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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


    [mature]  blossoming alone over you
    #1
    litotes

    It is not fear that presses hesitation hot and hard down his throat.

    Or, perhaps, it is. The ringing in his ears and pounding in his chest would tell one otherwise, though for now there is no one around to listen.

    The silence is absolutely, unequivocally, heart wrenchingly deafening.

    This is not the Hyaline Litotes remembers, or rather - it is just as quiet but the smell is different, the emotion sickening. Bile is bitter and angry as it rises up his throat. Vomiting would be an appropriate response to such a harrowing image: there, just ahead, a clearing burned like the scar of a brand into his brain. Their home, or what remains of it - perhaps Kensa no longer rests here, perhaps she dragged Brunhilde from the clutches of his scent and his memory.

    Perhaps she has moved on. Hildy has whispered about the child she bore.

    The thought of his too powerful yearling daughter brings a smile to his face - she possesses a hardness he is proud to have fathered while simultaneously feeling ashamed that she needs it. He twists his head around, wondering if she lingers here, her familiar scent a bit strong on the wind. He hopes that is just a hint at where his firstborn stalks; the idea of her witnessing what may transpire between her parents forces a sorrowful lump in his throat.

    With a loud cough - plague symptoms that still linger in his blood - he turns from what he believes to be an empty and broken home. The only comfort he has rests in knowing Loess offers open arms and zero bad blood. He must not linger there, though - must not allow time to whirl by while wounds fester in the poison of lack of closure. Lie clears his throat and lifts his head to the wind, attempting to draw something other than the unfamiliar scent of Amet out of its whistle.

    i don't want your pity, i just want somebody near me
    guess i'm a coward, i just want to feel all right



    @[Kensa]
    #2

    for every tyrant, a tear for the vulnerable
    in every lost soul, the bones of a miracle

    She exists somewhere between the charming innocent she had been when she arrived here and the angry disillusioned thing she had become when Litotes had been taken from her. (Many said left her but she would not, though she had spat those same words at him a year ago.) Her healing has taken a circuitous route. She has found solace in lovers, particularly Clayton whose heart she has unknowingly strengthened through fires of her careless infidelities. She has grown closer not only to that tall bay stallion but also to dear Dawn, Amet, and Jah-Lilah, friends that exist in the new life she has built without Litotes. In this new existence Kensa is walled off from the self that belonged with the Lion-man, separated, and functioning like she could not in those first months without him.

    There had been a time when she had constantly been expecting him to appear, to slide himself against her and fold her into a familiar embrace. Then she would remember that day in Loess with shock and pain. One day she no longer expected him and had deadened the part of herself that absently looked for him.

    In the high meadow the grass is summer yellow-green. The stream babbles low and musical against the rocks, and the birch leaves whisper in the breeze that sweeps up from the valley. For Kensa her nest is full of the scents of her children, of her blood and their amniotic fluid soaked into the earth when she bore first Hildy and then Valek here. The rocks and water echo back memories of Star’s sweet laughter offset by Crynn’s wide-eyed silences. The gilded mare has tucked herself into the trees, unintentionally hidden in the camouflaging dappled shadows. Lost in thought she is slow to notice the trespasser. No one comes here but her children. No one.

    Valek is dozing in the grass, his long lashed eyes fluttering with strange half-awake dreams about the sea. An unfamiliar cough wakes him with a start and the boy’s bald face pops up from the ground, and upon setting eyes on the unfamiliar stallion he gets to his feet. He is clearly his mother’s son, marked with the same gold veins along the boundary of his less prominent sabino markings. A gold stripe runs down his back, and there is a gold stripe draped over his narrow shoulders.

    Kensa’s gaze is drawn to the movement of her son springing up out of the grass where he had been napping but her eyes tear away from him to land on the cremello man beyond. Her heart drops from her chest in that millisecond and there is a thunderous wave of pain that comes along when it slams itself back into her ribcage. He is beautiful and strange, there is a hardness around his mouth she does not recognize. Though her soul rises at the sight of him her mind says she does not know him anymore. Still, she cannot make herself believe he will harm her babe, and so watches, topaz eyes sharp.

    Valek bristles and arches his neck, nostrils flaring wide. “This is my mother’s place.” He says, stomping a small white hoof down into the dry grass. He has is mothers boldness, and a recklessness even more alarming than her own. His little ears flick, uncertainty making him hesitate slightly, he’d never seen anyone here but his family. His voice is brave and fierce for one so small. “I’m Valek. Why are you here? Momma doesn’t let anyone come here.” Where is she anyway? Has this stranger already done something with her? His ears drop back into his short black and gold mane and there are both vulnerability and tenacity in his flashing eyes.

    The chestnut mare does not like seeing her son so disturbed and almost pushes out of the trees into the clearing but when she looks at Litotes again she cannot bring herself to approach, frozen by a weakness she instantly loathes herself for.


    kensa
    for every dreamer, a dream. we're unstoppable with something to believe in.


    @[litotes]
    #3
    litotes

    The startled swing of his head gives no tell of the shock and pain that blocks his airways.

    Of course -

    Of course this would happen - the little one - a beautifully marked colt so clearly Kensa’s and some other partner’s. He wonders whose child this is (not his, not his, not his). He then wonders, what is this child’s name? And does this mean they are truly no more? His once paramore (though she does not live in the past, how he still longs to tuck her into his chest) knows not of his many trysts (and Litotes knows naught of his many children) - though perhaps she believes he wants nothing more of their love.

    The need to crawl into Kensa’s head is so overwhelming that Litotes does not initially respond to Valek. Instead he stares blankly at the boy, a vaguely stupid look plastered vulnerably across his face. After a couple of seconds, the cremello clears his throat and eyes, placing a gentle gaze upon the perturbed colt. His mother’s scent is strong now; Lie wonders if he did not smell it before simply because his mind was too fearful of that reminder.

    Kensa is here, in their - her - meadow.

    The words that come out are choked, uncertain: “I know this is your mother’s place.” The vocal admittance is like a judge’s gavel to its sound block in its final brutality. The forlorn stallion droops his head low, offering a full and unprotected view of himself.

    “Kensa is your mother, right? You’re doing a good job looking out for her.”

    He hopes that Valek will be soothed, but doubts the calm movements of a stranger will do the trick. So, with no sight of the Hyalinian Primarch, he begins to turn away with small smile.

    “My name is Litotes. Would you tell your mother I am looking for her?” He thinks the child will not do anything of the sort, but at least he tried. He turns knowing he must give up, that the pain he has caused is far too great. The blue of his surroundings outweighs the fire that brims in his belly, though he does not notice its heat for now.

    i don't want your pity, i just want somebody near me
    guess i'm a coward, i just want to feel all right



    @[Kensa]
    #4

    for every tyrant, a tear for the vulnerable
    in every lost soul, the bones of a miracle

    Valek is barely beyond his infancy but it doesn’t stop him from puffing up like a grown stallion when faced with a perceived threat. He would not admit that he was a little frightened at first, but as the stranger opens up his posture and speaks gently to him the vulnerability disappears into confidence, Litotes unknowingly training a child that should have been his to be brave and sure of himself. “Yes, she is.” He blurts, proudly jerking his head high under adult's kind praise. The stranger--Litotes--turns to leave, and the boy’s ears flick a little, confused that his opponent is retreating so easily and just when he thought he might like him.

    “Valek.” Momma’s voice has that whip crack quality that means she is not going to be bargained with or disobeyed and he turns toward her voice at once.

    Kensa pushes past the papery white trunks of the slender trees into the sun splashed open space of the clearing. It felt as though her chest had split open as she watched Lie with her son. All the denials, all the brick and mortar she had erected around her love for him crumbled away. She loved him so intensely in that moment that it seemed like the flare of it would blind her to everything else she felt. By the time she stepped out of the trees and summoned the colt, she realized it was foolish to think they could forget…

    ”Valek, Litotes is allowed to visit us here. He is part of our family.” The words are like glass in her mouth, but some of her children are his children (all of her children were meant to be his children), and she cannot deny him entry to the nest they chose together. “Go and play now and I will take you to patrol with me tonight.” Its a bit of bribery that will ensure he doesn’t linger or spy. Kensa’s topaz eyes don’t leave the child until he has disappeared down the rocky path and into the trees… Only then do her ears turn back and her features sharpen. She crosses into the center of their meadow, and no further.

    Keeping the stream between them, Kensa studies the tall lean stallion, breathing a little too fast, nostrils flared. “Why are you…” here. The words die away. Everything is as fresh as that day he’d drawn her blood in Loess: hurt, love, the strange rage that made her wish she could rip him to pieces. The water at her hooves beckons. She could just teleport away.

    He holds her though, more securely than ever and it keeps stealing her breath.

    kensa
    for every dreamer, a dream. we're unstoppable with something to believe in.


    @[litotes]
    #5
    litotes

    Valek.

    A sharp name for such a sharp boy. He confirms who his mother is and as Litotes is about to murmur his goodbyes, a familiar and yet completely alien voice rings through the trees. The cremello stops dead in his tracks, frozen by the womanly depth behind her tone. He gulps before turning around - what else can he do? Kensa sounds almost as if she might scold Lie as equally as her son.

    Finally, he takes the fatal steps to face the moment that has replayed in his mind for months. She is, somehow, even more beautiful than he remembers. The gold that etches her sabino markings glimmers in the light, tempering the harshness of her stare. Just as she thinks Lie is a little harder around the mouth, he thinks she is a little colder around the eyes. Perhaps they are as foreign to each other as they believe: a year apart, forgetting each other, ones so bonded together - leaves a scar that refuses to be forgotten.

    Litotes does not miss how she includes him in their family, but he also does not grow hopeful. Who knows what may ensue, if after this reunion she will want nothing more to do with him. The glimmer in the lion man’s eyes dies as he watches the little boy scamper away. The air grows so much colder in his absence.

    Kensa draws closer in such a way that suggests Lie should, so he steps up to the opposite side of the creek to her. Her gaze is sharp but her words are uncertain. Some uncontrollable and unknown fire burns in the scorned man’s mouth.

    “I wanted to see you.” In his mind, he feels broken, but the words come out more as a spitting insult - as if he cannot hide how weak and ashamed he feels for crawling back like this. “Brunhilde has told me so much. I wanted to see it all for myself.” Birch trees shiver and sway in the summer wind as his eyes leave Kensa’s to study all the subtle changes. A few new trampled pathways here, a favorite drinking spot there . . . his eyes droop to the nook they slept in, though its distance is too great for him to tell if she still frequents it (his guess is no).

    After a long moment, he returns to her eyes with cold precision. Two steps forward and he is as close to her as the creek will allow - one little skip and he could be over the water (he could touch her skin with all the force of his love and anger). It is strange, to treat her the same as every other in Loess - to treat her in all the new ways he has grown. That boyish warmth he once felt still glows, but is locked away in the deepest attic of his mind.

    “I miss you,” he growls, that predatory sound he cannot seem to rid himself of reverberating in his voice. Though the words are sincere they are quickly juxtaposed: “Who is Valek’s father?”

    In her presence he cannot sort out his mind. Litotes has daydreamed of this moment for so long that he forgot to actually plan for it. These fleeting seconds are filled with thought after chasing thought - from I miss you to what the fuck? to how could you? Litotes wants to rip her to shreds, to hold her tight, to fuck her till she collapses beneath all his repressed emotions.

    He cannot make sense of it all. The world spins around him. 

    i don't want your pity, i just want somebody near me
    guess i'm a coward, i just want to feel all right



    @[Kensa]
    #6

    for every tyrant, a tear for the vulnerable
    in every lost soul, the bones of a miracle

    The air between them crackles as they square off on either side of the stream, it’s a narrow boundary but it is all that keeps them from flying at each other. Kensa imagines that he thinks her the gentle darling she was before he abandoned and attacked her, and she wants to strike him free of that impression. His teeth flash behind his sterling lips and he sounds like a bad actor destroying a play, assigning the wrong emotions to his lines. I wanted to see you.

    “I have nothing to hide.” She replies in cold clipped words. His gaze roams but she doesn’t follow it, she’s looking at him hard and long while he examines the meadow for whatever Hildy thought might impress her absent father. How many times she traced her lips over the angles of that face, pressed her forehead into the the fall of that mane. They are both homesick for the things right in front of them.

    Litotes turns back to her and she remembers him differently than he is, recognizes and mourns the melancholy boy from the lake who does and does not live in the man before her. Her features turn impassive and distant. The Lion-man tells her he misses her, and she wants to break because she believes while wondering if she hates him.

    She should want to be away from him, and she could be with just one step into that trickle of water. Her body is traitorous. She is accustomed to this at least as it pertains to the lust (the tightly coiled need to inflict violence is not so familiar), but every emotion is rebelling as well. As much as Kensa wants to be repulsed and reject Litotes she cannot. He is so close, and she cannot reason how it would be wrong to cross that water and let him fuck her. Afterward she could banish him from Hyaline forever, because there is no way this goes beyond that.
    ...but she misses him too.

    Who is Valek’s father?” Kensa tilts her head slightly, metallic freckles catching the light, eyes narrowing a protective and confused fraction. She considers asking why it matters, spitting at him that he doesn’t know them, or worse cutting him with a lie: I don’t know. It isn’t in her though. Oh she would happily hurt him, but she will not be dishonest with him. “Ivar. In Ischia.” There is no softness in the words, she is not ashamed, nor does she temper what guesses will be a blow with any apologetic looks. The men in her life seem expect that her pleasure seeking will extend only so far as is chaste. Her unions with the others were never to hurt Litotes but to please herself. “I have no ties to him beyond the boy.” In the void that follows those words she should tell him she loves him but she can’t. She shouldn’t love him anymore.

    “What else do you want to know?” She asks, silvery voice glacial and then shakes her head, taking the question back. “No. No, you don’t get to know anything else. Believe whatever Brunhilde told you. You’ve had your own secrets for more than a year now. It’s only fair that I keep some of my own.” He couldn’t know how she’d been treated, accused of concealing his plans, left reeling and alone. Of course he does know what happened after that.

    “I don’t owe you anything.” Kensa steps into the stream, the rounded pebbles clattering against her hooves as the water rushes past. She is smaller than Lie, and so much more delicate in appearance than she’d been before the plague. The corona of heat off of his gleaming hide meets her when she stops  almost chest to chest with him, daring him to hurt her again like he had on the day that had torn them apart.


    kensa
    for every dreamer, a dream. we're unstoppable with something to believe in.


    @[litotes]
    #7
    Litotes cannot repress the inappropriately amused smile that stretches his lips upward when her presentation remains as cold as a stranger’s. The cruelty twisting devilishly within him rather likes this sword-like Kensa - wants to clash against her silvery edges. He thinks his smile will infuriate her, but he does not mind. Something about her icy gaze does the exact opposite of their desire: draws him closer.

    She smells of plums and the cleanest air. Lie is almost certain that if he were to press his lips to hers they would taste of iron and sugar. He draws in a deep breathe, almost forgetting she has rebuttals to his confused replies, forgetting for just a moment that she fucking despises him. Then he remembers suddenly that she does hate him, at least in the wiring of his brain that will not connect, and that makes him love her so much fiercer.

    At this point, he cannot tell where his love begins and his lust ends.

    Ivar. The kelpie’s name jars Lie from his reverie. He meets Kensa’s gaze with a ferocity he has never felt before. Of course the kelpie - having once been a leader himself, he knew the names of those who ruled as he did. It takes everything within him to not curl a lip at her, to bare those canines that marred her flesh months ago. His rage wants to scream that she is so stupid for falling for the supernatural wiles of a kelpie, but he does not; instead, he presses his teeth into his tongue until it bleeds. Eventually the race of his heart relaxes.

    Kensa spits at him like a cat, and Lie thinks she is so much more feline than he has ever been. I don’t owe you anything. That same grin creases his lips again, topaz eyes falling darker and darker as she presses her chest so close to his. The threat is clear in her eyes: hurt her again and she will be gone forever.

    It is in that moment that Litotes realizes how little of each other they have let go. The way Kensa presses close, the way she does not banish him from her sight, the way she welcomed him back into their home - all actions mirroring the way he sought her out with no clear direction. They do not know what they want, not yet. A growl builds in the back of his throat. He will be damned if he does not find out.

    “Kensa.” He says her name in so low a rumble that he is not sure it came out. A warning hides behind those two syllables, but he knows she will not heed it. She is shorter and more delicate, making it easy for Litotes to place his lips just barely against her ear: “You’re right,” he whispers, then hangs on a pause, “you don’t owe me anything.” The tip of her ear rests gently between his teeth, the flesh so soft as it drags through the pressure.

    He has stepped into a minefield and he does not care.

    At first it is just his lips against her neck, but he decides he does not like that, and grabs her skin in a bite much different from the last time they met. The growl from earlier has not subsided, now just a low burble like a tune to this dangerous dance. Lie does not care if she shirks him, if this is his last wrong move. Nothing makes sense anymore, but her skin against will never feel wrong.
    #8

    for every tyrant, a tear for the vulnerable
    in every lost soul, the bones of a miracle

    When he smiles that barbed wire smile Kensa wants to tear it off his face. All the fractured emotions and all the pain between them and he smiles. If he would just leave she could shed the tears burning behind her unblinking topaz eyes. She no longer considers letting the water carry her away, cannot bring herself to flee from him again when he seems to mock her fury with his predator’s grin.

    Ivar’s name pulls the smile from his face, at least to some degree, proof that her blow had landed. It isn’t enough to satisfy her desire to dismantle him just a little, make him feel something besides the anger and jealousy she thought she was reading on him. She regrets even bothering to elaborate on the nature of her relationship with the Kelpie patriarch. It would have been better to let him think she is under another man’s sway, maybe then he’d leave.

    I don’t want him to leave.

    She is chest to chest with him though, a solid wall of feminine fury. Her neck is arched high and tight and her nostrils flare to fill with his scent accompanied by the sage tang of Loess. Litotes is not cowed, but smiles with a delicious darkness that she would find appealing if she didn’t feel like she still had blood streaming down her pretty white leg. If she weren’t so ready to fight. She’d hear her name if he so much as breathed it at this proximity, the husky rumble stings and she shudders when he drags his teeth against the tender flesh of her gold-rimmed ear. She gives him her own warning as he presses his lips against her neck. “Lie.” Her voice is tremulous but there is no sound of surrender in her tone.

    Teeth sink against her neck and the fire in her belly flares up from its embers. The chestnut throws her chin up furiously, striking out at him with a foreleg but they are too close for a blow to land. Jerking herself free of him she side steps in a spray of cold water and a clatter of hooves on stone. “Don’t.” Kensa snarls, ears pinned into her wild blonde locks and topaz eyes molten as she turns to face him from upstream just outside the limits of his reach. She is breathing in that short fast way, like they are in throws of passion, and though her features shift like she might say something Kensa instead hurls herself at the cremello stallion. Whether she slams into his shoulder or he steps free she swings her hips around to kick at him, they are side by side now and she snaps at the silver snowflakes on his face her teeth closing without making contact with his skin...its the only restraint she can manage.

    Fury and frustration. Kensa’s heart is pounding when she reaches her muzzle back toward Litotes’ again, tense, inhaling as he exhales. The meadow seems full of the sound of their breathing. “How dare you touch me.” Breathy, angry, even as she brushes her lips over his. A kiss that ends in her teeth trying to draw blood from his silvery lip.



    kensa
    for every dreamer, a dream. we're unstoppable with something to believe in.


    @[litotes]
    #9
    Their inability to let go is clear in the way they collide.

    Though not consciously aware that Kensa misses him, there is a certain rhythm to their movements that gives her away. The cremello’s body responds in kind: a step front to her step back, a lift of her hand, the drift as her hips slowly sway toward his. He presses the palm of his hand to the small of her back, balancing them both to dip her, to sweep her away -

    Lie.

    Kensa’s own low warning rings in his ears. She matches his ferocity. Oh, she could send him packing with the fiercest gashes and he would love her all the more. It is not just the strange darkness he finds attractive, but the power in her voice that he cannot resist. She is truly a love the likes of which he will never feel again, so fierce and untamed and admirable. The furious kick of her leg only serves to send that endearment surging more powerfully through his chest.

    What the fuck is wrong with me?

    There is no turning away from the parts of himself Litotes embraced while away from Kensa, but he thinks they both changed in crueler ways. The need to swallow back his knife’s edges is not strong enough. No matter how clouded or desperate the image of the boy he once was claws at the pit in his brain, he is never tall enough to drag himself out. Within this cold man lies the shadow of a burnt and broken youth - formed into the guarded adult he is today.

    He wonders, just before the golden woman launches herself at him, if he will ever feel normal again. He hopes to god he will.

    When Kensa attacks, there is the smallest calm where he notices every little detail of her face. The sun glints off of her golden freckles, which then reflect in her equally as golden eyes. She sparkles even in her rage, the fire behind that gaze only serving to light her up more. Her ears are tangled back into a mane that whips as she rushes forward - like her own bristling star of energy, like she does not need the sun, like she creates the universe herself.

    The blows come as Litotes curls in on himself. First a bruise to his shoulder and then two kicks to his ribs. Wincing, he glares at her teeth as they snap centimeters from his face. He wants to ride the anger of being attacked; instead, he only stares through narrow eyes. They face off once more, entering yet another dance, this one of breathe and blood.

    Kensa tastes exactly like he thought she would. Her mouth against his almost comes as a surprise - almost. Pain flares as his lip stretches, yet Litotes leans away to prolong the draw. Blood pools in his mouth as his bottom lip cracks in several places. He leans back in just as quickly as he leaned away, this time less confident than before.

    Lie cannot give up, though, not yet -

    So he pushes his mouth back to hers, stumbling forward in such a clumsy way that it wrenches his heart. He breaks from her mouth and presses the side of his muzzle to hers:

    “Tell me to fucking leave, Kensa.”


    @[Kensa]
    #10

    for every tyrant, a tear for the vulnerable
    in every lost soul, the bones of a miracle

    She is so delicate beside him when she attacks but in her fury she is leviathan. The blows land. Shoulder. Ribs. Her strikes thudding dully against muscle and bone and she doesn’t even notice that he doesn’t fight back. Her blood is loud in her ears as she beats her fists against him, too angry to cry or scream or seek any release beyond this sudden violence. Her right leg long since healed aches nonsensically, the scars feel tight and new.

    How sweetly they had always come together, gentle innocents falling in love over brief mountain summers, making love in the embrace of autumn color. Kensa  did her best to return to her life in Hyaline without Litotes but the sweetness had been drawn off and  in its place she found a new beauty in the sharp mountains and fierce alpine landscape. Things were clearer, colder, more real than those apple blossom vignettes of the years before.  

    In this knife edge reality kissing him feels as good as breaking him, his lips pliant under her own. She savors the cut of her teeth against his sterling lip, the metallic tang of his blood hits her tongue and turns her stomach but she doesn’t release him until she is ready, until he draws back in and presses his bloodied mouth to her own.

    Tell me to fucking leave, Kensa.

    “Fuck you.”

    Kensa does not draw away, her muzzle pressed alongside his like crossed sabers. She stomps a hind leg and a tear tracks its way over the gold tracery on her outside cheek when her lashes fall over her eyes but she does not shed others. “Fuck you.” She repeats, voice thick. Flicking her chin up Kensa snaps at his jaw and then at the latch of his pale throat. The force behind her teeth not that of love bites she might have placed on his skin in years before. Her lips leave a trace blood behind on creamy fur over the pulse at his throat and  she surges up against him again, her painted chest pressing into the point of his shoulder.

    Unable to tell him to leave, impossible for him to stay. There’s nothing else for her to say, no clever dialogue that will heap hot coals upon his head or heal these core deep fractures in their world...But nothing really changes without tectonic shift, mighty mountains to not grow out of small tremors.

    The words she breathes against his skin have never sounded as raw or real as they do now. “I love you. Its not the gentle whispers of a heartsick girl but the malediction of a woman scorned.



    kensa
    for every dreamer, a dream. we're unstoppable with something to believe in.


    @[litotes] And then she tears out his jugular with her super sharp horse teeth, and rips his skin off in one tug and wears it forever RIP.




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