"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
She can feel the weight of his glance cover her like a cloak. It is weighted and hungry as he seems to inspect her like a fascinating specimen, a fossil, an damp photograph found in the middle of the ocean. Epithet does not try to unravel him. She simply accepts the other shifter as he is as a whole. They are alike int he way they move, change, morph. It keeps others from looking too hard. It keeps the hungry hounds at bay.
The sound of his exhalation is not missed nor the way he rises to slink towards her with skin changing to mimic her own. The deep red gaze widens slightly as he tucks against her and causing her to catch her breath. The woman had not expected this and her skin jumps momentarily but she offers the soft tender part of of her throat. He attempts to start again, an eerie and almost mechanical like smile fleeting across his dark lips before they split to rough the hair at her hip. She catches a the small groan that attempts in her throat but instead swats him rather coyly with the thickness of her tail across his nose as she looks over one crimson striped shoulder, red eyes dancing despite her best efforts to appear bored with him. "I guess I can't say no when you ask like that." She sniffs her response with a haunting smirk, satisfied to feel him give at her will, pleasure crossing her dark features as she turns to offer her full attention despite the chaos that swells around them. Epithet moves to close the space between them, nails carving out the soil in small terrines. Her red eyes glitter in the anticipation. "What do you have in mind? How should we pass the time?" She challenges with her eyes and the sway of her hips. She is curious as to what his motivation was. Would it be a frolicking romp? Perhaps a fight? She certainly could not see him attempting to bring her home to mama lime a dazed mouse in the mouth of a pussy cat but so far Wyrm has yet to lose her interest and so she waits, tail twitching as the red of their pelts seem to bleed under the silver gaze of the pregnant moon.
when the stars threw down their spears and water'd heaven with their tears:
Oh, he’s got plenty on his mind. With the tension between them growing into an air of electric uncertainty, Wyrm comes to understand that it’s not what he could do, it’s what he wouldn’t do to her. The list is shockingly bare. His teeth have gained a life of their own now, encouraged by the roll of her body beneath his lips, and he rakes them against the grain of her patterned fur, a hairsbreadth away from painful. One paw jerks upwards, slaps haphazardly against the tantalizing curve of her flank, and he seems achingly close to rising - he wants to, the taste of her is driving him close to insanity with need, it leaves him panting.
Wyrm’s thoughts don’t help either. They supply flashes of scaled bodies writhing together in the snow, remind him of the wails she’d expressed, (he can’t recall if they were induced from pleasure or pain, but he’d like to hear them again to be sure) and give him glimpses of possibilities for the future. His groin aches. His mouth grows dry. “Good god,” He thinks, closing his mouth once more so that he can trail his nose over the apex of her hips. The spot where tail meets spine freezes him and his chest heaves with throaty groans.
“she’ll be my undoing.” He trembles. “How about a bet?” He finally offers, that deadpan tone betraying no emotion, though his body is screaming otherwise. “I bet you that I can easily beat you to the sea.” The dark tiger challenges. His rounded eyes, now directed over his shoulder to where she waits, reflect the haze of the moon in waves of bright red. The rest of his body follows, forelegs crossing once more to turn that hulking mass of flesh while his gaze trails over her lovely face. “Winner decides what happens next.” He growls.
As suddenly as he’s there, expelling warmth breath in front of her, just as suddenly is he gone - a black speck that whizzes off without even so much as a warning. Epithet was a woman of free will, was she not? He’d find out soon enough how far her interest in him went.
did he smile his work to see? did he who made the Lamb make thee?
The heat of his mouth and the way the curved teeth grip, pinch, release make her almost heady but the slap of his hefty paw sends her plummeting back down to the present moment. Her immortal side begs him to push further, test her strengths, make bleed, but she clamps her lips to keep the pleading from rising to the surface.
She would not let him make her weak.
But just as she can feel the dampness of her desire, she can see he is restraining just as well. Good. She attempts to still herself, forbidding the act, to give in under his weight and will. A red eye watches warily, hungrily. A trail of fire ignites along her hip where he touches her and she almost begs him to continue but his thick voice forces away the weakness that was growing in her will. "A bet?" The tigress is intrigued, her dark head tilting slightly. She is silently grateful to change the scenario and rewrite the dangerous interactions their bodies could ignite.
He challenges her to the sea, his bulk moving away, caressing her face tenderly with his tail. Of course Epi would not allow defeat. She rises to meet his playful threat with a small laugh but it is cut short when he is suddenly turning against the silver silk of moon shine and is off to beat her to the shore's edge. "No!" The woman growls more to herself than out loud and soon pursues her devilish companion, her competitive nature exposed as she takes to the skies mid stride. Black and red pelt gives way to inky feathers and piercing eyes of the raven. She would not give easily into defeat despite the fondness she has for him. No, she will try her damnedest to beat him to the salty shore.
Epithet caws to the male, smiling if ravens could and launches herself above his head in her best efforts to win but the woman knew it would only be moments before he too would change and the game would continue.
Epithet
oh my gosh i am so sorry about my spelling errors, i hate having to rush when i type but ship internet is poopy! thanks for dealing with me <3
when the stars threw down their spears and water'd heaven with their tears:
So it would seem that she hadn’t lost that spark after all. Still as eager as ever to outwit him, outreach him - anything to test her abilities against Wyrm’s and try for the upperhand. Epithet’s nature (much like his own) was to mimic and meld; they were sculptors who, fiercely encouraged by each other’s magnificence, sought without rest a way to achieve something the other could not.
The last time the two had played this game the rules had been fair and simple. The grey mare had unveiled no other secrets than her twin ability, a feat he’d been able to match blow for blow, shift for shift. Wyrm also had nothing better to bargain with, the chips had been stacked evenly between them, and the result had been something of a stalemate. Two kings left alone on an empty board, neither one toppling the other.
For most, that would’ve been enough.
For Wyrm, it was only reason to improve himself. Driven by the thought of their previous encounter he’d debased himself and sported his abilities before all of Nerine in the gladiator competition. It was against his personal code, to be so overtly flashy and excessively dangerous without cause, but at the last moment he’d changed his mind - he would need practice, a chance to stretch his own limits, and willing victims. The fact that most of the other fighters had magical abilities only made it better.
It was in that fight he’d unlocked something else, something that could tip the scales at a moment like this when Epithet was dragging her claws over his dark skull and shooting ahead just an inch. He smirks, (god they are so much alike) pumps his wings upwards and down in a powerful thrust, and phases directly through her body. Ahead of her he materializes again, popping into existence before shifting into a horsefly to whiz at breakneck speed over the black landscape and out across the rounded dunes of the beach - victory fresh in his mind as he collapses into the sand as the great black-and-ruby tiger.
Epithet could’ve expected anything from him, but he doubts she expected that.
did he smile his work to see? did he who made the Lamb make thee?
