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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


    [private]  my bad habits lead to you
    #1

    YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS

    He had vanished for over a year and Aela had tried to push him from her mind.

    It had been her fault. They had gone seeking their futures beneath Straia's once burning tree and Aela had thought she had caught a glimpse of it - that it hadn't been about conquering the world or descending it into chaos. It hadn't been about Magic or the way that they might increase their capabilities. What Aela had seen was them, without the world  falling apart or into disorder. Without either of them achieving that godhood they had both been seeking.

    They hadn't become deities but discovered each other.
    And Aela wondered if Skandar had seen something similar, if he had understood how dangerous that was.

    If he had realized that they might have each other but nothing else.
    Or that they might have everything but not each other.

    Aela understands she plays a dangerous game. There is Obscene who has given her everything that she has asked for. There is Reave who indulges her as a brother should. There are other pieces that she is considering - of where she might place them across the board that Aela is creating and the plans that she is crafting. It is Skandar that she has continually come back to, and how he had followed her back to the Pampas. She had realized that during their last meeting in Pangea that there is nothing she won't ask that the skinwalker wouldn't do.

    She knows that she can go too far (but what good is a dream within limits?) and yet each time she has, there is Skandar ready to breach it with his shifting skin and vengeful eyes.

    It is still dark when she seeks him out, with the last stars still hanging above them. "Come with me," she murmurs to the galaxy-marked stallion and then slinks through the Pampas grasses along the Sylvan border, knowing he would follow. She leads them on the outskirts of the Loessian border and then turns them towards Tephra. Dawn hasn't quite broken when they reach the border and though Aela knows they should wait to be greeted by a diplomat or a native, she thinks that Skandar's presence (the son of their beloved Svedka, brother to the Watcher and son of the fabled Warrick) will be enough.

    Skandar's memories give her a glimpse inside the Western kingdom and the pair travels along the beaches until the molten glow of the volcano blazes on the horizon.

    It softens Aela's face, making her look young and wistful. Her blue eyes travel up the mountainside, admiring the way that the magma runs down it. A smile emerges, hidden by shadows while the day still waits to break. "Do you remember the first time we met?" she asks and then turns her expectant blue-eyed gazed on Skandar.

    @Skandar

    #2

    He still finds himself more comfortable under the cloak of nightfall, allowing pieces of himself to stray and become untouchable, wisps of darkness at the edges of his body. The violet and indigo strands of his mane fade into nothingness, mere shadow intertangling into the true night that has fallen across Tephra. His time spent mimicking the monsters that ran beneath the eclipse left him grasping to the final hours of nightfall, reluctant to watch the sun burn its way through the horizon far too soon. There is tension across the broad of his back and shoulders as he accompanies her, the shadow that once played at the edges of his skin becoming more writhing and alive as if he were to cloak himself in its camouflage at any moment.

    Aela had sought him out (would she always?) and like clockwork - for it is the only thing he really knows to do, besides darkness and shedding his skin - he follows. Even when their trek through the witching hours of night led him to a familiar path that he had assumed he had long since forgotten; even when it became all too clear where they were headed. His emotions are blanketed beneath the indiscernibility of his expressionless face, but as the deep orange glow of the lava begins to illuminate them both, there is no hiding the agitation that is rife within his brilliant eyes - seemingly brought to life by the lava itself.

    The silence that settles over them is not something that is unfamiliar; the pair do well within the moments when they are not speaking and for that Skandar is thankful. He is not eloquent in his words (his actions always spoke louder and were more apt to get his point across) and it is something that Aela seems to understand, if not prefer. Even in their relaxed quiet Skandar can feel a pinprick of uncertainty trickle across his spine. What did Aela have planned? There is no love lost within the jungle or the black sand beaches of his boyhood home. Skandar does, however, understand Aela’s demands and how her desires are things he can inhabit for her - and that is why she calls to him; for what else would the reason be that she comes to him in the middle of the night, secretive and elusive?

    As her face turns up at the volcano, Skandar finds that his expression has gone sour beneath its glow. He curves his neck as they come to a halt, refusing to give the symbol of his childhood a second glance. Aela can feel his displeasure, knowing that his thoughts and memories are hers to experience. He remembers loneliness beneath the volcano; inadequacy, an embarrassment to the royal family - a bastard child hidden in secrecy.

    So he looks to her, as he has always done, and the rage that simmers in the hard angles of his face becomes molten though they do not lose their sharp edge. He snaps his teeth together with a dull sound (a habit that came from his years in darkness, like a ravenous shadow creature) in response as if her question had somehow offended him. As if he could forget. It had been a defining moment for him. He snorts sharply, ears flicking back idly - had it been the same for her? He grimaces, hiding his face momentarily with the nearby shadow.

    “I do,” he admits to her and though his voice is quiet on the night air, there is a firmness etched into it - unwavering, unfailing.

    skandar




    @Aela
    #3

    YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS

    Aela and Skandar have never needed words.

    He was one of the few who had known her before she could speak. And those conversations had never been dull. The galaxy-marked stallion had never tried to shield his mind from Aela and she has never tried to keep her thoughts from him. There was a tether there, something that even if she never spoke of, the gilded mare knew it existed. Fate had woven them together and while Aela sometimes felt the heaviness of its yoke, she knew that whatever the future brought, it would involve Skandar in some shape or form.

    So perhaps that is why she comes to him in the darkest part of the night, when he can still cling to the edges of his familiar shadows. Perhaps that is why she doesn't speak, because she knows how to communicate with Skandar without needing words. He doesn't need to say anything for Aela to know that he is unhappy about where they are headed, but Skandar follows her anyway. His agitation is there, simmering beneath the surface of his star-strewn coat much like she imagined that the magma simmered beneath the peak of the Tephran volcano.

    It would be so easy to pull, to pluck that string of emotion and see how it might echo out through his reactions.

    (But this is the one rule that Aela has: she might manipulate others but she will never manipulate Skandar with her emotions.)

    The emotions that he feels in the shadow of the glowing mountain wash over her and as Aela looks towards it, she can feel the loneliness that he experienced here as a child. (And doesn't that make her reflect on her own, hidden away in the quiet of the Taigan fog.) They are alike this way, she thinks. They are certainly divinely crafted things (Aela will never consider her a birth an accident) but she had been like Skandar. An illegitimate child tucked out of sight so nobody would know the blunder of her parentage. When the inadequacy grazes across her golden skin, Aela burns it away.

    She never has - and never will leave - room for doubt.

    Beneath the fiery glow of the volcano, Aela basks in a confidence that comes from her certainty. She is destined for great things; the blood burning beneath the skin of the stallion next to her has assured him for greatness. Skandar only needs the assurance to step into it. They are both the brilliance of an inferno and she needs him to step out of the shadows, to shed the monsters off his always-changing skin, and become the God-like being she knows that he is capable of.

    They've returned to Tephra because as much as Aela has tried to hide it, there is a still scar on her chest from Gale.

    Aela needs it gone; the evidence wiped away as if what her half-brother had done never happened. There were rumors of a lake within this place that cure a horse of ailments, relieve them of suffering and return them to what they once were. She wants her beautiful skin pristine and unmarked. But it was only open to the residents of Tephra and those they were willing to open their borders to. Glancing at the stallion beside her, she knows that Skandar being Tephran-born wouldn't be enough. 

    So without speaking, Aela sends the skinwalker images of the healing lake (perhaps he remembers it?) and then tries something that she has only done with Beyza and Heartfire.

    Take the shape of a Tephran, she thinks into the wilderness of his mind. Any would do, but perhaps there was one that he had always wanted to borrow (his father? One of his many family members that scorned his bastardy?). Let him take something from another, she thinks, if that is what he needs to remember all the ways they could burn together.

    @Skandar

    #4

    Even within the terrible and utter loneliness of his own world, reinforced by his own selfishness and cruel intention, there is always Aela. Golden, bright, burning - with the effervescence of chaos and power just beneath the surface of her blazing gaze. Perhaps only Skandar could see it; recognizes that same intensity that sits perfectly perched upon her slender shoulders, drawn to the familiarity of it. He wonders if this is what home feels like - ponders it each time his equally smoldering gaze befalls the crystal blue of her own.

    Skandar’s emotions are hers. He has never kept them from her and within the silence, serves them continually as an offering. A sign of loyalty, maybe, or an understanding that his attempts to veil her from them would be in vain. Why fight her when it is so much easier to relent? The stallion snorts softly, thoughtfully, and briefly pauses to think of the consequences of those who may not choose to surrender to her as he has. A muscle in his violet jaw jumps - he would handle them for her.

    Besides, would there ever be another who would stare into his soul and not balk at what she has seen there? He doubts it. Only Aela could withstand the darkness that coils so dangerously around his heart, flaring into flames.

    Amidst his thoughts, the familiar fingers of Aela force their way in. Skandar’s ears flick idly at the feeling, a single foreleg lazily digging at the wet earth beneath his hooves. An obedient soldier, only for her, as she makes her intentions known to him without words; only with the intimacy of her mind tangling up within his own.

    The scar on the slope of her chest had not gone unnoticed by him. Despite the heated moments between them (secret moments, that they never speak of; the warmth of breath drawn across shivering skin, daring to meet but never quite doing so), Skandar has found himself able to memorize each detailed part of her - down to the delicate striping on her legs and where tangles were found in the pale flaxen of her forelock - so there is no part of her that remains undiscovered by his wandering eyes. He tells himself it is a necessity (a skin-changer should focus on every minute detail, committing it to memory, just in case a need ever arises) and nothing more than to take her shape if ever need be. He will continue to tell himself this, despite the way his eyes may linger a bit too long - long enough to find the edges of their sharpness begin to soften.

    It is then when he’ll look away, focusing more on the way she intertwines herself within his mind, as a shuddering breath wisps from his slightly open mouth.

    He takes a single step forward, his skin beginning to shimmer as he steps closer to the invisible border of Tephra, the soft clicking sound of his transformation echoing gently through the deep twilight. The extravagance of his coat falls away and he becomes plain - a pale, yellow gold (unlike the deep honey of Aela), like the sun on a clear noon day. Large patches of white then crawl across him, settling on his withers and haunches, while three stockings in the same ivory stretch up to his knees. His burning gaze changes in a single blink, softening and melting into an elusive color of cerulean. The stallion - no longer Skandar, not really - turns to look at Aela with a stoic gaze, the movement of his head stilling just as strands of blue slide from the roots of his now pale mane and tail.

    Svedka stands beside her now (perhaps with his markings a bit out of place, but unnoticeable to those who did not know his father intimately), his head tilted slightly as if waiting for approval of his choice of Tephran cloak. Skandar’s now-pink lips twitch into somewhat of a pleased smirk for half a second before he turns to the right, crossing in front of Aela to lead her in the direction of the pool that would hopefully do all that she wished.

    Tephra is quiet after all and even if someone’s eyes were to fall upon them - who would stop to question the brother of the current king?

    skandar



    @Aela
    #5

    YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS

    Aela does not allow herself to feel loneliness. The memories of that actual emotion are distant and hazy, like her earliest memories of Taiga. She remembers feeling lost once, stumbling through the fog and trying to navigate the murky woods. In some of those memories, Heartfire would come. Sometimes as herself, sometimes using her powers to be a stranger, coming across Aela's path as a child or a crone. It became a game for the young Empath to play with her grandmother, as the Seer taught to never let her eyes decieve her (there was always much, much more than what met the eye).

    And it was during those moments that Aela learned to quiet her echoes, to contain her own emotions and those surrounding her so that they could not lead her astray.

    But the ache had come unbidden during her last visit to Tephra. Aela had assumed that it must have come from one of the nearby residents (or perhaps even Wherewolf, longing for a nap). She had spent enough time with Obscene to understand what pining felt like; she is too aware of what she is to not feel the way that Pampas Prince wants the future Loessian queen. So when they had come to steal to Tephra to steal Sickle, and she had glanced upon the red-orangle glow emanating from the lava streams coming down the mountain face (reminding her of Skandar), Aela had known the genuine feeling the moment it settled in her gut and where it coiled tight, wrapping itself around a fiery heart that should have only wanted glory at any cost.

    She extinguished it; Aela had burnt it away the moment she understood what that feeling was. Just as she needs to burn away the few scars that riddle her body. Goddesses do not have their bodies marked or marred (though this aspiring one keeps a scar at the base of her neck, two pinprick spots where the molten gold of her coat has grown in lighter, the only one she allows that remains hidden beneath the pale luster of her fine mane). Aela wants her praise to come in the shape of perfection, without any blemish to blight it.

    Tephra's magical lake has been useful for that, knitting away her scars as if the wounds had never existed.

    Tilting her head at the now overo stallion - this not Skandar - her blue eyes glitter approvingly. This is his father, she recalls. The one who had done something to attract the attention of Carnage. He is handsome enough, though skinwalker in his usual shape is far more so, thanks to the ichor in his veins. Her smile curves towards its traditional wry shape, and Aela allows Svedka's illusioned son to lead her towards the nearby pool. (She hates to follow but the golden female reminds herself that other way around would ruin the deception. Why would a Tephran be lead to their lake by an outsider?)

    When she starts to step into the water, Aela looks behind her, wondering if he might follow her.


    @Skandar

    #6
    He hates how rummaging through Tephra is still so familiar to him. It all comes back - each path and trail - fluidly to his mind and he wonders if he were to close his eyes, if he could lead her exactly to where the pool is hidden. He had wanted to be done with this place and all that it held, yet returned without much hesitation (and with the body of his absent father). As much as he had wanted to believe that his past was behind him, it clearly is not so. It throws the brunt of its cruelty into his face despite the masquerade he dons - even in hiding, the loneliness of his childhood still finds him. The palomino stallion does not hesitate in his steps, but Skandar can feel the uncomfortable twist of his chest writhing beneath bone and skin. Each part of their trek only reminds him of the sad little boy he had once been, mocking him with haunting whispers in his ears.

    Svedka’s golden ears flatten against the curve of his honeyed neck (a look that rarely appears on the true Svedka himself) and he snorts sharply as they come to a halt before the healing pool. He does not feed whatever stirs in his chest - whether it be guilt or rage or sadness - and squanders it, instead turning his now-blue gaze to Aela expectantly. Freshwater slides melodically from the top of the falls, creating a mist that hangs lazily in the humid air, moisture already clinging to the pale white and blue of Skandar’s mane and forelock.

    Skandar remains unwavering as the brightness of his new eyes follow her shape steadily, drawn to watching her most carefully now that she cannot see the way his gaze may linger. Perhaps she could feel his eyes on her body despite this, for she is powerful in ways Skandar is not -  though for some reason the idea of that realization coming to her didn’t bother him like it may have months ago. Part of him hopes she’ll catch him.

    Aela, of course, does not hesitate to enter the healing waters and he did not expect her to regard him in any way as she did so.

    But she does.

    His eyes flash orange for the briefest moments he meets her gaze, quickly becoming the cool blue of his father once again in the tiniest of seconds. An invitation, it seems (though Skandar thinks twice - nothing is ever as it seems), to follow her. He considers her and then does something he has never done, not to her.

    Skandar hesitates.

    Can she feel his pause? Does she notice the flash of uncertainty, poised perfectly on the handsome, elder face of his father? He has followed her anywhere and everywhere without such delay and now, in the quiet and swathing humidity of Tephra, there is tension settling across his spine. A weight that feels foreign and unwelcome, bringing a scowl that did not quite fit the face of Svedka - one that was much more suited for the young stallion that is hidden beneath his father’s skin.

    “Why are we here, Aela?” Skandar’s voice is particularly calm despite the discouragement that darkens the face that he is wearing. It is not an accusation and perhaps there is even real curiosity that lingers within the question. “What are we doing?” This time there is a strain in his question, as if he was asking far more than what it seemed.

    Then - whether you call it stupidity or loyalty, or downright bravery - the palomino stallion moves to stand beside her, the healing waters lapping at his pale ankles.

    Show me, the sharpness of his eyes now beg.

    skandar

    i want to be the bullet
    that brings you to your knees



    @Aela
    #7

    YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS

    Aela wasn't the type of mull over the past. It was there for a reason. They were lives already lived, stories already told. The remnants came to her from to time, in the glimpses of those moments. She had grown used to it and it wasn't uncommon for Aela to swat those memories away like summer flies, or an attempt to move the stifling air around her when the humidity grew too thick with a flick of her pale tail.

    Her work in the Pampas keeps her busy enough that she doesn't have to consider it often. But every so often (and it comes more and more the longer that Skandar remains away), she would remember their last meeting in Pangea. There are other memories as well - the way that they had bled beneath Straia's tree and the magic that infused them after - but Aela always comes back to the cave where she had bared her throat for Skandar.

    (Had he forgotten?)

    Those thoughts had come more frequently after her meeting with Mazikeen, and the scars that the Alpha of Hyaline had revealed to her. They were the marks of a fighter, but it had been a flickering in her orange-flame eyes that Aela had recognized. Perhaps some passions were gentler things, soft words and soft caresses. But Aela has never known life to be that way; it was hard and jagged and cruel. It was like her - like Skandar - brutal beneath the beauty. But the slender palomino had understood the other woman, because some passions were so brutal that the only thing they could do was rip each other apart.

    She thought of that day with Skandar, and the way that his fangs had pierced her golden skin. She remembered the searing pain, and the way that her legs wanted to give out. She remembers thinking that he could murder her, and some treacherous (shameless) part of Aela thought she would endure a hundred deaths if it meant he would touch her again.

    As she slips into the healing waters, Aela can sense his gaze on her back. The striped female stills, and turns to look behind her. This is the stallion who had followed her from the Common Lands to Pangea, from Pangea to the Pampas, who had come with her on this journey without question. He never has; Skandar has always been as certain of their divine aspirations as she has. She is the one who lights that path forward and he has been the one to bare his teeth and cut down anyone who might have opposed them.

    But the scowl on Svedka's handsome face makes the palomino lift her head, unfamiliar with being questioned by him. There is no coy smile, only the shadow of a frown on her refined face. It has taken her years - and when they had first met - Aela hadn't known what trust would look like between them. Would it be trusting that he wouldn't turn dig fangs into her skin and tear her apart? Would it be trusting that in their shared dream of burning the world down, that he wouldn't burn her as well?

    They are gods, the pair of them.
    Aela knows that.

    Between them, they can create. Whatever Aela imagines, Skandar can become.

    So why can't she imagine that they would be anything other than destruction? (Because that always seem to be in all the fables and the legends; the Gods love to destroy and ruin the things they claimed to love to prove that it existed in the first place.)

    There is light glowing beneath the water as her skin heals itself, as the places torn knit themselves back together. Aela becomes perfect again, as unblemished as she imagines a goddess should be. The palomino looks away from the Tephran-born stallion, trying to think of a way to tell him that they were in Tephra because of her and her machinations. Aela usually pushed against others with her Magic, and the mortals that pushed back against her did the only way they knew how: hoof and teeth. It left little knicks and cuts against her otherwise flawless skin and Aela would never stand any flaw.

    But he asks her what they were doing, and where the dream that had started in the Pampas had once been so clear, it was now muddled. Like the churning lake-water that Skandar had stirred up as he came to stand beside her. And when his voice breaks through the thoughts in her mind, Aela obliges.

    ('What more do you want?' she asks Obscene, confused as to what else he could possibly ask of her when Aela had put his Pampas on the path to glory. 'You,' says the onyx-and-gold beast. 'I would have all of you Aela. Not just parts of you.' There is a silence, a darkness where the memory breaks off though the Prince's voice still echoes through: 'But that's not possible, is it?')


    @Skandar

    #8
    As the water reaches across each part of her, knitting together what once was torn apart, Skandar’s eyes reflect the soft golden glow like molten sunlight. He should have asked her a different question, he realizes too late. Had he known she would be opening to answering (a thing that he never would expect and now, as she allows him to see inside her mind), he might have asked something quite a bit different, a bit more specific. He craves direction and purpose, found solely in her guidance since he was only a colt, and he craves it now - a mission, a task, anything. What is her plan for Obscene and how did he, her skinwalker, fit into it? Is he meant to be as loyal to Obscene as he is to her? Is it all a trick? Is he meant to be a secret assassin or simply a spy?

    What does she want from him? Certainly, she knows he’d give her anything - anything at all - without hesitation. Leading her to the waterfall hadn’t been something needed - she could have made the venture herself, yet brought him with her anyway. Was it to test him? To see if he still will become anything she wishes, anything she conceives? He refuses to let himself linger on the thrilling hope that his necessity in her life is built more on his likeness to a certain dark god or in the way that destruction came easy to him. There is nothing more to him than that, nothing more precious to her than his unique usefulness and willingness to oblige to each treacherous thing she may suggest.

    Aela whisks him into her memories, torrential in its clarity as it fervently presses against his mind. The memory itself is quick and uneventful; Obscene makes it clear his wishes while an indifferent Aela regards him, unphased as if he had simply asked her the time of day. Skandar blinks, slow and methodically, finding something foreign wrapping like a viper around his chest. The mask of his father fades away like a shadow, flickering into the indigo, violet, and orange markings of Skandar himself. When his skin stops shivering in pieces against each other, his flaming eyes settle hotly into the cool blue of her own, a befitting scowl on his face.

    “Are we to use his affection for you against him?” The words are ice, clipped, and emotionless despite the way his eyes burn like a raging fire. He could not - would not - address the specifics of what Obscene had said - how it alludes to the fact that she would never give herself to anyone, or how knowing the answer would only solidify that she could only look at him in the same regard.

    A means to an end.

    The thought is tortuous, setting his blood on fire.

    “Or shall I kill him?” Because he certainly couldn’t kill her.

    skandar

    i want to be the bullet
    that brings you to your knees




    @Aela
    #9

    YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS

    Svedka falls to his son, and now that Aela has had a chance to see them both in the flesh, she decides that the latter is far more handsome.

    She had been (surprisingly) open with him, and it puts the palomino more at ease to see Skandar in his own skin. The argument with Obscene had come and gone, the choice had been made the Prince had ominously said and now the Empath considers his meaning while she bathes next to a demigod.

    Obscene had wanted everything, and as Aela glances at Skandar, she sees a stark contrast in the two stallions (though they shared many similarities - burning eyes and a mutual hatred for Tephra): Obscene had wanted everything, but would have drawn a line somewhere. There had been plenty about the Pampas Prince that had been morally gray and Aela had been willing to bring color to his conscious.

    But she doubts that they would have shared this conversation. Skandar's words are biting and brittle - with the potential to be as shattering as ice - but they make palomino still her soaking in the clear Tephran pool. Perhaps Skandar wouldn't find it amusing, but his comment catches her off-guard and makes her wry smile return. (Though it shouldn't have, she realizes. He has always been sharp, and he has always been willing to be the blade should she need him.)  It almost makes her laugh, like Mazikeen's ironic comment that Nashua's son had been born a shifter.

    "What do you have in mind?" Aela says, finally breaking their shared silence. "Decapitation?" she hums along, "Or perhaps becoming something that could pull him apart limb by limb?"

    Aela sighs, and meets his burning gaze, knowing that Skandar would never adhere to any kind of line or boundary. Not when he - an almost God - could create them himself. Not when he could become any ruler or leader (or do they dare blaspheme, do they dare think of Skandar wearing the skin of the Dark God?) He had been born like Aela; born to disregard and ultimately break them.

    The water surrounding them faintly glows, partially from the stripes adorning her legs and from the healing properties of the water. "For now, we let him live." Aela murmurs to Skandar, reaching down to the pool and soaking her pale muzzle in it. The water glinted and light up where it met her golden skin and the palomino lifted her head, intentionally dripping the water onto the skinwalker.

    Would he start to glow? Would the magic in the water alter him into something else?

    "Try Loess," she murmurs to nearby Skandar, reminding herself to focus. "You've worn Obscene before." He could try her half-brother, Reave. He was another horse who claimed to be close with Cheri. But the Prince was a member of their own Court, someone who Skandar was familiar with. The onyx-and-gold stallion should be easier to replicate, and if there was more to learn about what the new Southern Queen had planned, Aela had a feeling (if the memories Obscene harbored were anything to go by) that would be the place to start.

    @Skandar

    #10
    Besides the loneliness of his childhood, he has known nothing but her. He wonders if she knows this (revels in it, maybe, or even wields it against him), knowing that he was only a lost and wayward soul when she had come across him, meeting her bold flame with an emboldening fire of his own. She is all he knows, all he understands. She had whisked him away from the confines of Tephra and what it meant to be merely a shadow there - did anyone truly know his lineage? Did his family - if they can be called that - wonder about him, ponder his absence at all? He knows the answer and Skandar does not allow the sharpness of it to pierce his armored heart. All he knows is that Aela notices their time apart, even chastises him for it, and it is why she alone mattered.

    She alone is worthy of him.

    Even though something like jealousy (tepid and aching) strikes hard in his chest, Skandar cannot find anywhere to place this anger and blame - save for Obscene himself. He likes to imagine that the black stallion and himself would have gotten along quite well had the circumstances been different; now, however, he merely sees him as a mortal who has no business even thinking that Aela could be his. Like Avelina, the Pampas Prince is tied to earthly chains - feelings and the like. Emotions will only cause hesitation and weakness, something that Skandar did not have time for.

    Emotions would leave him incapable of executing all of Aela’s desires and he would despise himself if he ever were to fail her.

    There are no lines with Skandar - everything and anything will be crossed, blurred beyond recognition. It is never personal, not really, for it is all a means to an end: his (and Aela’s) name burned across all of Beqanna. It is why the thought of killing Obscene fell from his lips so casually, though perhaps only Aela could sense the way his vocal cords had tightened with anger. It is a reasonable response, he figures, as now the one they serve has an apparent weakness - a weakness that would certainly cause ruin in their grand scheme.

    She smiles at him and though he in no way was looking for approval, there is the slightest twitch in his lips to match that same mischievous smirk. She laughs because she knows he would do it in an instant, without hesitation. He listens as she mulls the different strategies he might use, finding amusement surprisingly on his own face as his brows rise and somewhat soften the sharp features of his face. She must have been thinking about it also, with the way she lists his options so casually.

    He is maybe about to say something to her and maybe it would have matched the jest in her own voice - a softening of his appearance and maybe, just maybe, he would have found himself drifting closer to her in that small, golden pool.

    But it never comes. Aela sighs, lowering her head into the magical waters almost absentmindedly. He watches her (as he always does) with a gentler gaze, something quiet and thoughtful. The smile that barely grasped at his lips has already disappeared, giving way to a thin line of his lips pressed together tightly. Not Obscene, she deems, not yet. His eyes flare red for a few seconds, enough so that the idle hum of its glow echoes the dead, silent jungle. She lifts her head, the coolness of the water dripping onto his skin. He blinks, returning his eyes to their normal orange gaze.

    The stars swirl on his skin, but the healing waters do nothing else.

    Loess.

    The suggestion sounded promising; cloaking himself as Obscene would easily allow his eyes and ears within the kingdom. Skandar doesn’t know Obscene too well, but he could easily pull off that distant brooding - something that he finds himself doing rather often.

    Skandar is still watching her, his brilliant gaze settling on the slender gold of her cheek. He blinks and his skin begins to peel apart, fluttering like feathers against each other. The deep indigo and orange fade into the pitch of black, gold splashing across his chest and his orange eyes turning into that violent red. He is Obscene: tall, brooding, pensive. Nothing reveals that he is none other than the Pampas ruler, especially when the tall onyx stallion steps closer to Aela - something he is sure Obscene would have done.

    “Do I look the part?” comes the heated reply, low and venomous. Practice makes perfect when it comes to Skandar’s shifting, though he does not deny that his now red eyes search hers for any sort of reaction that may reveal her true thoughts of Obscene - not just a memory. Thoughts paint his vision red, adrenaline pulsing wildly in his veins. Is who stands before her now what she desires? Will she allow her lips to draw across the darkness of his cheek now that he wears a different skin?

    Why did he care so much?

    skandar

    i want to be the bullet
    that brings you to your knees



    @Aela




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