• Logout
  • 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


    bottom of the deep blue sea; castile
    #1
    bottom of the deep blue sea
    The world was ugly with bruised skies of the most painful purples and sickening greens. Isobell regards it all with a glittering pewter eye and a slight frown creasing the smooth scales of her dark lips. It felt odd to be back in Beqanna after it felt as though she had been gone lifetimes in another world but her home was here, in a land swathed, a thousand times of layers binding.

    The wind curls around her delicate form, it teases and tugs at the mess of her mane, licking against the curve of her throat and swell of her breast. The children and Mist are off to explore the land that will be their new home and Isobell is certain Lothbrok will look after the group. He was her special child, more Isobell than Ivar, unlike the twins who took more after their sire. A smile, pleased by the daydream, blooms across her lips as the sky cracks and lightening splinters the sky in a shock of white light.

    The storm approaches on the horizon, she stands against it with a lifted skull, welcoming it to wash away the dirt and sins of her ageless body. She draws a deep breath, salt in her lungs and steel in her bones, Isobell is reborn her mother's daughter. Change was blooming in the depths of her mind and the desire swelling in her breast. She can feel the pulse of her strength just below the pallid and dark skin.

    Isobell, the Queen, was beginning to wake once again




    @Aeris <3<3
    Reply
    #2
    and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left
    a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
    Isobell is here; she’s returned, finally, but she has deliberately tucked herself away into Ivar’s embrace. Castile, admittedly, wants to be angry that she never thought to find him, but his frustrations are suppressed by the sheer unconditional love blooming in his heart for her. There is only Isobell that controls so much of his affection. She has witnessed him at a most vulnerable, and tender, moment with her body folded delicately into his own. They, in his mind, are the most beautiful siblings with their laughter and smiles brightened by their own company. The yearning for her, for that happiness, spurs him into motion. Ischia isn’t his home and yet he navigates as though it were Nerine.

    His eyes find her and her sweet scent confirms it when it delicately hugs the delicate lining of his nostrils. A shadow of a grin brings light to his rigid face, but it’s shadowed by his hesitation when he steps around the surrounding palm trees until she is near enough.

    ”My sister,” he whispers into the warmth between them as his eyes glide observingly across her, ”My sweet Isobell.” They’ve both undoubtedly changed with their maturity. There are puckered scars scattered across his skin, reading of his past battles, and a dark shadow that hoods his eyes because he isn’t the same loving boy that she knew him as. Blood is on his hands, disloyalty in his heart, and betrayal in his soul. Most days, Castile wonders if father would be ashamed of him? This isn’t the life he envisioned for himself, but the journey never goes accordingly. He has wandered astray so many times, each decision fruitless and leaving behind residual heartache and regret.

    But she, Isobell, is the balm for his healing wounds.
    Next to her, it all seems okay – that he isn’t entirely a fuckup.

    Instincts urge him forward and to pull her into his embrace just as they always have. ”I’ve missed you,” he confesses into her mane, trembling eagerly with her pressed so close. ”Tell me,” he swallows the rise of emotion in his heart, composing himself and keeping strong even as his mind recalls their childhood memories, ”where have you been? What have you been up to?”


    castile
    Reply
    #3
    bottom of the deep blue sea
    To witness the crumble of his handsome, torn features makes her heart shatter into a thousand pieces. Her brother, sweet, gentle, kind to her always. Isobell catches her breath in the hitch of her breast. She can feel hot rush to her eyes but she can not fight the unsought of emotion. The pied mare can not fight the desire to fold into her sibling's embrace and rushes to the crook of his neck and curling against him with the poll of her brow pressed under the curve of his thick jaw.

    The mare rubs against the curve, tangling the darkness of her hair. She had missed Castile fiercely and had not allowed herself to acknowledge the emotion until now when it all came flooding back. "I'm sorry...I had to leave." It was a shred of the truth that enveloped itself around the moonstone and obsidian mare. "But I'm back now. I won't leave again." There is a promise on her dark lips as her tones hush so they speak amongst themselves.

    Isobell feels the security of his embrace, the way his body blocks the chilled sea air, tangling their manes together. The scent of Ivar is blocked by the one of Castile and her memory jilts with remembrance of the Nerine seas, their laughter, the way she had said goodbye...

    The mare does not have to be a queen in his embrace. She can be the child of Nayl and Lior, a giggling, smiling girl. She can silly and glittering in the sunlight. The lashes fall over her silver eyes as she squeezes them hard to hold back a flood of precious memories. "I've missed you so much." The words slip between pressed lips, nearly hissed into an exhale of a labored fight to keep the hot tears from falling. "Where do you live now? How did you find me?"


    @Aeris
    Reply
    #4
    and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left
    a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
    Castile doesn’t want to let her go now that she has returned. Isobell folds so sweetly into his side and brings to life the memories he had long since suppressed. For the moment – in this beautiful moment – he forgets the world and all the stress that has consumed him. Suddenly, his mind entirely clears except for the dreaminess that Isobell elicits when he draws in the familiarity of her scent. From an outsider’s perspective, they could look like lovers with their bodies so tightly intertwined and their lips brushing against each other in adoring kisses.

    It’s enough to make even Ivar jealous.

    But when Castile peers down at his sister, he sees her as a child romping through the shallows with the brightest of smiles stretched across her face. He sees her just barely behind him as they raced across Loess with sweat lathering their coats.

    When he looks at Isobell, he sees happiness and love.

    ”Please don’t leave again,” in front of his peers Castile is fierce and stubborn, but he melts in front of his sister, ”I won’t be able to handle it.” His confession is spoken in a hushed tone, only for her to hear. ”I’ve been nothing more than a failure, but it all goes away when you’re with me. You’re my baby sister – you’re my strength. Our family is my inspiration.” He has only wanted to build what their parents had, but every opportunity has slipped through his fingers by his own doing. ”I need to just step back and get myself together. I need a touch of familial help.” Castile smiles then, gently, as Isobell glides her muzzle across his neck. Her touch is honeyed – so sweet, leaving him wanting more – and it pulls him close, unable to peel away from her even as his thoughts reel.

    Live. Where does he live, she asks, and he takes pause to consider an answer. It isn’t an easy response. There have been twists and turns in his path, highs and lows, and numerous uncertainties. ”I’m not really sure,” he finally admits with a rippling shrug of his shoulders. ”I went back to Nerine, but then the plague hit and everything is disheveled. Nerine seems to be struggling with its grasp, like it’s slipping in this disarray. And anyways, a stallion cannot get very far in a, still, mostly matriarchal society.” A resigning sigh slips from him, lost on the wind. ”I’ll figure something out.” Over the months, he has been restless. There is more to be had. More to gain.

    But what?

    Castile’s mismatched eyes blink slowly before leveling again on Isobell, a lopsided grin slowly stretching across his lips. ”Maybe I can get you out of here and away from Ivar for a bit. He told me he killed you which resulted in your… change.” Isobell was always a beautiful girl so he didn’t think it possible for her to become more so. And while he had been okay with her transition, he admittedly bristled when Ivar confessed to first drowning her. ”And now you swim with whale and fish poop instead of flying the sky as a dragon.”

    castile



    @[Isobell]
    Reply
    #5
    bottom of the deep blue sea
    She wonders if perfect and happiness could kill, would they die tonight? Woven tightly, lavishing in the warm of their embrace?

    The two equines speak so hushed, so closely, they could have been mistaken for lovers. No one was allowed from the outside to penetrate their bond. No other would be able to break the ties between them.

    Castile speaks, her heard are curled upward as he adoring gaze fixates upon his features. He has grown to be a breathtakingly handsome man, his features carved from granite under an master's skilled hand, even the gods above would have wept before his utter beauty! Isobell follows the lines of his face, tracing them, admiring the way they came together and broke apart. Then the tone, a vulnerable peek into the voided soul, her face crumples. "Never again, sweet brother..." Her voice matches his own as a furrow appears upon her scaled brow. Castile continues on, confessing the darkness, exposing his soul. Isobell can not help but press against him tighter.

    The pewter eyes meet his own mismatched ones as warm autumn air pulls at their hair. Isobell is suddenly aware of how the sea beckons to her (or perhaps Ivar) but she shrugs it all off. There is only she and Castle in this moment and Isobell imagined Ivar would not attempt to rip them apart for Isobell had grown strong. "You are welcome here, Castile...you are welcome anywhere I am." Her muzzle presses to his shoulder as she draws his scent deep into her lungs. He reminds her so much of their father...

    "You are not a failure." The words are punctuated with a curtness as she lifts her eyes upward to the dragonborn man. "If I ever hear that again, I will personally give you wallop." She speaks sternly before the expression melts away to her soft smile.

    But with the mention of Ivar, the smile flits away. Castile speaks of taking her away...of the drowning and her shame ripples across her features. Isobell turns her head away so he may not see that Isobell believes she may never leave Ivar for there was something that kept her to him...something binding. Isobell's death had been a secret for so long that it had hardened her. The drowning had not been accidnetal on that moon filled night after the harvest, by the river. Isobell had been just a girl, bumping ehr brother's friend, a bit drunk on the sweet air and fermented fruit...then he had drove her to the water and taken the life force away...Isobell still remembers floating and the sound of her heart beating despite no longer gasping for air. She knew she was dying...she knew no one would ever find her...till the same binding magic awoke something in her...something that burned like the flayed flesh of her now puckered, scarred withers (no scale grew there now).

    "Perhaps you could stay here for a bit...with me?" She asks gently, shaking away the trembles of her death as she relived it before Castile. The trauma had frozen her features momentarily as the silver eyes saw her own silent scream before the haze shook away and she once more gazed upon the beautiful features of her painted brother. There was a hopefulness he would say yes but she would never force him.
    Reply
    #6
    and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left
    a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
    A single wing unfurls from his side and drapes reassuringly across Isobell, hugging her closer if it’s even possible. They seemingly merge into one being as they clutch so tightly to each other. Their voices are barely above a whisper, the intimacy saved between two siblings. Everything else in the world is paused as Castile’s gaze fans across his sister’s natural beauty and how it enhances when she smiles up at him (just as she always has). Mother and Father would be proud to see their children so close, their family perfect and complete in every way.

    Black smoke billows from his nostrils, but the gesture is meaningless – almost a natural thing to him nowadays. It spirals and winds upward through the small space between them before fading and falling in suit with a soft wind. ”I will never be far from you, Isobell. I love you,” she is the only one that he has ever adored so sweetly, the only one who has never seen him lose to his inner demons. To Isobell, he only knows how to be tender and compassionate.

    ”I wouldn’t make our parents proud,” he confesses to her even after she reassured that he isn’t a fuckup or a failure. He wants to believe her, but struggles to when his memory replays his life every time he sleeps or blinks. ”I’ve hurt women I’ve cared for. I’ve abandoned them to raise our children alone. I’ve murdered.” His breath catches in his throat, knowing that she is unaware of the blood on his hands. Castile isn’t so perfect and kind – he is a predator, a monster.

    Reaching toward her scarred withers – he doesn’t know the trauma it experienced – he brushes softly across the bald patch. Where there would be scales, there is nothing. The rest of her body is smooth, almost like silk beneath his lips. Castile doesn’t ask, because he has his own puckered scars and an ear that is just barely split from his previous battles. Assuming Isobell is a warrior herself – much like their parents – he says nothing while mulling over the idea of being here, watching his sister wrap so closely and intimately with his childhood friend. ”Perhaps,” he finally murmurs, his voice gravelly and deep, ”I need to refocus myself. I need to figure out what I’m doing.” And in slight resignation, and confusion, Castile angles himself and presses his forehead against her neck.


    castile



    @[Isobell]
    Reply
    #7
    bottom of the deep blue sea
    The mention of children, nameless nieces or nephews, extension of their lines are roaming out beyond Ischia and Isobell can only imagine the beautiful offspring. Her thoughts drift to her own small brood that were currently in the deep waters of Ischia, with their father and learning the ways of the kelpie. Their mother chose to dwell upon the sand and soil rather than hunt for prey and so an outcast of the most delicate way possible.

    She was trapped between the sea and the sky. A blessed and cursed anomaly that was left to try and conform to either but she would never fully be one or the other.

    A sigh falls from between the lips of the woman but it is one that reflects her relief to hear her sweet brother agree to her soft demand that he stay, though it was formed into a gentle question, on her dark lips. The confession of his words wash over her in slow waves. There is no plausible way that Iso could imagine Castile hurting any mare, for their father (though absent often) had worshiped their mother. Perhaps it was their father's fault for not being there for the young Dragonborn. Perhaps it was Lior's doing (or lack of) that had allowed Castile to go astray. Isobell wonders briefly were the dark stallion lurked...

    The press of Castile's mouth to the scars of her withers causes her to flinch, the visible reaction of a trauma so long ago, she does not mean to shy but the memories were still woven in the once tattered flesh. Isobell attempts to save the reactions with a gentle chuckle, suppressing the uprising emotions that were sowed deeply in the puckered skin. Dark ears greedily devour his words and feel the pressure of her brother's weight against her body and she would always be the marbled pillar to hold him for all time.

    "Yes, stay with me. We can do it together. I love you too."
    Reply
    #8
    and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left
    a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
    Even as he confesses to her – painfully admits all his sins – Isobell is still so tenderhearted. Her embrace around him, their closeness, doesn’t waver despite the peril that he described. He is a failure to the family, and yet his sister refuses to see him in such poor, dim lighting. ”How did I get so lucky to have a sister like you?” There are so many broken families, so many turbulent relationships among siblings and yet their love for one another remains unblemished and pure. Despite the way she flinched beneath his soft caress of her withers, Castile presses a sweet kiss to the puckered flesh. ”I wish I could have intervened,” his heart trembles unhappily at the thought even if it’s far in the past now. ”He tried killing you like you were irrelevant, unimportant…” his jaws clench together and sharpen. Canines sink down from his gums in a brief loss of control, but he regains it with a slow intake of salty air.

    ”I’m sorry,” he mutters with a slow shake of his head, his forelock swaying across the ridges of his face, ”You love him?” He doesn’t ask in spite or in anger, but in sincere curiosity. As confirmation, his gaze searches hers, wanting to somehow feel and drown himself in the warmth of her love and adoration. Is it different from her perspective from his own? They both have children, but at least hers are only with Ivar while his coupling extends beyond just one woman.

    Father would be ashamed.

    Swallowing past the lump in his throat, Castile whispers, ”I’m not sure I’m capable of love.” With a weighted sigh, he drags his wing back across Isobell and curls it again to his side. The level of his head droops, too, embarrassed almost to even tell her this. The intricacies of their relationships have often been unchartered territory between them and yet the words spill like water past his lips. ”Every attempt has fallen apart…” because, as implied, there have been multiple.

    castile



    @[Isobell]
    Reply




    Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)