— A D A L I N E —
your mouth is poison; your mouth is wine
(you think your dreams are the same as mine)
They walk in silence, but she herself does not feel quiet. She feels the blood boiling in her veins and in her head and against her chest. She feels its tempo loud and clear—the way that her body sways against that of her brothers, the way that she sometimes trips but catches herself against his fragile build, the way that her mouth tends to wander and land against his neck to comfort herself as they continue walking.
She does not say anything though; she doesn’t trust herself to.
There is a sickness that curdles between them that she secretly calls loves but isn’t brave enough to say out loud. What if he didn’t feel it the way that she did? What if he didn’t notice the way that her body curled toward him like a flower to the sun? She couldn’t bear the thought of him rejecting the outpouring of herself like that; wouldn’t be able to stand up to the rejection if he said that simple word: no.
So she says nothing, instead walking alongside him toward his kingdom—and the kingdom of the wolf-girl. The girl who made her blood so hot in response when she had first heard of Contagion’s new companion; the girl who made her dizzy with anticipation. Would she be strong enough to watch him with someone else? What if he greeted her as he greets Adaline? Could she be stoic enough to be still?
Trying to misplace her thoughts, Adaline gave a weak smile to Contagion as they neared the border and then crossed over it into his home. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed, bumping her small nose against the familiar curve of his neck. What she thinks is that he is more beautiful, but those words too go unsaid.
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There are things unsaid that echo in their hoofbeats – things bred or made, he cannot know. They are the children of a toxic, beautiful love, two who were as much in love with love as they were with each other. He does wonder if it bled over into him, these sensibilities, a weak and hungry heart planted into his glass chest.
He is happy that she follows, comes to the falls, his new and tentative home (he finds comfort in the crashing of the falls, comfort in Tyrna’s strength and the things budding between them, a thing both like and unalike how he feels for Adaline).
“Isn’t it?” he says.
He walks her a bit further, to the waterfalls. He finds it especially fascinating, how the strength of the water could fracture either of them. He watches it the way he might a caged tiger – something strong and deadly but beautiful, too.
“Stay here,” he says, “I’ll go find Tyrna.”
He touches her again, lightly so not to bruise. Inhales her scent, the one he’s known since infancy, so clearly hers. The one he’s missed.
He slips away, then, searches for the woman of steel. He’s missed her. He knows she was called away, her power needed by the font of magic that runs in Beqanna’s heart-veins. But he hopes she might be back. Hopes she might have missed him, too.
contagion be careful making wishes in the dark
Sin I didn't know if you wanted to wait til after the quest or not -- if so we can just put it on pause and resume when it's over?? your call.
08-25-2015, 04:14 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-07-2015, 01:07 PM by Tyrna.)
 At long last the tattered gunmetal mare was free. Her head hung too low, and her eyes were dull and crazed. Her wings were torn, her body scarred, her mind all but gone, yet she smiled. It was a dark and twisted thing that smile. It spoke of the nightmares she had seen and the demons that lurked just out of sight waiting for the right time to strike.
The wolf still prowled in her head, a very real manifestation of all the feral things that lived in her. He smiled and howled and was pleased with the madness that had so easily ripped her apart and patched her back together. Tyrna would never be quite the same. The devilish horns atop her head were a constant reminder, but oh how strong they said she was.
The journey home took far longer than she would have liked, but she was pleased that she still knew the way. The spring sun shone far too brightly on her dark hide. It brought forth all her scars, old and new, and played across the dried blood still caked against her skin. She was the monster you warned your children about both inside and out. The collection of thick scars and rippling muscle, the gunmetal hide and grimy starlight mane, dark wings, and now dark horns. She was a boogeyman come to life.
As she crossed the border, her nostrils flared and eyes grew wide picking up the scents and sights of what she used to call her sanctuary. One scent in particular stood out to her more than the rest, Contagion. Her once love. Visions of their child that never was played so real behind her eyelids. She finds herself racing towards him, following his smell like a beacon as tears flow readily from her eyes. Bursting through a small copse of trees, she sees him. He is far better suited to the sunlight than she could ever have hoped to be. Light plays across his fragile skin like lover, turning his body into a jewel. Her emotions crash through her like a hurricane as she simply stands and takes him in. He would always be the light in her darkest hour, but the fake memories that the demon had implanted were to real to ignore and they tinged the edges of her feelings. How could she explain that to him? She certainly wasn't the same mare that he knew before she left. Now she was a monster.
She takes careful steps towards him, but stops before entering the circle of light that suits him so well. She isn't ready for him to see her so starkly. In a voice grown harsh with disuse, she whispers to him. Heart in throat as she waits for the recognition to cross his features.
"Contagion?" Tyrna And paint blood upon your door
Before he sees her, he smells the blood.
For all his fragility he is not accustomed to blood (he would shatter before he bled overmuch, to be truthful). The scent is tangy and strange and makes his stomach churn. He does not realize the stench comes from her, at first, he thinks there must be some animal dying in the bushes.
But she emerged, a woman changed, a woman crowned in horns, and he realizes the blood is hers.
He doesn’t know the lives that have passed for her since – that there was a world where they were a family, a world where he was ripped asunder by the wolves while she watched, helpless. He does not know she knows the glaze that comes over his eyes in death, the way the nonexistent son’s bones break like twigs.
He knows none of this, only that she smells like blood and her eyes are full of ghosts.
She remains shadowed and he wants her to step closer, stay closer. His leg twitches, for a moment, as if he will go to her – but ultimately he is still. She is full of ghosts and there is something changed to her, the way she was after her first quest, something he cannot place and isn’t sure he wants to place.
She says his name, a question, and he nods, as if he needs to confirm his own identity – the only other glass thing he’s seen is his twin.
“Tyrna,” he says, soft, like he might scare her, “what happened?”
contagion be careful making wishes in the dark
He breathes her name and it is just as she remembered. His voice is soft and oh so sweet, brushing away the gathered thoughts like cobwebs in her head. She watches him carefully, afraid, so afraid that she will watch him shatter like the fragile thing he is. She knows in her heart of hearts that she would fall apart if she saw that a second time.
Trembling legs take tentative steps towards him, pulled by invisible strings, she steps slowly into the light. She wants to run to him, to press her skin against his and feel the peace of mind that he is real. That he exists. That he's alive. But the gunmetal mare holds back. She doesn't want to see the fear and disgust that he must surely be watching her with.
Over and over she sees the life they could've had together playing out like a fantasy. The time they had spent wrapped in each other, their island paradise, their beautiful son. It was the false memories and renewed sense of love for the man made of glass that pushed her past her own reservations and into the sunlight. It wasn't the prettiest picture.
Dried blood was matted in her hair from the rapid growth of her horns. Her proud head hung low under the newly gained crown. Fresh scars wrapped themselves like puckered vines around her legs and throat, mingling to form a lace like pattern with the old ones. Her wings, now fully formed, were ragged along the edges, torn and missing feathers giving them a sinister look. And through it all the feral gleam of the wolf flowed in her eyes.
What a frightening thing she was. A demon dredged from the bowels of hell. Ever so slowly she raises her head to look at him, really look at him, and allow herself to be seen in return. "I was drug through my dreams by a demon," she almost laughs at that. How classic her, getting mixed up with demons at the slightest provocation. Instead she feels the tears start again. "We, were so happy, and had a son. Then there were wolves, and..." Tyrna's voice falters and her head drops. Haltingly she recounts her tale, trying her hardest I leave out the more violent and gruesome aspects. By the time she is done she is far more exhausted than she had imagined. Now she simply waited for the fear and hatred to set in and for Contagion to cast her aside.
Tyrna took one last step forward and gently brushed a kiss against his neck. "I'm sorry for...all of this. I...love you, and I will leave you alone now if you like. What a monster you must think I am." And in the harsh light of day, she's right. Tyrna And paint blood upon your door
He has dreams where he shatters, and when he awakes he is always astounded to find himself still whole.
So he knows, in a strange way, what it is like – for he also has dreams of watching Adaline shatter, watching his twin (his something), fall to pieces before his miserable eyes, to look at his feet and see a face staring up, accusing, as if to say why didn’t you stop this?
The life of a frail thing is a perilous one, and this is a lesson he knows well – a lesson writ in the twist of his wing-joint from where he once took flight, a lesson writ in the flighty cast of his eyes.
And you’d think, for all this knowledge, for all these dreams of shattering, the lamb would not look at the lion so, as if she were a goddess brought down, shining in strength and light and something beautiful and terrible.
Her words are confusing at first - we had a son, she said, but there was no son – but the story weaves itself together soon enough, the dream-horrors, the real horrors of the demon and the unspeakable things done to her in a realm he couldn’t touch.
“Oh, Tyrna,” he says, and it’s not enough, he is not the king of poet who has words for such a personal apocalypse, who knows how to patch together the shattered dreams laid strewn at his feet.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. He wonders if he could have stopped her. But then, he is too weak, too frail, to ever save her from anything – a thought that will haunt him until the end of days, perhaps.
“Don’t go,” he says, as her lips collide with his skin, “please.”
And then, the next part of the story, told still pressed against her skin, glass balanced atop steel, precarious: “My sister is alive. She’s here.”
contagion be careful making wishes in the dark
"I will stay as long as you'll have me." She smiles at him, softly, so she doesn't scare him. Her lips press softly to the hollow where his shoulder meets his neck and she feels his pulse reminding her that he's real.
Her horns hang heavy on her crown and her wings drag limply. Exhaustion begins it's slow creep into her bones, doing nothing more than making her want to collapse. She is so so tired, and yet, watching the sunlight play across Contagion's jewel like skin, she feels hope. A deep sigh escapes her lips as she draws away from him once more.
"I suppose I should meet her sooner rather than later" she chuckles lightly. If the sight of her now didn't terrify Adaline, nothing would. Tyrna can feel the wolf prowling around in her head at the thought of another woman holding a piece of Contagion's heart. The jealousy and anger rose like a foul tide in the back of her throat. Tyrna knew it was ridiculous for her to feel so angry, after all, they were siblings. How much of a threat could Adaline really pose?
Tyrna walks beside him in relative silence as he leads the way, admiring him as well as the surroundings of her once familiar home. A smile tugs at the corner of her lips, and for the first time in years, she is happy. Tyrna And paint blood upon your door
ooc: sorry this took forever! >< so does adaline want to jump in now?
 I'm wasted, losing time; I'm a foolish, fragile spine
I want all that is not mine; I want him but we're not right
Each moment that passes fills Adaline with more dread. She waits patiently, as patiently as she is able, looking toward the sun and the distant crashing of healing water. Her stomach twists more painfully with each moment though—each second pulling her more and more taut until she is a string that is waiting to snap. She knows, as women always do, that Tyrna was more than just a friend. She knew when her brother said her name that is softened, the intimacy of it curdling Adaline’s blood like poison.
She knows what she is going to face, and yet she has no way of shielding herself for it.
So, perhaps it is foolish, but she decides to find them herself. She simply cannot wait another second longer, her imagination running wild with the what-ifs and maybes. Sucking in a breath of cold air, she moves forward, slowly, carefully, her pulse jittery. Over and over again, she imagines how she will greet them, how she will hold herself with grace, how she will behave with class. Make her mother proud.
But all of that goes out of her head the second she sees them together—the second she sees Tyrna’s lips on her brother’s delicate skin, the second she sees him smile so gently at her. Her head begins to buzz and her mouth goes dry, as she stumbles out of the shadows. “No!” she cries before she can stop it, and the word is a bullet as it leaves her tongue. It is her sickness manifested, and she is shaking, she is crying.
Tears run down her cheeks as she takes another step, falling to her knees, skin tearing and blood splashing on the ground. “No!” she repeats, but it is weaker this time, and she can’t even stand to look at Tyrna, the poison spreading more and more certainly through her as she finds her brother’s face. “I love you, Contagion.” The truth spit out before the universe. “Don’t leave me for her.” A broken, shuddering sob. “Please no.”
in the darkness, I will meet my creators
and they will all agree that I'm a suffocator
The first cry shocks Tyrna like lightning. Within the space of a heartbeat she has jumped in front of Contagion, ready to protect him from the intruder. Fangs fill her maw as her wings snap out to the sides blocking him from view. Her head is lowered, blue eyes steeled, as she prepares to fight of the threat to her love. She makes for a frightening sight. Gone is the weary lovestruck demon, and in her place stands the avenging guardian angel. This time she was in control and nothing would stop her from keeping him safe.
Moments pass like years as Tyrna watches the mare crash to her knees sobbing. The sound she makes as she hits the ground is a familiar one. The ripping echoing like a memory in her ears. The demon mare can only assume this is Adaline, and her next words cause her to snarl in bewilderment.don't leave me for her
The scent of blood, so different yet so familiar, lingers in the air turning her anger to confusion. Her wings drop and she steps to the side searching his face even as his sister does. "Contagion? What does she mean?" Tyrna's face normally so stoic and distant, is nothing but confused and vulnerable. She knew that she could never have expected him to wait for her. The steel mare was flighty and restless, but this? After all her trials and tribulations, she could feel herself start to fall apart. She didn't handle confusion well anymore.
Tyrna could feel her fangs still exposed as she waited desperately for him to reply. Tyrna And paint blood upon your door
He is perhaps more like his father than he realized – only he wears his fragility on the outside as well as in.
He doesn’t say the word love, but it’s there in the hollowed-out places where his muzzle meets flesh, there in the way his tongue carves out the names. He doesn’t say the word love, because hanging above the word is another, flashing neon - danger. Danger, because the women who cause this keeling in his heart are women he should avoid.
One is a storm, a woman of steel, who could break him if she kissed too hard.
One is his own sister, his blood, forbidden in every sense of the word.
He brings them together. He says their names to the other, and does not hide the way in which he says them.
He is perhaps more like his father than he realized – while he should have an eye for danger, being as he is (a thing of glass, begging to be broken), he does not think of the danger interwoven in this.
A wolf at the table, but she is his wolf.
But as they move, he realizes something else – Adaline has come to them, comes burst forth from the underbrush, shouting, falling to her knees. He sees her skin rip open and he is torn. Tyrna moves to protect him, a warrior, and for a moment his view of her is blocked and his heart lurches, he tries to stumble around Tyrna, to make sure Adaline is okay.
She says the words, the things they skirted in the meadow, the words he can’t – won’t – say.
I love you.
Her blood pools at her knees, so remarkably fragile.
He moves between them but doesn’t have the words, only his body, ridiculously breakable (as if he could ever be a barrier). His heart feels like a stone and for a moment he wonders if it will drop out from under him, the weight of it too much for his glass frame to bear.
But nothing breaks. Not literally, anyway.
Tyrna asks for an explanation. He doesn’t have one. He can’t stop watching Adaline’s blood on the ground.
“I love you,” he says to both, though he looks at neither, “and I shouldn’t.”
He is perhaps more like his father than he realized – a fool with a heart bleeding open, asking to be loved when he has no right to.
contagion be careful making wishes in the dark
(sin tyrna can 'make her move' whenever or we can angst like this some more the poor babies <3)
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