting smile quivers across her lips as she favors the humor that she has never before seen him exploit. ”That’s what happened to you?” At this, her emerald eyes slide across him, scrutinizing the changes he has underwent. The spider web of scars have faded with the dimness of his gaze. Where there had once been defeat now lives hope. Shiya levels on him, nodding. ”You look good. Maybe dying isn’t so bad then,” she becomes distant, contemplative, ”or something to be afraid of.” The threat of it looms over her, drumming to the beat of Vulgaris’ pulse.

    He would be the one to kill her.
    It won’t be this plague.

    A dreamy hum sounds even more beautiful when contrasted against the self-loathing and venom of its musician. She looks up at the gray sky, weighing her options before coolly – almost eerily so – admitting, ”I’m immune.” Perhaps she was a fool, or perhaps a genius, to have helped Carnage raise Pangea from the depths. Without elaborating, Shiya brushes her muzzle to her leg, ignoring the pains sprouting from her abdomen.

    SHIYA

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

    original html by Jassal


    @[garbage]
    Reply
    #6
    Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,
    With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,
    And eyes squeezed shut ‘neath rusty mane;



    He’d slipped from the jaws of death many times – he should have died, as a foal, when his mother abandoned him. It had been sheer luck that another mare had found him, had loved him.
    (And what had happened to her? Ah, but he forgets, or he tells himself he forgets. He can only bear the weight of so many sins.)
    He should have died when he returned to the deserts, tore out his eyes for his mother, for Craft, bleeding on the sand. He was dying, until the magician found him, and crafted him into the image of another, and he, made dumb and passive in the wake of his mother’s death, had obeyed.
    And he had died, finally – but the jaws of death that had swallowed him had spat him back out, like something gone rotten.

    “Yes,” he says, “and I can’t decide if I wish I’d stayed dead, or not.”
    There’d been peace, in the waves. He knew no one’s names, in the waves.
    (He should have known, when he woke on the beach, in an in-between. It was the first sign he wouldn’t stay dead. The first slap of consciousness.)
    “I don’t wish to glamourize it, though--” he amends, “it’s not for everyone.”
    Not for him, apparently.
    She admits her immunity, then, which is odd – he knows of no one immune, only of the safe lands. He steps closer, as if her immunity was a tangible thing, something that could be spotted on her body, like a mark in lamb’s blood, telling the plague to stay away.
    “How?” he asks, “you must be lucky.”
    He’s wrong, of course. He so often is.


    Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;
    I never saw a brute I hated so;
    He must be wicked to deserve such pain.




    @[Shiya]
    Reply
    #7
    Deep down all you want is love
    The pure kind we all dream of


    ”I’ve thought about it,” she quietly admits, her voice barely more than a whisper. She doesn’t know whether she should be ashamed because she is pregnant, because it isn’t only her life that would be lost. There’s another beautiful monster inside her, stirring, wanting its grand escape. Yet she holds onto it, trying desperately to prolong the delivery as she debates whether death would be easier for them both.

    It could be an escape for them both.
    They could be together forever.
    They wouldn’t have to face Vulgaris and his disappointment.

    Funny how arrogance washed across her at first and led her to believe that she would be fine. She arrived here confident, sure of herself although angry. But Garbage’s return and soft voice has lifted the blindfold from her eyes, exposing her true weakness. A breath sighs from her lungs. ”You’re alive for a reason,” a jagged smile quivers across her lips, her eyes slowly blinking as she maps out his face again, remembering every line and the curve of his jaw. Perhaps he is supposed to pull her out of this rut.

    Ha. Of course, she would fantasize of such selfish things.
    Such a self-centered, stupid girl.

    When he steps closer, she does as well. While he searches for reasons to her immunity, she searches for reassurance. Her lips reach forward and gingerly brush against his cheek, wanting to feel something – anything. A dying chuckle barely reaches fruition. It almost falls back down her throat unheard. ”No,” she murmurs, ”I’ve never been lucky.” Having been born into a loving family was likely the first and last time she experienced luck. She’s amazed that her heart is still capable of beating after having been broken so many times.

    SHIYA

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

    original html by Jassal


    @[garbage]
    Reply
    #8
    Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,
    With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,
    And eyes squeezed shut ‘neath rusty mane;



    She is kind in a way she should not be, not to him.
    It’s too easy, you see – for her to look at him with a gaze that is familiar and new all at once, to speak a simple kindness to him. Such small, common things, but it makes his heart twist, it makes him
    want. Makes him hope.
    Such a dangerous thing, hope.
    Yet it wrenches through him as his stomach flutters at her smile, broken thing that it is, at her kind words. Alive for a reason.
    He doesn’t know the reason, not at all. He is not a good man (there are too many sins in his past, a mountain of them, for this alone, he is better off dead). He has done nothing to improve the world, or even to change it, he has wandered Beqanna a nomad ever since he was a child. He has not kept track of his children, but has not heard their names on anyone’s lips, because they, too, are a shade of worthlessness.
    “There’s no reason I know of,” he says, soft. The words are self-pitying, and he hates himself for it, but the truth has always spilled too easy from his lips.

    And then she is closer, and touching him – oh, she shouldn’t do that, he’s too weak – and he holds his breath, fixed on the warmth of her, frozen in the brief intimacy of the moment.
    Then he touches her, too, a moment of his mouth against her neck, the odd mix of scales and hair, slick and unfamiliar against his touch. He withdraws, then, fighting to urge to keep touching her, because he doesn’t want her to run, and surely she will if he keeps down this terrible path.
    “I’m sorry,” he says, as if he is the cause for her misfortune, “you deserve so much more.”


    Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;
    I never saw a brute I hated so;
    He must be wicked to deserve such pain.


    Reply
    #9
    Deep down all you want is love
    The pure kind we all dream of


    ”Maybe it’s to keep me sane,” she murmurs as her viridian eyes lift to his orange, searching his unmarked face and the gentleness that it expresses, ”Maybe it’s to talk me off the ledge.” The aftermath of Vulgaris’ threat has been nothing more than dismal. Every thought that trickled into her mind involved her own demise, and even the child’s growing in her womb. It seemed so feasible, so great of an idea, that her wanderings frequently placed her at the beach where corpses littered the sand. She watched in silence as the waves lapped soothingly at the sand, a metronome whispered to her and luring her closer.

    And every time, she turned away, unable to follow through.

    A sigh of air escapes her – a breath she didn’t know was being held – when Garbage touches her, too. It’s strange now to feel only hair under her lips, no scales. There are no fangs tracing down her neck such as when Vulgaris embraced her. Garbage is tender, comforting. Admittedly, he retracts far too soon, too quickly. She wants more. She wants to press into him, to know what it is to melt into someone so gentle. Even as he peels his mouth from her neck, Shiya remains rooted. Her softened gaze rarely strays from him as she reminisces of their rendezvous together, and how fleeting it had been. She was desperate then, but not much has changed. Without confessing it to others, her heart aches for love and companionship but her mind has resigned from the futile efforts.

    A hum vibrates her core as she blinks and tries to sweetly smile. I don’t, she wants to challenge and say, but instead she whispers, ”Thank you.” It would be bothersome if she disagreed with his apology, as if he has a role in her life’s turmoil.

    (They have a child, but it’s her fault it’s defective. It’s always her fault.)
    Cretin, she remembers. Their son is Cretin.

    Garbage doesn’t ask – she doesn’t expect him to – and she is pleased to push her mistakes aside and avoid announcing how terrible of a mother she is. None of her children love her. How could they? Heartlessly, Shiya discarded each of them because nothing was able to fill the void in her pitted heart and soul. They were bothersome attempts of happiness; they were her failures.

    Unable to resist (so desperate, so inclined to feel something), Shiya edges again closer to him, but she gives pause, briefly. ”Hold me?” Her voice is soft, meek even, just as it had always been. Such a fool she was to think herself strong and independent. Breathing him in and waiting for him to decide, she refrains for only a few moments longer before asking, ”Have you ever been happy, Garbage?”

    SHIYA

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

    original html by Jassal


    @[garbage]
    Reply
    #10
    Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,
    With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,
    And eyes squeezed shut ‘neath rusty mane;



    She offers reasons for his paltry existence, and he wants to grasp at them. He wonders, daringly, if she would keep him around for such things, though he would no doubt fail. He has failed them all, when given the opportunity, and no doubt it would happen again. But it’s nice enough, to pretend, so he does no argue with her reasoning.

    When he withdraws from his initial touch it’s not long before she follows, and his heart lifts at it, because he wants her close, of course he does, he wants all manner of things from her, none of which he expects her to give, because she is pregnant and no one with someone else, someone who is not so miserly as he, and she will return to them when this – whatever
    this is – ends, and he will be forgotten.
    But oh, hope flutters in his stomach like birds, a whole flock of them, and when she makes her request he is only too willing to oblige, ever the fool, ever hungry to touch and be touched.
    He does – he closes what distance is left between them again, chest pressing to hers, wondering if she can feel the thrum of his heart through his chest. His muzzle traces her neck, her withers, moving slow, savoring every sense of her he can wrench from this moment – the scent of her, the feel of her beneath his muzzle, the warmth of her skin on his.

    It’s only then, drunk on the sense of her, that he answers the question.
    “There are moments,” he says, “when I think I’m happy, or at least that happiness is within my grasp.”
    This is almost such a moment, but he doesn’t say it. She will leave soon enough, he is sure, and he doesn’t want to hasten her departure.
    “What about you, Shiya? Have you ever been happy?”


    Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;
    I never saw a brute I hated so;
    He must be wicked to deserve such pain.




    Shit just pretend I posted this from garbages account i noticed this too late
    Reply




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