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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]  kiss me until I can’t speak, Ophanim
    #1

    and let me crawl inside your veins. I'll build a wall, give you a ball and chain.

    She had been understandably furious when Sylva succeeded in stealing Ophanim and Sochi. Sinner played a dangerous game, deciding to toy with the kingdom that had recently torched Tephra, but the blow for her in this case was personal. While a large part of her wanted to instantly demand that Ophanim be returned, she also knew it made far more sense for Loess to bide their time. Her and Castile alone could reduce the eternally-autumn forest to ash and dust, and combining the efforts of the other Loessians, it was a poor match.

    She knew he would be fine; she knew that he was fully healed, and he could handle himself. She also knew that even though she had grown so accustomed to sleeping alongside him every night, that there had been a point in her life when she had chosen to sleep alone. She had survived, and she would do so again. And maybe, with Alita, Malone, Meraxes, and Midnight, it would keep the loneliness at bay.

    She hadn’t counted on his absence being the reason her self-doubt begins to stir. She hadn’t counted on how wildly her imagination would run, especially at night when there was nothing else to occupy her mind. She catches herself staring at Alita and Meraxes as they sleep, and she hates herself for the anger that again begins to simmer in her gut, when she again wonders who their mothers are. There were other children, too, but she clenched her jaw and ignored them, though she is certain Ophanim must feel the way her usually cool blue eyes suddenly smolder when she stares at him whenever they are nearby.

    She can only imagine what he’s doing with his spare time away from her, and her nightmare-spinning mind tells her it’s exactly what he did when he was suppose to be with her.

    Revenge hadn’t worked out well for her last time, but that didn’t stop her from going to Pangea. She isn’t even sure if she can call Litotes revenge; the word didn’t quite fit. All she knew was there was only so many times she could feel the cuts of betrayal before she finally snapped, and the only way she knew how to dress the wounds was to let herself have someone she had been denying for the sake of one-sided loyalty.

    When she finally comes to Sylva again, she is uncharacteristically quiet. There is something lax in her muscles as she walks, and something entirely too impassive about the blankness in her stare. If the guilt was already beginning to eat away at her, she doesn’t show it, but she is sure when she finally comes before him that he can see it. He would smell someone else on her — all over her —  and when her cobalt-blue eyes find his she can almost swear that he can read her mind.

    It’s tempting to reach out and touch him. It has been so long since she felt like she couldn’t — like she shouldn’t — that she almost does, but just as her lips might almost find that familiar curve of his cheek, she catches herself, and she withdraws. Suddenly before him, she realizes that she has no idea what to say, and then, that there is nothing that she can say. She has never been able to fully mask herself to him, and she knows without saying a word that she is bare-skinned and naked, with her own act of betrayal laid out as plainly as the constellations that glow on her sides.

    starsin

    it’s not like me to be so mean. you’re all I wanted.
    ( just let me hold you Like a hostage. )



    @[Ophanim]
    Reply
    #2
    OPHANIM
    Before, he had been content to pass the hours here in Sylva in simple boredom, with nothing and no one to keep him company. Sinner would only tolerate his games for so long before leaving to do.. whatever it is hellhounds do. Perhaps he hunts? Ophanim occasionally went to the meadow to visit with the children and play their silly games until they were tired enough to go home. He figured it was easier on Starsin, that way she wasn’t watching their horde of precious goblins all on her own. But, as babies often do, they spilled her secrets and explained how she’d been with another man.

    He’s grown to wish his heir didn’t read minds so easily.

    He had been good, for the first time in maybe ever. He’d kept from burning down Sylva’s precious trees and he didn’t force his friendship on Sochi to pass the time a little easier. Ophanim didn’t reach out to old flames or wander the common lands for any kind of company at all. No, this sentence had given him time to reflect on all he’d done wrong and he accepted it with his head hung in shame. Meekness found him and sunk its teeth into his raw skin until Malone let the cat out of the bag.

    The angel boy is oilslick black in the shade of the forest canopy and his halo refuses to reflect any of the sun’s light the way it normally does. His glowing tattoos burn white against his skin and refuse to give their usual golden hue. He keeps all that light for himself and lets his anger churn there, hidden in his chest. All that rage comes boiling up when she approaches and he takes a step back, eyes narrowed and wounded for the first time.

    Before, he could understand the way she retaliated against him. He let her lash out and take her vengeance but now he doesn’t understand, so he snaps his teeth right back. They both stink like betrayal but his have earned him fresh scars, glistening pink against his tar black body. There’s still blood in the corner of his mouth and he knows it’s his own. Anaxarete had not been kind, nor had Kensa. He let their teeth take whatever they wanted from him and for a brief second it gave him a different kind of pain to hold onto.

    But here, in the silent forests, all he has is this slow burning ache.

    You shouldn’t have come here,” he says, and his busted lip cracks painfully around the words. His spiteful core devours all the shame for now and licks its clawed fingers clean. Ophanim steps closer with his wings half spread as he stands before her, ragged teeth clenched tight together. “Do you feel powerful now? Was it everything you hoped it would be? I can’t read your mind so you’ll have to tell me in grisly detail.
    you could drown in those eyes, i said.
    @[Starsin]
    Reply
    #3

    and let me crawl inside your veins. I'll build a wall, give you a ball and chain.

    He feels like a stranger, even more so than the first time she had met him, and that alone lands another barb of pain inside her chest. He is dark and black and he looks in every way the same tumultuous storm she has been feeling on the inside; nothing at all like the glowing angel boy she has always known. But she is different too, even though she has never been able to dim herself, no matter how suffocating her internal shadows could be. The glowing dapples along her sides always shone bright as stars, and her blue eyes were always too vibrant and alive with whatever she was feeling — anger or hurt, though they had become one in the same to her.

    But there was something a little more broken about her now, and instead of avoiding the shards of glass, she clutched them until they made her bleed.

    You shouldn’t have come here, he tells her, and the laugh that bubbles from her throat rings hollow as it bounces off the trees. “Why not?” The derisive simper that perches at the edge of her lips is a little too poised, her night-sky eyes a little too calm when she steps towards him to match his own defiant move. “You’ve always been so eager to come home after sleeping with someone else. I thought this was how we play the game?”

    Another step towards him, with her eyes locked on his. Something about his darkened appearance makes this easier; makes it easier to forget who he really is, makes it easy to forget she loves him, makes it easy to forget that she would lay down her life for him in half a heartbeat. For now, he is another pawn on her board, and she just wants to see him break.

    “Don’t play the victim, Ophanim. You betrayed me long before I ever betrayed you. I took in one of your children, and I permit another to be around constantly, and still I find out about others. It isn’t a one or two time deal for you.” The words are frigid as they leave her tongue, and with a calculated tip of her delicate head she adds thickly, “You think I don’t see the snake girl and your twins?”  

    She had been simmering before, but the thought of Adna and the way she had caught him looking at her — and thinking about her — brought it to a boil. She wasn’t interested in him trying to use Kensa and the magician as an excuse for his current behavior; it was the mistakes he had made when Starsin had never given him a reason to that she couldn’t let go of. She had pushed those feeling as far down into her heart as possible, but all they done there was grow stronger, building with unimaginable heat and strength until she couldn’t contain them anymore.

    When they finally explode, so do the trees. Just one at first, and then two, and then three. Subconsciously she has selected ones that were not close enough to send debris flying directly at them, but the sound they make as they detonate is enough for her. The sight of bark and limbs and leaves flying reminds her of the blood and the dragon scales in Tephra, and it creates a delighted quickening of her pulse.

    She waits for the dust and leaves to settle, her gaze returning to his, and her voice is incredibly soft in comparison to what had just happened. “I do feel powerful, thank you for asking.” A brief pause, before she continues lightly, “I’ll spare you the details. Let your imagination run wild, like I do mine.” For the first time, a true bitterness seeps into her voice, melting the ice just enough to reveal the raw, open hurt that still bled beneath the fury.

    starsin

    it’s not like me to be so mean. you’re all I wanted.
    ( just let me hold you Like a hostage. )



    @[Ophanim]
    Reply
    #4
    OPHANIM
    When she laughs, a ridge of thorned scaled rise up along his spine and he embraces his second skin. The real him – the white and gold, the light and the joy – disgust him now. That was the Ophanim who was too weak and too afraid of everything. That angel boy threw everything he loved into the fire and watched it burn just so it couldn’t be taken from him first. The dragon has no need for those things though. He simply grits his teeth when she calls this all a game but he does not yield to her. The monster doesn’t fold and submit as Ophanim would.

    It only wants to hurt her like it has been hurt.

    He steps forward, legs now covered in those glistening scales as he begins to circle her close enough that their shoulders push into one another as he passes. His skin is too hot when she casts the blame on him, maybe from the fire in his lungs or the fury in his veins. But still he continues to circle her with those jagged scales pressing against her soft, perfect skin.

    Have you also seen Beelzebub, my firstborn son? What about Ozias? Azlan?” he asks, head tilting to watch her face as he twists the knife further. Each syllable summons a flickering flame from his throat while little embers spiral from his lips. With each name, he tries to remember their mothers but the faces all blur together for him now. None of them had been important and so they are not as vivid as his sons and daughters. They are all beautiful and strong. Any father would be proud to call even one of them their own, but he has a horde of ten to claim. Despite the circumstances, he loves them with everything he has and more.

    "You think you know what hurt is. You think this is the absolute depth of pain, but we're going to find out just how deep we can tear into one another. We're going to find rock bottom and fucking live there."

    He pauses briefly to watch the trees rip themselves apart and he snorts, orange sparks fleeing from his nose as he observes. A vulgar display of her strength, but he says nothing as the splinters of wood land nearby and the limbs come crashing down. Ophanim narrows his eyes as he turns back to her, their shoulders pressed tight as his wings spread wide over them.

    How is your brilliant plan going so far? Did stabbing me back make everything feel better? Now you can go home to our son with your head held high, knowing that you’ve wounded me.

    But he doesn’t move away from her. He doesn’t permit her any distance from him as he watches her, the glowing eyes along his wings all staring with disinterest. Part of him wonders if this is the end of them, if he should stay here in this silent forest forever.
    you could drown in those eyes, i said.
    @[Starsin]
    Reply
    #5

    and let me crawl inside your veins. I'll build a wall, give you a ball and chain.

    His skin feels hot when he brushes past her, his scales roughening her sleek coat, but she does not move away. Her eyes follow him, cold and hard, with muscles coiled tight as though that might keep whatever he says to her from getting beneath her skin. But he names off children – three of them, to add to the four that she already knows about – and she has to clench her jaw to keep the tears that climbed in her throat from reaching her eyes. Each name is another twist of the dagger, and every turn she finds her stoic exterior being replaced by a molten fire she had never experienced.

    By the time she can finally summon herself to speak without letting the emotion lace her words, her entire body is trembling. “All you did was just list three reasons that proved my point.” She pushes against him now, her heart pounding in her ears and voice gradually rising in pitch as her control on her temper and pain begins to slowly spiral out of her control, “I had never done anything to you to deserve that. Not then. All you did was prove to me that my loyalty to you means absolutely nothing, that it didn’t matter how hard I was trying to be something better, you were still going to fuck whoever you wanted.”

    She still doesn’t pull away from him, and she can’t help but to notice how different the air feels between them now. Everything felt dark and thick and tense, like she could choke on their anger and hurt. She can feel how heavy it presses on her lungs, how it’s constricting around her heart, and she doesn’t know how much more she can take. “Don’t tell me that I don’t know what pain is. Don’t try to tell me that knowing you would rather sleep with countless other girls hasn’t completely torn me apart.” In one quick, violent motion she yanks herself backwards, her blue eyes darkening with tears that she refuses to let fall down her cheeks.

    “I told you last time, I knew I had messed up, from the beginning, with how I always left and ended up pushing you away. But I was just scared, of this. Of exactly this.” Of being hurt, of being left, of not being enough. She shakes her head, looking away from him, staring blankly at the sea of trees and autumn-colored ocean of leaves. Something shudders through her; something like a sigh, something like giving up, and she looks back at him with eyes so plainly filled with all her brokeness and bruises when she whispers, “Just tell me you don’t want me anymore.”

    starsin

    it’s not like me to be so mean. you’re all I wanted.
    ( just let me hold you Like a hostage. )

    Reply
    #6
    OPHANIM
    He feels her body tremble and it reminds him of the first time they ever had sex, the way they were each terrified. They explored each other’s bodies and made a vow back then to love one another. Now here they are. The tears brimming along her eyes should quell his rage but he can hardly see through all the hurt and the way he wants to hurt her back. She says she’s perfectly innocent in this situation, that she never cast the first stone to send him seeking out the affections of another. He doesn’t mean to laugh but he does anyway. The sound is cruel and jagged like his scales, echoing off the remaining trees.

    Yes, you never left me alone at night. I never stayed up late wondering where you were. I didn’t wake up every day wondering if that was the day you left forever. You are flawless and all-knowing, the mighty Starsin,” he says as she pushes back. He doesn’t budge, an unyielding tower of judgement. He remembers how rarely she came around when they were young and the way he blamed himself. Some awful part of him said it was because he wasn’t good enough for her to stay. Ophanim remembers telling his mother goodbye because he was afraid he would lose her in the middle of the plague. He’d gotten sick in the meadows just counting the hours until she returned.

    I fully intended to stay right here in Sylva, alone every single night until my sentence was up. I dreamt of coming home to you and Malone,” he says in a voice like a hiss as she jerks herself back. But he follows, matching her step for step as he continues on. “All I have ever wanted in this life was you. I want to wake up beside you every morning and I want us to stop with the bullshit.

    He presses his chest to Starsin’s roughly as he curls his neck against hers, burying his face in her mane. Ophanim’s wings fold forward to wrap around her as he breathes her in for perhaps the last time. If today is their last day, then he wants one more memory like this to cling to whenever the nights are empty. Inch by inch, the scales and the black across his body retreats, leaving the gold and white of the real him. When he sighs, the breath comes out shuddering and weak.

    You are the only light in my life.
    you could drown in those eyes, i said.
    @[Starsin]
    Reply
    #7

    and let me crawl inside your veins. I'll build a wall, give you a ball and chain.

    She clenches her jaw when he insults her,  and though she tries to remain impassive, the hurt is visible in her eyes. She, more than anyone, is aware of her flaws. She lives with them, in her mind and in her heart, in the fierce exterior she tries to portray, in the cruelty she displays instead of kindness. She doesn’t argue with him, because she knows he is right, and she knows he will never understand why she is the way that she is. He will never understand how unbelievable it had been to her that a boy as sweet and beautiful as him could have possibly wanted her, when her own mother chose to discard her. He will never understand that she had left in an attempt to keep from getting attached to someone that she was so sure would soon see all the flaws and weaknesses that her mother had seen. She wouldn’t have been able to handle the rejection of him leaving if she had allowed herself to feel even a minute amount of affection, and so she had always left first.

    But brash, foolish Starsin, nothing could have ever prepared her for what this felt like.
    To what it would be like to truly lose him, after he had already been hers; after they had melded themselves together in a way that no one else ever could.

    She is so busy blinking back and controlling her tears that she almost doesn’t hear what he says. I want to wake up beside you every morning, and even though there is still such a bite to his words that she isn’t used to, they somehow draw her back in.

    Before she can have a chance to register what the words mean in the jumble of her frustrated and hurt mind, he is pressing into her and pulling her closer.

    And finally, finally, she breaks.

    “I’m sorry,” the words are a gasp into his mane, and she trembles uncontrollably as the tears flood down her cheeks and onto his skin. “How can I possibly be a light when all I’ve ever done is hurt you?” She can feel the way his scales begin to recede, and when she opens her eyes, she is greeted again by the familiar gold and white of his skin. Her chest rises and falls rapidly as she tries to regain her composure, as she tries to keep herself from spiraling as she is struck so harshly with the realization that this was all her fault; a domino effect of how she had been from the beginning, and the truest form of karma that she has ever been hit with. He could have anyone. He could have someone that wasn’t cold and detached, that didn’t make games out of other’s lives, and that would forgive him instead of retaliating everytime she felt wronged. “I fucked up,” another strained whisper, but with an edge of panic rising in the pitch of it, and she presses herself closer to him in desperation because she is so sure it is the last time, “and I’m going to lose you because of it.”

    starsin

    it’s not like me to be so mean. you’re all I wanted.
    ( just let me hold you Like a hostage. )



    @[Ophanim]
    Reply




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