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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


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    don't know what I'm supposed to do; chaol
    #1

    I don't know what I'm supposed to do, haunted by the ghost of you

    She wants to seek him out, to find comfort in his steady friendship, but she cannot bear to face him.

    She cannot bear to look him in the eye and try to hide away the way that she has been hollowed out, the way that her heart has shattered and the pieces of it have been used to scrape away at her insides. She knows that she still bears the marks of Vulgaris, of her husband. She knows that her wing remains battered and the wounds are still fresh at its base where he bit down to hold her still, where the flesh parted and her blood flooded into his mouth. She knows all of this and so she hides away.

    She struggles to eat, to drink, to sleep.

    She struggles to do anything, except pretend around her daughters.

    For them, she is able to put on a brave face, although it falters around the edges. She kisses them and ignores the curious eyes that the slide toward her shoulder, her wings. She tells them stories and sends them on their way, at least content to know that Vulgaris was no risk to them. He wouldn’t harm them.

    She was a different matter entirely.

    But he wouldn’t hurt their daughters.

    Today, her daughters are off on an adventure, and she retreats to the shadows. The skin is taut around her face, although she has not yet lost the weight she will surely lose on this path. But it is not the sharpness in her cheekbones or the fresh wounds on her sides that tell the story of her despair. It is the dullness in her eyes and the way that the fire she always carried, that she always buried so deep in her soul has gone out. Her fingers fumble around her strength, and for the first time through everything, she feels lost.



    @[Chaol]

    i kind of thought it would be fun to end the current thread and pick up a new one after what happened between vul and her because i am Very Dramatic.
    [Image: avatar-1975.gif]
    the heaviness in my heart belongs to gravity
    #2
    There really shouldn’t be any reason why he felt so uneasy. The sun was warm and he was soaking up the little bit of warmth that it provided on this particularly nice day. Nice for winter anyways. The sun was shining and there didn’t appear to be a cloud in the sky. But there was still an itch under his feathers that he couldn’t quite scratch no matter how many times he tried. It was a fingertip along his spine and a restless unease that kept his hooves moving through the light dusting of snow.

    His ears flicker back amongst the windblown tendrils of his mane and he chomps his teeth in irritation. This was not how he wanted to spend his day.

    He snorts then, his hair falling across his face and obscuring his vision. At least for a little bit, until he found his way amongst the trees and had to weave his way around them. So it’s actually a bit of a surprise to find her hidden away amongst the shadows of the trees. Where the wind seems to have more of a bite without the subtly warm rays of the sun.

    He pauses, an automatic smile curling his lips as he watches her. She hadn’t noticed him yet, but the longer he watched her, the more that restless unease he had been carrying inside him all damn day seemed to get worse. He narrows her eyes, watching her, seeing her still not move for minutes now.

    Something was not right.

    He moves towards her with a purpose. He takes one long look at her face and rage, absolute murderous rage rises in his. It takes him a long moment to tuck it away, but his body is already sliding alongside her own, his eyes taking in her wounds and giving him a moment to push away that loathing. In his experience there was only one reason that she would be so absolutely broken. “I’m going to fucking kill him Lily.” He grumbles, his wing sliding across her back and tucking her up against his side. His lips find her neck and they trace a soft path along to her cheek.

    An opposite of what she had been through under Vulgaris. Everything he did was soft, light, gentle. Even if he almost trembled with rage. “Come on baby. Let it out.” The endearment slipping past his lips without thought and it’s not something that he catches. Far too worried about her. Far too angry to think straight. “I need you to use your magic and heal yourself sweet girl. Come on. You can do it. I need you to. Okay?” His worried (mixed with that anger he still couldn’t quite tuck all the way away) eyes find hers.


    @leliana ok! lol
    #3

    I don't know what I'm supposed to do, haunted by the ghost of you

    She cannot help it, she jerks when he first touches her.

    It is instinctual, a shuddering, a loss of innocence that she has so long fought so hard to keep. Her skin flinches and she turns her head so that he cannot see the tears that stain her cheeks or the way that her eyes give her away. She knows that one look there and he would know everything. He would know that she is a failure, that she is weak, that she keeps going back to the things that only break her.

    That she still lives here, even after what he has done.

    That she still bears the mark of him, even though she could make them go away.

    She frowns at his growl, his snarling words burying into her head. “No,” she chokes out. “Please.” She doesn’t know why she protests it. If it’s because, despite everything, she still loves the scaled stallion who attacked her—who warned her to stay away from him before he fled. If it is because he is her daughter’s father. If it’s because she loves Chaol and cannot stand the thought of him getting beneath Vulgaris’ poisonous fangs. Or if it’s because she simply cannot stomach the thought of more violent, more hurt.

    Regardless, she doesn’t retract the softly spoken words and just leans into his touch, letting his wings slip over her back and his touch to linger. He urges her to let it out, but she feels empty—hollow. “I don’t think I have anything left to give,” she whispers softly, confessing the one thing that she has been terrified to admit. “I think it’s all gone.” She looks out into the horizon, but she doesn’t see anything, barely feels anything—not the heat of him next to her or the breeze on her back or the blood dripping down her sides.



    @[Chaol]
    [Image: avatar-1975.gif]
    the heaviness in my heart belongs to gravity
    #4
    He doesn’t take that flinch personally. He understands. He knows.

    Nor does he worry about what she is trying to hide from him when her face turns away. He can be patient and persistent when he needed to be.

    But never did he think she was weak or a failure or less than she was. Because in his world, she was an absolute warrior queen, even now, even when she felt like she was adrift in an endless ocean. He would never think she was less. Never.

    She protests and he can only sigh. “I wouldn’t do it anyways Lily. Not even as much as I want to.” Some of the rage slips out on the sigh that he blows past his lips. “I wouldn’t do that to your daughters or to you.” He presses his lips against her cheek when she tries to look away. When she doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “You don’t have to hide from me.”

    He says the words softly, soft rushes of warm air along her cheek.

    “It’s there. It seems gone right now because you’ve been betrayed by the one man who was supposed to love you beyond everything.” The fires burn hotter in his belly, his anger needed an outlet but it would have to simmer for now. He presses soft touches everywhere he can reach, calming even if he was not calm. Showing her that without a doubt she was more. She would be more. “But it’s there. You are going to have to dig a little to find it again sweet girl.”

    And he would be there for her, every damn step of the way. “You don’t have to do it today. You just sit here with me and let me fuss okay?” A small smile curls his lips, slightly strained around the edges, but it was a smile.

    @[leliana]
    #5

    I don't know what I'm supposed to do, haunted by the ghost of you

    He is being sweet, she knows, and part of her warms beneath it, but not nearly enough of her.

    His kindness barely brushes past the surface, and she hears the words as an echo—as a ripple in the water overheard. She strains toward it, pushes the edges of the walls that hold her close, but she relaxes and stops trying. She wonders at the effort it takes to keep breathing, at the physical thought that she has to put into it—the way her lungs barely expand, at the way she has to force it every time.

    Would Chaol think less of her if he knew just how difficult it was to keep breathing?

    Poor sad, pathetic Leliana. Broken again.

    She chokes back a sob that threatens to claw up her throat when she thinks of how many times he has found her like this—broken and battered. How many times can she fall apart before it becomes her fault? How many times can she crumble to dust before it’s her own hand that has done the damage?

    She doesn’t have the answers. Doesn’t want to figure out the answers. She wants to sink into memories. She wants to be young again, hopeful again. She can feel it now. Sleeping in a meadow with a strange bone-armored boy wrapped around her. His lips feverish and his eyes kind and her heart erupting in her chest for the very first time. It is a hint of warmth that burns the edges, nearly breathes life into her, but she drops the memory—watches as it flows, as it sinks, further and further down until it is gone again.

    “Okay,” is all she finally says, although she isn’t even sure what she is responding to.

    She turns her head and presses it into his neck, doing her best to focus on breathing.

    “Okay.”

    No more tears fall, and she can’t decide if that’s better or worse.



    @[Chaol]
    [Image: avatar-1975.gif]
    the heaviness in my heart belongs to gravity




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