god make me pay like the devil i am; elve

[Maugrim]

god make me pay,
like the devil i am

He has become anything but complacent.

His tricks in Hyaline seem to have trickled throughout all of Beqanna, whispers of kingdoms strengthening their guard and others out looking for blood to spill and bones to break. He grins, knowing that he is but a ghost on the wind, a fluttering phantom with no ties or home to alliance himself with; merely a ghoulish stallion with no sentiment or reflection on what he had done when he banded with the others and attacked the quiet, yet extremely unprepared, kingdom. He wonders how many now know his name.

Oftentimes he would quietly let his mind slip (though he would not admit how often) to where the pyro (his opposite) had gone to hide. He did not take the bay sabino as a cowardly companion, but perhaps the rift between them is a good thing – Maugrim did not want to be weighed down by those who feel regret for the things they do. The only regret that the patterned stallion had ever felt was that he did not kill the ‘little queen’ when he had the chance. Submerging her beneath the now-poisoned waters of her own home would have made for a delectable memory for him to reflect on, something to lull him to sleep at night.

The young colt he used to be is left behind, no longer small-chested and spindly, but tall and muscular, his legs and body powerful from the time he spends in the water. His eyes remain the same – dark and empty, with barely a window to see into his soul. Dark evergreen melded with the pale, pearlescent lavender of his pattern causes him to be memorable, unforgettable. He is a constant predator searching for prey, a lust within him ravaging his entire core unceasingly (not a lust of blood, but a lust of raw, unadulterated power). Death intrigues him, water enraptures him, emotions are foreign to him.

Maugrim is constantly moving, taking up characteristics of the winding river or tempestuous sea that he is so fond of. That is his home, not the meadow, nor the forest, nor Ischia. The water is his only companion, his only source of peace. Even now, with the meadows' rolling grasses and sparsely growing trees, he is uncomfortable and a little bit aggravated, but he did not expect to become feared if he spent all of his days at the bottom of the ocean.

His dark eyes see her with the uncanny quickness of a predator, their bottomless depths quickly finding her figure as the bright green and red flash almost uncontrollably. His face, ever emotionless, sharpened with the stoic angles of his jawbones and the dark hollows beneath his eyes, turns slowly to her, despite her wavering appearance. He had met a creature much like her before, though her frame had remained completely hidden with only fangs protruding from a Cheshire-like smile. He had tried to bring her into the depths with him, but even with his powerful ability, he could not quite grasp her invisible legs enough to drag her in.

The stallion snorts sharply, curious as he always is, and with his growth, a bit better at socializing. He enjoys the thrilling chase before their demise, to let them grow comfortable and trusting before tying that noose around their ever patiently awaiting neck. Sometimes, however, he fails at the charming bit of his act and the second the trust wavers or they begin to guess his intentions, the lust takes over and he hungrily lets the water fill up their lungs and throat.

He slowly walks towards her with deliberate and calculating steps as his dark and never-ending eyes bore into her. A ripple of thunder rumbles within the depths of the now darkening sky, somewhere in the nearby distance, a foreboding sound that shakes the very foundations of the earth. Lightning is yet to be seen, but the threat of a spring-time storm is near at hand. The timing is impeccable.

“You seem nervous,” His voice is metallic and rigid, his throat rough from salt and disuse, as it leaves his pale and cracked lips, dried from constant seawater and sun. Another peal of thunder tumbles from the sky, thrumming delightfully in his chest as his slow beating heart begins to quicken.  

m a u g r i m.

@[elve]

sorry for the novel, the muse hit me like crazy for some reason!

[elve]

It’s not long before she is approached (it’s never long, she draws the monsters to herself as a flame does a moth - like a flame she flickers, and she may quickly burn out) and she can taste him before she sees him. He slinks towards her as the shadows begin to lengthen, stretching out to wrap around her legs when they are visible, filling in the spaces when they are not. She turns to the stallion, and as he moves closer the sky rumbles, the rolling thunder echoed in the rolling tenseness down her spine.
Pathetic fallacy is so much more vicious when the victim is also pathetic.

His voice grates across her skin, and she visibly shrinks back as he speaks. She is not nervous, though she understands how it could seem that way; she has played this game before, she has been played before. She was raised by darkness and it runs through her and she is scared and she is wary and she is oh, so tired of all this, but she is not nervous. She does not know what is to come (but maybe, just maybe, she has an idea, from the glint in his eye) but she knows that she is to be the pawn.
She watches the stallion, waiting for the lightning to flash, allowing herself that last moment of certainty before she opens her lips; “Not everything is as it seems,” she tells him, wondering if she seems mysterious, though she does not mean to be. She does not mean anything, anymore; merely to be.
But it appears that she will never be allowed to just be, the monsters and the demons and the darkness always want her, pulling her in, even as she disappears from view time and time again.

One more flash of lightning and she is back, fully, her sabino coat stark again the darkening forest behind her. She is not much to look at, her colouring aside, but there is a look in her eyes that is so much more than resignation and defeat, though those are at the forefront, now this beast is before her.
There is a spark of hope.
Hope that this will be over quickly.

[Maugrim]

god make me pay
like the devil i am

She flutters beneath his darkening stare, the bottomless and unending blackness of his eyes soaking up her flickering image, crimson and jade sparkling in his irises. She shrinks back, a nameless and unimportant stranger, as she attempts to make herself smaller than him. However, she does not try to run. She remains in the spot she has called her own before his approach, her body still wavering as she shifts in and out of invisibility.

A ripple of thunder shudders through the grasses and trees, the bruised clouds above them beginning to roll and curl into one another, illuminating with the eerie glow of distant flashes of lightning. The sound causes his skin to prick delightfully, the residual sound thrumming wildly as it reverberates through the ground and up the muscular patterns of his legs. Maugrim does not touch her (he is not one for touch; it is intimate for him, too intimate to be wasted on the soft brush of lips or warmth of another’s breath, when it was far better used as a strength to hold them against their will), but lingers on the precipice of personal space as he stands beside her. 

Her voice is rather confident on the wavering air between them, and brows rise in amusement. He half-expected a quiet and tinkling voice as a response, or none at all. It made him all the more curious, his dry lips dampening as he runs his tongue over their pale lavender color. Her stutter between visibility and invisibility seems to pulse with the rhythm of the flashes of lightning that slowly roll closer, the sound of thunder now seamlessly following the bright flare of light. As darkness shrouds them, covering and entombing them with its hungry grasp, fear does not find her features. 

Maugrim tilts his head a few degrees, his crisp and tangled forelock falling to one side of his face. 

No. This simply will not do. 

Fear is what he needs (longs for, even) and the blank eyes staring back at him between flashes of lightning gives him no sort of excitement – her acceptance and willingness angers him, his ears flicking back into his mane aggressively as rage bubbles within him. She stands before him, ready and willing to succumb to the darkness that so easily leaks from his very being, without so much as a shudder in her voice? The struggle is what he loved most, but her response also intrigues him; what has she seen that makes her unafraid?

The tobiano stallion tosses his head with a sharp snort, his dark eyes focusing on her flickering image of her once more as his forelock settles across his face. Large, fat drops of rain begin to fall from the tempest that now is upon them, splattering cold water across his back and face. He had never tried anything without a body of water nearby, but he could use a challenge. Besides, she apparently was already going to give him one.

What will make her afraid?

“Am I,” he growls, his voice low and deafeningly raw on his vocal chords, “not what I seem?”

Talk to me, indulge me. I will not be ignored.

m a u g r i m.

@[elve]

[elve]

She can see that he does not know what to make of her yet. She is not that sweet simple thing she often appears to be, she has an edge that he did not expect; an edge that she did not know was such a permanent feature. But her whole life has been spent like this, she’s not un-used to having a monster in her personal space, and so she won’t shrink back, though she does flicker between visible and invisible much more often.

The rain begins to fall, and when she is unseen it splashes across the line of where her back should be. It chills her (is it the rain? Or is it him, with those glinting eyes and that dark aura?), and as he speaks again she finds her legs trembling. She doesn’t know what he wants to seem, but he is dark and threatening and that is enough to keep her small and subdued. But a part of her wants to push back, to stick up for herself as no-one has ever done before.
Unfortunately (or perhaps, fortunately) that part is silenced quickly.

She doesn’t know what to say - she doesn’t want to seem facetious or cheeky and earn punishment for her rudeness. She shakes her head, instead, biting her lip and keeping her eyes low to the ground (be good, be the horse they want you to be, it may be easier that way). She focuses on staying visible, not for long, but for long enough that he can see her being passive, willing. ‘Do what you will’, her posture says, ‘take from me what you want’. But a name, a name to put to the face, (a name to scream during any future nightmares), it is all she asks of him. “Who are you?” she speaks softly, allowing her gaze to flicker up for a few moments, though the gaze is not always seen. And then, for good measure, “What should I call you?”

@[Maugrim]

[Maugrim]

god make me pay
like the devil i am

She is smart, but he is entirely too focused on himself to notice. She plays along with his game (though to him, it is the exact opposite of a game – in fact, a very serious conversation), indulging him and nearly encouraging him. He decides to take a step closer to her now, his dark eyes roaming the vivid colors of her coat, watching hungrily as the water from the storm soaks into her skin, dampening the bright red and green into calmer maroon and deep evergreen. Cracked and dry lips hesitantly brush over her neck, barely touching, his breath hot against her damp flesh, desperate to taste the rainwater on her skin. Her figure still flickers momentarily, vanishing and appearing before his eyes. 

He’s never wanted to touch them before, because they were nothing to him, but perhaps the way the water runs in rivulets down the soft slope of her shoulders causes something to stir within him, something feral and aching with longing. 

“Maugrim,” he tells her distractedly, his voice rough over the sound of the rainfall, the rumbling thunder now loud and pulsing in their ears. 

The ground beneath them becomes muddy with the sudden rainfall, splashing brown against their legs as it begins to rain harder. The feeling of the water against his patterned skin stings him, crooning to him in whispers that only he could hear. Once they become truly soaked to the bone, with puddles of mud beneath them and the tempestuous sky opening up before them, he bends the rainwater around them, so that it moves naturally downwards but no longer thunders against their backs.

His pale mane is plastered against the curve of his neck as he finally presses his ravenous lips onto her, her skin tasting delectably sweet on his tongue. He shivers, but not with the cold. 

Absentmindedly and without a thought as he breathes against her with shuddering and warm breaths, the muddy water beneath them begins to fill, no longer soaking into the ground but beginning to pool at their legs. He cannot create water, so he must wait for the rainwater to cause his puddle to grow, but he is ever patient. 

She has shown no sign of running, not yet. He hopes she won’t, for the growing tension between them is delicious to him. “Tell me your name,” he commands, his dark eyes roving her once more and waiting for a piece of her to become visible, only to press his tongue on her once again to taste the water on her skin.

m a u g r i m.

@[elve]