"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
01-07-2020, 05:39 PM (This post was last modified: 01-28-2020, 12:52 PM by Oceane.)
oceane
at me, the sea withdrew
Her sleep is fitful, her dreams chaotic. Mchawi, the Nau-Aibian arithmancer, visits her — and with him comes the orange-eyed stallion from the desert. The one who had tried to murder the strange golden woman; the same one she had murdered to save the palomino stranger. The stallion's screams echo, looping over and over again in Oceane's head as he and the inky, oily Mchawi advance toward her. Behind them slither the desert sandsnakes she had called upon to end the orange-eyed stallion's life for her, writhing and hissing as their scales reflect in the harsh sunlight.
"I'm sorry," she croaks, her throat tight. She tries to retreat from the stallions but no matter how quickly she moves, she cannot walk backwards fast enough to create any real distance between them. Shadowy tendrils fall from Mchawi's nostrils and eyes; they spill from his mouth when he opens it to join the loop of screaming with his own venomous accusation:
"Traitor. Traitor. Traitor. Traitor."
"I'm sorry!" she cries again, but the words fall flat and give way to a scream as the two black stallions close the gap between themselves and her —
Oceane is startled awake, the sweat coating her sleek opal bodice gleaming in the silver moonlight. On her side, she rocks herself up and inspects her dark surroundings for the arithmancer or the orange-eyed stallion. Neither are present, though the slither of scales upon sand and dry earth has not faded with the rest of her dream. Rattlesnakes, brown and dust-covered with beady black and green eyes, coil in the dust around her. She counts five in total. "What are you doing here?" she asks tentatively of the Loessian serpents, her zoolingualism coming almost naturally.
"You called for us," one of them, though she's unsure which, says in response.
Sudden hoof beats in the distance catch her attention and Oceane draws in a breath. It catches in her lungs and tenses the muscles in her shoulders, readied lest she need to ascend swiftly to the skies. Pivoting in the direction of the approaching noise, the brown rattlesnake that rests between her and the sound lets out a long hiss and raises its head up, up, up — prepared, she supposes, to protect her from whatever is coming their way.
Castile's gold-banded face reveals itself in the dark and Oceane finally lets loose her bated breath. "Castile," she says breathily to the Loessian King before turning her gilded gaze to the serpents that lay around her. "You may go. I am safe," she tells them, and as they uncoil to slither away she adds in a whispered "thank you" to the creatures who had had no obligation to answer her cries in the dark.
Hesitantly, and perhaps a bit shamefully, she turns her bright eyes back to the painted stallion before her. "I'm sorry if I woke you," her amber eyes take note of the way the silver moonlight flows over the sharp ridges of his face, "I'm not usually prone to night terrors. I—" her voice catches and she can simply shake her head before taking a small step closer to her King. "I... I'm glad you're here."
(set in late autumn because babies) " "
i must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
and all i ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by
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
What are you doing here?
Her voice pierces the silent of the night, even in its hushed tones. It piques Castile’s interest, stirring him from his solitude. Even amid the cackling coyotes and rattlesnakes, he hears her so clearly, as though standing adjacent to her.
And the voices, the hiss of words so similar to the monster that lies in his mind and soul, crawl into his ears and awaken a primal intrigue. A deep breath surges into his lungs and his senses electrify with acute fascination to locate her. It doesn’t take long; rarely does it. The pull is undeniable and adds a mild rush to his footsteps that place him quickly in front of her, on the opposite side of the serpents. He understands them, all of them, but he says nothing. Castile’s gaze merely dwells for a long moment as his ears twist to hear Oceane’s dismissal of them. A lopsided grin forms but it flickers after she turns on him, relief washing across her face.
Draconic wings sprout from his shoulder blades, reaching their full height only to reach toward Oceane, pulling her near enough in an embrace. ”I was awake,” he admits in the tent of his large wings, their eyes locking, ”but do not apologize.” Such a foolish reason to say she is sorry, he muses but never says aloud as the cool night breathes against his skin. ”Are you okay?” Looking at her, she seems to be. The racing of her heart says otherwise, but he cannot determine why. Her thoughts are safe from him, as is everyone’s. All he can rely on are primal instincts and observation. It only goes so far, but his wings provide the privacy to delve into her mind and understand her more than he ever has.
There's a cool autumn breeze that accompanies Castile's arrival, as if to say he is the storm. The demons from her night terror seek to find reprieve, searching for a place to hide while the calm still ebbs before that first inevitable crack of lightning. They are gone before she has the chance to linger on them any longer: Mchawi, the orange-eyed stranger, their revolting cries, the hissing of snakes.
Despite this, her heart still races. It beats at the interior of her chest, clamoring to escape through its bone cage and then through the muscle beyond. Still shaky, her breath comes in slow exhales and when the Loessian king extends his great draconic wings to blot out the silver of the moon above them, washing her in darkness, Oceane can't help but to instinctively steel herself against the show of affection.
Her reservation is ephemeral. Muscles loosening at Castile's gruff voice, the opalescent woman relaxes easily into the electric chemistry between them and floats comfortably in the warm space of this private sanctum he has created for them. "I am," she whispers confidently when he asks if she is okay. She bites at the edge of her tongue, debating before adding, "Demons of my past have begun to visit more often as of late."
There are countless incidents from Nau-Aib that sit in the records of her memory that Oceane could share with Castile, should she decide to elaborate. In fact, she mulls over it for a moment — over the idea of sharing years-old secrets for the first time in nearly four years, over the idea of confiding these things in her King. The desire to do so sits at the tip of her tongue but at the last moment she loses her resolve and instead moves wordlessly closer to the painted stallion.
She rests her violet cheek against his gold-banded one. Tentatively at first, as the knowledge of his rank floats at the forefront of her mind, but after a few slow inhales she relaxes into his warmth. "Are you often awake this late into the night?" she whispers in his ear and imagines the darkness that sits beyond the cover of his tented wings.
@[Castile] " "
i must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
and all i ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by
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
Impulsive.
It’s why they are tented by his immense wings, their bodies intimately close. Castile knows better, realizes that this shouldn’t happen, and yet his morals are fleeting.
Possessive.
The reasoning behind his want of her, to have every woman beneath him, just to say it happened – just to say that everything is his.
A breath catches in his throat when their eyes lock beneath the membranous walls. I am, she confesses, and he obediently nods while listening for more. Oceane obliges, of course, and offers an admission of her past, though it only skims the surface. ”Demons,” he echoes into the small space between them, his mind leaping to ideas before settling with mounting curiosity. ”Tell me,” he wants to know her, to understand her. What life she had outside of Beqanna still breathes over her shoulder, and the kindness tucked in his soul wants to extend a helping hand. ”That is, if you’re willing to open up that much.” It’s a lot to ask, he realizes as he slowly curls his wings back, retracting them and opening them up to the moonlight and stars.
If there is one thing their conversation provides, it’s a distraction. For the time being, he escapes all responsibilities as the kingdom slumbers. Beyond the hills, dreams come alive. High in the mountain peaks, his family rests curled up to one another. Cold evenings, even at that altitude, don’t faze them as they huddle against the warm bodies of his father and brother. Their inner fire is a blanket for the others.
It’s rare that Castile does not join them, but tonight, something else lured him from their comforting grip.
”Sometimes,” the word slips unbidden past his lips, answering her before he even considers the question. ”Tonight, I’m simply restless,” he eyes the star-studded sky for a long breath, but looks at Oceane again with his head just slightly tilted and intrigued. ”Meant to be, I suppose,” a chuckle rises, gravely and low in the late hours of the night, ”I wouldn’t have been able to save you from your nightmares had I been asleep on the other side of Loess.” He wouldn’t be here, with her, gravitating toward her coy personality even as Sochi screams through his thoughts.
Under the protection of his draconic wings, Oceane's attentiveness is only for Castile. Her worries are only for Castile. Her memories are only for Castile. She wants to bare all beneath his watchful mismatched eyes and, when they connect, there's that brief moment that she nearly does. But she gives him only the tip of the iceberg instead and waits to see if he will dive.
And he does.
Tell me, his gruff voice requests before backtracking to give her the option of opting out. Oceane lingers here for a moment, her tongue pressing against the inside of her blunted teeth as she considers. The painted stallion pulls his wings away and folds them again to his sides, leaving cold air where their warm den had been. She looks briefly to the sky before she answers, tentatively.
"The Mountain," she starts, quite positive that he will know the types of things that occur there, "It brought Mchawi to me. He is — was — a member of the King's Court in Nau-Aib, where I am from." She hadn't spoken the name aloud since leaving the desert civilization. She'd rarely allowed herself to even think the name. "I was on the Court alongside him," each member had been blessed with the King's magik that painted their coats opalescent, a shining mark in the desert sun strewn between everything dull and sand-worn, "But it was not a good life."
She clears her throat as it threatens to tighten and turns her bright amber eyes back on Castile. Usually docile and analytic, they now appear alight with flame beneath the silver of the moon, an indication of the soulfire within her that could take full credit for the escape she'd made from Nau-Aib.
She would have died without it.
Resistant to offering him any more about her past lest it worsen her mood and dig up feelings she wishes not to feel, Oceane asks him casually about his sleeping habits. His gruff voice pulls her in again, his voice melting whatever reservations she had been experiencing and reigniting the chemistry that she enjoys each time she's in his presence.
Her nostrils flare to inhale his scent and, perhaps she should realize that his family's scent is stronger than all else but she does not, she revels in the closeness of him. "My savior," she whispers, nearly purring, as she calls back their previous conversation and the three wishes he'd granted her, "How can I repay you?"
@[Castile] " "
i must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
and all i ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by
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
Oceane’s eyes find his, hold his, and Castile realizes immediately how her world is about to open to him. The tale unravels, first in broken pieces, but it holds his attention nonetheless as he regards her with concern. A fathomless vastness exists beyond Beqanna. A world, one in which Oceane survived, is beyond his reach but the story captures his fascination as he imagines a desert with rolling dunes and a blistering wind that pelts him with sand. As desirable as the heat sounds, Castile reflects on the dreamlike experience with Craft, and everything inside him shrivels at the prospect.
As an attempt to lift her spirits, Castile lifts Oceane’s chin then searches her face while he boyishly grins. ”I didn’t realize I was speaking to such an esteemed Lady,” but in the back of his mind, Castile knows that is what she deserves – a title much the same here in Loess. Breathing a heavy sigh, he slowly deviates from the lighthearted humor as he notices the fire flickering in her eyes. ”I’m sorry it wasn’t a life you had hoped for,” the gravely tone of his voice rumbles in the late night air, ”but whatever happened, it brought you here, to Beqanna, where I hope you’ve found more happiness.” in Loess, with me, the twisted thoughts echo in his mind, unspoken but spiking through his veins with a possessive need of her.
In his chest, his heartbeat quickens, but with a forced sigh, it steadies again.
He knows this is wrong, but he cannot pull away, not now.
Oceane looks up sweetly and it takes everything not to take her underneath him now, underneath the stars. His jaws clench and his ears swivel in their nest of metallic bronze. ”Keep me company tonight,” he whispers in a similar croon while he moves to be next to her, pressed to her side where she may feel the unnatural heat rise from his flesh. Leaning his muzzle to the slope of her shoulder, he quietly adds, ”I will keep the nightmares away,” but only for the one night, he tells himself, despite the urge of his instincts fighting against him.
When she starts telling him, she can't stop. Stories of her life in Nau-Aib rise of their own accord and slip from between her purple lips, and all the while she watches her King's mismatched eyes to see if she is sharing too much, or if she has lost his interest. To Castile's praise, he appears to recognize the weight of what she tells him and listens intently. When Oceane draws a picture of her own lineage ─ a Queen mother and peasant father (a father who had died at the King's hooves for her mother's indiscretion) ─ she brushes only minimally over the physical torment that the King and his guard had bestowed upon her.
She may have been granted the opalescent coat of a Court Scholar, due more to the technicality of her mother's title than anything else, but they certainly would not let her forget who her father was.
And she most certainly does not mention to Castile how they'd torn her two newborn sons from her, born two years apart but meeting the same awful fate. It's this that tortures her still, more than the memories of her own pain or the death of her father, and despite the pull she feels to be near and with the painted stallion who stands before her now, those words just won't come out.
He lifts her chin with his nose. The simple act of kindness fills her with gratitude and alights a fire in her belly, fueled by his touch. She laughs at his unexpected jest and feigns exasperation with a roll of her igneous amber eyes. "You never asked if I had my own secrets kept away," she whispers to him playfully as her lips release their tight, thin line and insinuate a smirk. Castile's deep, rumbling voice draws a shiver through her and as he apologizes, Oceane presses the length of her blue face against his, giving herself into the desire she feels and forsaking any worries associated with her past, his title, or his secret.
"I have," she says matter-of-factly, though her voice is still quiet, for his ears only ─ a quiet suggestion that he is the reason Beqanna has brought her more happiness than she could have imagined the day she had happened upon its soil. He has given her everything he had promised he would when he'd met her in the Field ─ a home full of intrigue, curiosities to pursue, a secret behind those mismatched eyes that just adds to the electricity she feels whenever he is near.
Castile severs their touch, only to move beside her and press his winged frame against hers. Oceane nearly melts into him at his crooned request and she closes her eyes to revel in the primal, greedy longing that coils in her loins.
I will keep the nightmares away.
She exhales slowly from flared nostrils and then inhales his pheromones deeply again. Instinctively, her long lavender tail flicks side to side with excited agitation. Coy and lust-driven, she nips at the muscle of his shoulder before whispering back, her voice low and breathy.
"Keep them away, and I will keep you warm."
@[Castile] " "
i must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
and all i ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by
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
”How selfish of me,” he grumbles into the warmth of her skin, breathing her in slowly, tantalizingly. Oceane was so fascinated by him that their conversation led down the winding road of his life, of his entitlement. They only skimmed the surface of her own life experiences, a regret that climbs into his throat now as their gazes meet, and hold. ”I’m not above admitting my faults,” he confesses into the cool, night air, ”I apologize for not asking sooner, but I did not want to impose, either.” With only her and the stars as witnesses to his regret, it lives and dies in this single moment.
It has been clear in their exchanges that he rests her value higher than most, that her life grips his interest even months since their first meeting. Their present together eclipses the mysteries of their pasts. Reveling in the here-and-now, Castile wraps his mind around Oceane and how the moonlight plays across her opalescent coat. A charmed grin wrinkles the corners of his mouth, and his eyes flash with mirrored fascination and lust.
It takes only that one statement, that one form of agreement, from Oceane.
Enticingly, Castile traces his lips down the length of her body. Her sloping shoulder, her ribs underneath her folded wings, her hip. He backs up slowly, memorizing every detail of her until he it out of her sight. Behind her, his coat ripples to the deepest obsidian, and his metallic locks bleed into a deep scarlet. She does not see this change, how the darkness of his mind leaks into his physicality as he takes his place above her, taking her, claiming her.
Only Oceane and the stars are witness, again, but only after he has finished does Castile realize how this one impulse will follow him forever.
Having already committed – already ensured his legacy through her – Castile returns to her side, his coat already reverted to its original, idling himself by lipping her mane absentmindedly.
"I hope you don't think I told you these things just to hear an apology," she says with a quirk of her lips and gentle laughter, "I probably wouldn't have told you back then, anyway." The truth lingers between them and she peers into the apologetic gaze of her King for a few moments, watching as it folds away to make room for the familiar coy playfulness that seems destined to arise each time they interact.
His grin returns, the sharpness of his jaw accentuated by the way the moonlight falls over his gold-banded face, and Oceane boldly calls him forward ─ intent to be close to him and to feel the warmth of his lean, sleek body (warmth, she notices, that is stronger than what could be considered natural) against hers, the opalescent mare falls into the moment without reproach or hesitation.
Castile's gentle caress sets her skin on fire. She leans into it and her molten, wanting eyes flutter closed as she revels in the feeling of his lips against her. He does not question her desire ─ does not ask if she is sure or if she knows what she truly wants or if she knows what could come of their night together beneath the stars, and this drives her need for the Loessian King.
She easily braces herself beneath the weight of him, wings half-opened to give him better purchase around her slim barrel, and curls her muzzle to the sinew of her chest as she succumbs to the fullness and the gratification.
When Castile returns to the earth, Oceane is coated comfortably in sweat that chills swiftly in the darkness. She presses her neck into him as he lips at her mane and, after a time, drifts to sleep.
@[Castile] " "
i must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
and all i ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by
