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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


    there's a wildfire with your name on it, sochi
    #1

    do you think God stays in his heaven because he, too, lives in fear of what he has created?

    Anaxarete does not allow her otherworldly hounds to chase and hunt with Ghaul, and so he is alone as he slinks through the meadow on this clear winter evening. He lifts his head to sniff the air in search of something, anything that smells like it might be fun to stalk. His half-grown horns curl from his strangely handsome face in place of any eyes. In the dying light of the day, the stars shine gold across the horns like some regal crown fit for a trueborn heir. But he does not know whether he is ugly or beautiful. His only concern is always the thrill of crushing windpipes and the faint scent of other predators nearby. Today, there is something new carried on the breeze and he feels his lips curl back in a smile that is all teeth.
     
    His leathery wings briefly spread as an excited shiver runs down the boney ridge of his spine and then he’s off, chasing this scent to its source. The drake’s legs are longer and more muscled now as he strides over the tall meadow grasses. Ghaul has even traded in his little newborn fangs for deeply rooted ones now, sizeable enough to give pause to even the fiercest adversary. But perhaps this new, strange thing will not hesitate. Maybe it can make his jaws and pierce these armored scales. What would it be like to bleed, he wonders? He finds himself delighted at the thought and rushes faster, faster toward the setting sun.
     
    The world rushes by him in a blur of deep navy blues and the occasional shade of green but there is nothing warm nearby. His talons tear up the ground beneath him with each bounding step, kicking up dirt behind him. Let his trail be clear and obvious, so that his prey may find him first. A vile tongue runs over his lips as he skids to a stop near the edge of the meadow where the tall trees rise up to form a border between this area and the forest. With his ears turned forward, he listens carefully for the sound of any footsteps crunching in the snow as he pants heavily. His breath leaves his thin nostrils in great puffs of air while his body heat radiates from him in a thick steam.
     
    He croons softly, a pleasant noise which he has learned tends to draw others near. The boy tries to keep his body relaxed so as not to give his intentions away just yet. Ghaul has learned he must be clever to best worthy prey, just as Ana taught him.

    ghaul

    @[sochi] it's fine if she pounces him. he'll just be like "OH BOY, MY SEXUAL AWAKENING!"
    Reply
    #2
    sochi

    The funny thing about being a predator is that you always know when you are considered prey.

    It is a faint tickling at the back of the mind, an itching in the throat. It is enough that she lifts her head from her recent kill and narrows her yellow eyes, staring into the distance and wondering at what lies in the darkness. Her vision is better when like this, but it is not true night vision. She is able to just make out more than she could as a horse, enough that she feels a shiver and knows her instincts aren’t wrong.

    She drops to her belly and begins to creep forward, padding lightly over the grass and feeling the brush of it against her sides. Her lips pull back to reveal her incisors and she feels the twitch of it as she studies the shadows, looking for anything that appears out of place—anything that strikes that familiar hunger in her.

    And then, suddenly, it’s there.

    She hears the croon and it sounds so much like prey that she nearly believes it, but she catches herself. She holds herself in the shadows and creeps closer still until she make out the shape of him. He is young but not so young that she feels anything maternal. He is looking for her, she realizes, and it makes something in her snap with both anger and a competitive drive and she creeps closer still.

    When she is close enough that she can smell him, she crouches and then leaps, her powerful back legs throwing her forward into him. She reached forward with her front legs, swiping and snaps her jaws.

    Maybe it will be a lesson.

    Maybe it will be more.

    In this moment, she doesn’t care.

    well, I can try to get you closer but I know you’d break your neck just to see the stars
    and if we don’t dare to hold it then this reckless wandering love was never ours

    [Image: sochi.png]

    I was less than graceful, I was not kind
    be out watching other lovers lose their spine

    Reply
    #3

    do you think God stays in his heaven because he, too, lives in fear of what he has created?

    He swallows nervously as he waits with the sound of his own pulse thundering in his ears. Smaller prey has never thrilled him and he finds himself delighted at this new challenge. Slowly, Ghaul turns his head from left to right and back again, scanning the meadow for any flare of red until he spots her. Remember, he tells himself, your role is prey. His ears perk up the way he recalls a deer doing once just before he sunk his talons into its face. The prince even pretends to chew grass the way a simple prey animal might.

    Closer, closer she slinks and he realizes she is something new entirely. The feline predators of Beqanna prefer to go unseen and so her shape delights him in the sickest way. Her skull will be a trophy worthy of the Pangean queen, he thinks.

    When she leaps for him, his wings unfurl with a snap as the leathery appendages ready themselves. With a flap of those draconic wings, he is lunging to meet her with his own talons outstretched. They collide and her claws meet the scales of his chest with an awful gritting noise that makes him cringe. Her weight makes him stumble back for a moment as his talons close around her foreleg. He could lift her into the air, he thinks, just to drop her and watch her body collide with the ground. (What kind of sound would she make? Would the fall tenderize her meat?)

    But instead he brings that leg to his jaws. The crooked crocodile teeth lining his mouth are too impatient. He wants her blood coating his tongue now, he thinks as he bites down. But he’s careful not to break the bone. He releases her.

    Ghaul wants to see if she will fight or if she will run in the face of a true apex predator. With his wings spread wide in an ancient threat display, he watches the blur of her as a grin spreads across his face. Her blood stains his chin until his vile tongue snakes out, licking himself clean greedily.

    Pretender. Powerless imposter,” he says as he creeps closer to her once more. “Bend. Bend so I don’t have to break you.

    The galaxies across his face shimmer with no concern for her plight or even his if she chooses not to yield. The blind boy, however, just keeps smiling as he waits to see if she will rise to meet him.

    ghaul

    @[sochi] let's pretend the scales on his face are softer so she can swipe him and give him a cool scar.
    Reply
    #4
    sochi

    She expects him to fight back—how could she not when he is practically built for war—and she still feels a sick pleasure when he does exactly that. She feels the snap of his wings but it does nothing to slow her, does nothing to stop that sick hunger that finally reaches a boil within her. It has been so long since she has felt that need to hunt the way that she does—something that grows larger and more aggressive than just the need for food. It is a vicious hunger that bites at the back of her throat now, a dark need.

    It brings a purr of pleasure to her lips when she feels his talons close around her leg, when he bites down.

    The skin splits easily and she laughs as the blood pours down the leg and releases her.

    She rolls easily, rising to her feet and holding the front foot gingerly in front of her for a moment. Her feline eyes snap to him and her lips spread into a wicked smile as she studies him. “You poor child,” she spits, feeling the flesh of her leg already begin to knit back together, the wound closing up. She places her paw back down, testing her weight and then glances back up, ears flicking. “Do I look like I bend?”

    It is far too past any point of reason now that she has felt his scaled flesh beneath her claws and he has spilled her blood. There is no reasoning with her—not stopping what is it come. Instead her powerful body, large and heavy but powerful with that feline grace, launches forward. Her heavy paws come up to swipe at his chest and then at his face, avoiding the horns and going instead for the delicate skin around his nose, his mouth. She growls lightly as they collide once more, her jaws reaching for his throat.

    Let him bleed, she thinks. Let him learn.

    well, I can try to get you closer but I know you’d break your neck just to see the stars
    and if we don’t dare to hold it then this reckless wandering love was never ours

    [Image: sochi.png]

    I was less than graceful, I was not kind
    be out watching other lovers lose their spine

    Reply
    #5

    do you think God stays in his heaven because he, too, lives in fear of what he has created?

    He isn’t even hungry when he hunts, half the time. There is only a desperate need for the thrill of it when he chokes the death rattle from something. Ghaul wants to shake her the way a hound might thrash a rabbit until it goes limp between its jaws. He wants to chew on her limbs simply because his teeth yearn for something to pacify them for the time being. It had been so hard to release her leg but it would make for a greater hunt, he tells himself.

    His ears turn forward at the sound of flesh weaving itself back together over angry muscle tissue. Sochi puts her paw back down and something in him finally awakens. Some great and terrible rises from the depths of his belly and he feels a shiver run down his spine as he lets this new feeling consume him.

    Do I look like I bend?

    He does not budge when she leaps at him once more, does not retaliate when her claws find his face and manage to rip into the thin flesh around his mouth. His chest is armored and protected but he finds the taste of his own blood pouring into his mouth as he finds the slivers of his lips with his tongue. Ghaul stumbles back in surprise, wincing at the way it burns before he turns back to her. But fire always cleanses the worthy, he reminds himself as he takes a take breath. The boy knows this will be agony but he braces himself for it as he bellows, the thick plume of fire erupting from his throat and toward the tiger woman.

    The many claw marks across his face enter a new world of pain that sends the young drake screeching as he begins to toss his head in despair. The last of his fire catches on the tall meadow grasses but he seems unconcerned as he finally brings his focus back to her. His chest heaves with frantic breath before he surges forward, wings flapping to help him gain momentum for when they collide once more. His front talons reach for her paws to knock her onto her back while his hindlegs seek to pin hers in their grasp. Although his wounds are mostly cauterized, his blood still dribbles around his nose and onto her.

    Then you want to break?” he hisses as he leans his face down to hers. His breaths are ragged and his body trembles at the pain he endures, but he continues in spite of it. “If I cannot smash your body against the rocks, then I will destroy you from the inside out.

    He pauses as his nose touches the soft fur of her cheek. Slowly, he inhales her scent so that he might memorize it and find her later. Ghaul even lets his tongue snake from his awful jaws so that he can drag it along her jawline. And then he laughs, he laughs so hard that fresh blood spatters across her lovely face. He has bled and he has learned not to offer his prey mercy from this point on. The fallen angel has learned that he must be more ruthless against his adversaries if he is to survive.

    I will track your scent and find your young. I will devour them and leave their bones to bleach in the sun. Your home will burn because you would not yield...unless you’ve changed your mind?” he whispers against her ear before delicately tracing his lips across her face.

    ghaul

    @[sochi] ghaul says "u want sum fuk or u want sum fite?"
    Reply
    #6
    sochi

    He is young, but he is not weak, she comes to learn.

    He is stubborn and hungry and will split himself apart before he will yield. These are things that she learns as they clash and then they fall apart. These are the things that she tucks away as her feline eyes continue to study him, watching as he draws quick breaths, as he opens his mouth and breathes fire.

    It is so much like the fire that Castile breathes that she almost smiles.

    Or, rather, she would if she was not leaping away from the brunt of it.

    She still feels the heat of it across her back, the fur scorched and the skin stinging. She drops to the ground and rolls to extinguish it, and when she rises, her eyes are wary. There is pleasure to be had in seeing the way that he himself hurts from the fire, and she can feel her burnt skin begin to heal, but it is not an immediate thing—and it is not without pain. She feels the ache of it as she grits her teeth.

    But she does not have long to stand apart from him because he is rushing forward and she lunges to meet him. Her skin comes apart again and she pays it no mind, her mouth opening wide and clamping down on whatever she can reach, tearing at it with fervor. She aims for the sensitive pieces—the thin skin around the nostrils, the mouth—and she wonders what it will look like in ribbons, caught between her teeth.

    He is not without skill though, or sheer brute strength, and she rolls underneath his talons, feeling herself pinned for a moment. Her heart hammers in her chest—from adrenaline instead of fear—and she stares up at him as he glances down. “I will shatter before I bend to the likes of you,” she hisses between the blood that stains her mouth. “I will tear myself apart before I give you the pleasure of doing the same.”

    Sochi has seen worse than Ghaul. She has experienced worse. She remembers what it was like when the dark god called her down to the depths of the ocean. When she consumed the heart of the mare, when she tore her own chest to let it fall out into Pangea’s twisted core. She remembers the plague and the feel of her jaws snapping down around Rhonen’s throat. She remembers the way it felt when Sinner—

    Her thoughts fracture suddenly and she spits the blood out toward him, snarling.

    And then, she laughs, an echo of smoke in her chest.

    She reaches up to nip at him, almost tender, before she whispers,

    “Then burn it.”

    And her jaws snap at whatever she can reach.

    well, I can try to get you closer but I know you’d break your neck just to see the stars
    and if we don’t dare to hold it then this reckless wandering love was never ours

    [Image: sochi.png]

    I was less than graceful, I was not kind
    be out watching other lovers lose their spine

    Reply
    #7

    do you think God stays in his heaven because he, too, lives in fear of what he has created?

    He is young and yet his wrath is ancient, stretching far beyond Beqanna’s timeline and into the roots of existence. When she catches fire, his blood-stained teeth form a filthy smile as he watches her outline burn before him. She turns white against the blue and green background until she drops into a roll to extinguish his flames. Ghaul is careful to lift his head this time to keep him from shredding the other half of his lips into ribbons as she had the first time. Still, while her fangs do not pierce his scales, they tighten around his aorta and choke the blood flow there.

    The monster laughs between gritted teeth when she says she would rather shatter or tear herself apart. She thinks she has seen worse but he was spawned from the depths of darkness, woven directly from his father’s arcane magics. Ghaul is a plague upon the world and he will make them weep with joy when he finally ends them all. They will say thank you. They will say please.

    And so will she.

    Her bloody spit splatters across his lips and he licks it clean from him with delight. When she leans up to nip him, he lets her. His head tilts curiously at the gesture until she hisses her command and lunges in for a real bite. Ghaul lets out a sharp, shrieking sort of wail before tossing his head to free his jaw from hers. Each of his breaths comes hissing between gritted teeth until he moves his right talon to her throat. If she could heal, would she choke forever? Would she pass out so he could tear her open and eat her heart?

    Let go. Sleep,” he whispers roughly against her ear. “Just give your body to me as an offering.

    But his grip is weakened by his blood loss. Unlike her, he does not heal from wounds and his body threatens to go into shock. His breaths grow uneven as he feels dizzy until finally he releases her. Ghaul slumps onto his side with a dull thud as he hits the ground and tries to regain some semblance of his composure. He had wanted to rip her liver out and devour it, certainly, but he finds himself too disoriented to try now. The hellspawn extends his neck and presses his lips to her neck, too tired to search her face once more.

    If I didn’t want to eat you, I might’ve dragged you back to Pangea with me,” he says as the world begins to spin a little slower now.

    ghaul

    @[sochi]
    Reply
    #8
    sochi

    She heals, but she is exhausted. Each time that her skin knits itself together again, she feels the way that it costs her—the way that her energy drains slowly. Her body stings and aches with the brutality that it has experienced, her throat sore and bruised, her leg scarred. Still, her heart sings with the adrenaline of it, her entire body primed with the joy of throwing herself into senseless combat against an opponent.

    An opponent who did not give.

    An opponent who did not hesitate.

    When his talon closes around her throat, she hisses in a breath, snarling at his command—his demand. She doesn’t say anything else though, just forces out a raspy laugh against her blood-soaked mouth, the sound broken and shattered but whole all the same. She does not fear whatever death he brings.

    But his grip doesn’t last and she feels him falling away from her. With a grunt, she pushes away with her forelegs, rolling away to get to her feet. She wheezes for a moment, her throat raw and the air coming in short, shallow gasps. There is damage there, she knows, but it will heal—all of her eventually does.

    Curious, and unable to simply walk away, she walks to the boy stretched on the ground. She shifts then, fluidly coming into her more equine body. She feels the burn and scorched hair across her back and the bruises around her throat all the same, even though they feel different in this form.

    She leans down to drag the blood across his forehead beneath the monstrous horns. As she does, she feels his lips to her neck. This, too, makes her laugh. “I would be a poor meal for you,” she manages, her voice huskier than usual, raspy and hoarse from the damage, from the fatigue. “And a poor conquest.”

    She snorts, blood splattering him slightly.

    “Like I said, I do not bend.”

    well, I can try to get you closer but I know you’d break your neck just to see the stars
    and if we don’t dare to hold it then this reckless wandering love was never ours

    [Image: sochi.png]

    I was less than graceful, I was not kind
    be out watching other lovers lose their spine

    Reply
    #9

    do you think God stays in his heaven because he, too, lives in fear of what he has created?

    He watches her outline change from feline to something more equine like him. Honestly, it hadn’t occurred to him that she might have another form, and so he is surprised to see her new shape. Ghaul does not writhe or squirm away when she leans down but he does expect a punishing bite from her once again. But she only smears blood across his face and laughs. A poor meal? Perhaps, but anything worth hunting was rewarding enough on its own, he thinks.

    Slowly, his world stops spinning and he finds himself able to focus on Sochi for the time being. He carefully rolls onto his stomach and then stands, talons gripping fiercely at the ground to keep his balance. His wings remain drooped by his sides as he stumbles closer to her, leaning his weight against her shoulder a bit to help keep him up. She smells like burnt hair and drying blood but he doesn’t seem to mind, judging by the way he traces his lips up her neck. Though the gesture is platonic and only so that he might find his way to her face, the gesture comes off as something gentle and wanting.

    I admire your strength,” he says in a voice weighed down by exhaustion. He moves his lips gingerly across her face to chart her expression, tracing the outline of her brows down to her lips. “Do you submit to no one, then?

    Slowly, so as not to make himself dizzy again, he retracts his touch and observes the blur of her face for a while. Ghaul dreams of a day when he will submit to no one. For now, though, he is overruled by Anaxarete until she deems him worthy of his throne. Her rule carries the promise of her tutelage and so he is content to bide his time for now. She even lets him run amok as he pleases and doesn’t scold him when he’s torn someone open or set fire to anyone’s home. In fact, she seems pleased whenever he grows stronger and more in control of himself.

    I am Ghaul, by the way.

    And then he leans his tired head against her neck, unconcerned with any desire she might have for personal space.

    ghaul

    @[sochi] he's gonna touch her butt next.
    Reply
    #10
    sochi

    If she is surprised that the two of them—only moments before vying for the other’s jugular—now remain in this bubble of near contentment, she doesn’t show it. If she still thinks about what he would look like torn apart, the scales ripped through and the blood sticky and thick down his neck, she says nothing. She just watches as he finally gets back to his feet, clearly weakened, and makes his way to her side. As he presses against her, using his mouth as a navigational tool—dragging lips up her neck and to her face.

    She doesn’t return the gesture but she doesn’t push him off completely either.

    Instead she just tilts her head to the side, her mane sticking to her neck with sweat and blood. “I submit to no one,” she repeats, her voice steady despite the exhaustion and fatigue. “Not anymore.” She thinks of Castile for a moment—of his draconic form and his strength—but she knows that for all that she loves him, respects him, she does not submit to him. She would never submit to him. He would never ask.

    She huffs lightly when she hears his name, accepting the weight of him against her and ignoring the way that her legs ache, the way that they threaten to buckle. “My name is Sochi,” she finally offers in return, her gaze briefly flitting down to watch him. “You will need to eat something soon if you want to feel better.” She rolls a shoulder. “I find that small game is usually enough to return your strength.”

    Her vegetarian diet in this form was not enough after a fight to sustain her—and she suspected that he knew such things. That he too knew the strength that came from the meat and the blood and the marrow.

    well, I can try to get you closer but I know you’d break your neck just to see the stars
    and if we don’t dare to hold it then this reckless wandering love was never ours

    [Image: sochi.png]

    I was less than graceful, I was not kind
    be out watching other lovers lose their spine

    Reply




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