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    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


    It is the nature of dreams to end // Raul
    #1
    Warlight

    Soul as sweet as blood red jam


    She should be riding home on the wings of victory; this should be a high of her life. But little goes the way it should, how she expected it, death taught her that lesson before. But like so many of the lessons she had been taught, Warlight hadn't taken it to heart.

    From the mountain, she teleports to the river. She is unthinking, her mind floating in a mist, unlike anything she had ever experienced. She bathes a while, washing the scent of Carnage from her skin in the numbing water, letting herself drift, and her eyes are soft and distant.

    She falls into sleep with the river-water still clinging to her pelt; she walks awhile in unsettling dreams. Curled in the hyacinth, she sleeps and tries to heal, unaware of the forest-creatures which come up to sniff her and observe the almost-stag where it lies.

    There had been a bargain.
    She had been a fool to believe it meant anything to the dark god.

    With the morning she rises, her black eyes blinking open as filtered sunlight catches the flecks of blue in their inky depths. There are no traces of the plague-sickness that had nearly disabled her only days before, and turning east, she begins to walk. She follows the coast in silence, never speaking to those she passes and wondering why she isn't eager to be home.

    Regardless, her legs carry her back to Tephra, back to the place her little family called their own. She reaches home under the light of a full moon, a silver light that falls of the three small forms in the grasslands. The backs of her sleeping daughters gently rise and fall, and Will steps past them without a sound after a few moments spent fondly watching. In the distance, their father stands guard. The illuminated curves of his baroque frame cause her heart to skip a beat, but worry and shame mix with the feelings she is more used to feeling at the sight of him. She doesn't turn away, although she thinks of it, but continues walking to stand beside him, and look westward.

    There is tension in the air, imagined or not; she feels it. It keeps her from reaching out, from touching the man she loves. She had asked so much of him without ever having to ask it. He had filled the void she had ripped in their family. And now, and now, she had been unfaithful. Or had she? She didn't know. She didn't know what to call it.
    She didn't know what to say.

    [Image: Warlightpageddoll1.png]
    #2
    He had waited for her to return, anxious and irate in turn. He understand, plain and simple. He didn't know what drove her to risk her life time and again, whether or not there was any actual need for it. 

    The burly golden stallion watched their girls sleep. What would he tell them if she didn't return? What could he possibly say. The steady rise and fall of their ribs, the soft hush of breath, it was music to his ears, something he couldn't imagine risking for any reason. What was it that drove their mother to it? 

    Days she had been gone, off striking deals with entities better left alone. Ones not known for their kindness, nor their trust worthiness. All for a touch of power. 

    When at last the antlered mare appeared, his heart clenched. Relief that she had returned, safely it seemed at first glance. Anger that she had left in the first place. Weariness, because he knew, had always known, that she was a warrior, and he had no words or magic to challenge what was her core reality. Just as he was loathe to pick fights, she was always ready for one. 

    Silence stretched as she settle by his side, the shadow of his body shielding her from silver moonlight. He waited, still as the trees, for her to say something. Anything. The quiet stretched on though, broken only by cicadas and a far off owl. Very well, then. 

    The stallion snorted, a sound that seemed disproportionate to the quiet they'd been submerged in. "Did you succeed?" He asked, soft but clear. Was it worth it, was the underlying question. 

    @[Warlight]
    #3
    They both wait, an awkwardness she has never felt with him creeping into the air around them. There is a knot in her gut, hard and indigestible. The muscles along her topline stiffen as if she were preparing for battle.

    But she doesn't want to fight him. For once in her life, she wants to figure out what's going on the hard way - diplomatically - she owes that to him.

    He had kept quiet, bit his tongue during her days of sickness, but now she wanted to get to the root of it. Whatever it was. She had felt it growing, unspoken and danced around, and she didn't like to fight enemies in the dark. Her mind wanders in the silence, and his snort startles her, disrupting her staredown with the low-hanging moon.

    "Did you succeed?"

    She nods at the words that follow, farm more interested in the ones left unsaid. She finally turns to her mate, deciding to tell him even if she hadn't found the perfect way to say it.

    "I had to pay more than was asked," she begins, hoping maybe somehow she can make him understand before the truth comes out. "It's good to feel like a living creature again," she falters, hiding behind a morbid quip as her courage fails her. It was something she knew better than most, but nothing more than a distraction.

    She curses herself as she looks back to the silver-moon. He would find out sooner or later. She couldn't hide an entire pregnancy.
    [Image: Warlightpageddoll1.png]
    #4
    He can feel the weight of it crushing his chest. The knowing that something is horribly wrong and that he is powerless to do anything about it. With a tightening in his jaw, the waiting stallion turned his gaze to their sleeping children. Dim mound of shadow that emitted breathy sighs as they dreamed. 

    Her words were cryptic. A warning coming from the mare who so often preferred to be direct, in words and actions. That was what lead them here, wasn't it? Trepidation creased his brow when he swung his head back to observe the bone crowned woman. She was as beautiful as he'd ever seen her, whole and hale when for so long she had been a fragment of herself. It was a relief to see her this way again. It did not make her suffering any more logical though. 

    "Say what you mean," he grumbled. He'd not been happy about her decision to quest the Dark God to begin with. But it had been her risk to take, and he couldn't hold her back from her desire to be more, even if he thought and defended how she was wonderful the way she was. She'd gone anyway. She'd paid the price. And now she was telling him there was more. 

    @[Warlight]
    #5
    He thought she was reckless, or she thought she could read that in his tone. But here she was, softening the truth, and she knew that this was one of the few instances where she was afraid. She is afraid of the words that may come out of her mouth, of dealing damage she can never take back.

    What would have happened if she had said no to a god? She hadn't had the bravery to find out. Warlight had said nothing as he came down from the stars, he had told her how it would be and she hadn't fought it. Maybe it was greed or ambition - she didn't want her months of suffering to be wasted if he refused her now.

    But she didn't want him. She didn't want his child.

    It hurts. Her chest constricts, and just like the time she had struggled to tell Raul of her death, now she struggles to speak of what had happened with Carnage. The reckless part of her tells her he doesn't need to know all the details, this was her life, and they were her decisions.

    Her consequences to endure alone.

    But the other part of her wants to fall into him and tell him how broken, helpless, and used she felt.

    But the perfect words are impossible to find the way her heart is hammering, and he expected answers.

    "In the spring, I will have his child."

    They are too blunt, she knows it as she speaks them, but there was no way around the truth. It was just a transaction, she thinks, but this won't make things better. And anyway, it wasn't the truth. She hadn't held any of the power - she hadn't had time to make the decision, much less negotiations.

    She had been powerless. And when her dark eyes finally find Raul's, they are weary.
    [Image: Warlightpageddoll1.png]
    #6
    She struggles, and it breaks his heart to see it. How much he wishes that they could discuss this, and put it behind them. For peace to reign in their lives again, until her warrior's heart pulls her away again. 

    Her hesitation breeds worry in him the longer it draws on, and when she speaks again he knows that peace was a fool's dream. His dream. He is aghast at first, eyes wide with the absurdity of what she has said. Warlight was an impulsive being, something he'd equally adored and railed against in their time together. But never once had he doubted her faith in him. 

    Tonight, he still did not. She was the dearest treasure of his heart, and he knew her mind like his own, knew that her seeking a gods favor was not the same as seeking it's child. If she spoke truth, and would indeed bear this immortal's offspring, he believed it was not get choice. 

    Violence like he rarely felt reared its head, ugly and hungry. He wanted retribution for the damage done his wife, to fight the god who'd taken what wasn't his, and given what wasn't wanted in turn. How desperately he wanted to believe that righteous indignation was enough to bring justice. That being brave enough, strong enough, could make things right. 

    How miserable it was to be wrong. 

    "How could you let this happen?" He growled low in his throat. She had not gone asking for this. Of course she hadn't. But in lieu of the Dark God, she was here, and she was the only outlet he could find in the dark for his wrath at reality. "How could you put yourself in this position? And for what? A drop more power? Was it worth debasing yourself for this 'gift'?" He hated himself with every word, and could not stop their pouring out. 

    It was a muted explosion, a quiet howling of pain and anger that he very much hoped their sleeping children would not wake for. His mouth twisted in a sour curl. What kind of child would be produced of this union, he wondered. Would his wife bear a monster? Would they be obligated to keep it? Thousands of questions spun in his head, with no answers to satisfy him in reach. 

    @[Warlight]
    #7
    There is something close to wrath in the usually calm features of his face, something she had never seen before. It is terrible, and she feels her blood rise; she feels the charge of battle quickening her limbs and hardening her black eyes. He grinds his heel into the wound of her humiliation; her instincts tell her to lower her antlers, that such words could only be answered for with blood.

    But this was Raul.

    She bites her tongue and her mouth fills with the dull taste of iron, but the fury roaring in her chest leaves her gasping for words.

    She looks behind her to her sleeping children, the only sight that could temper her passion. Another around glance confirms that there are no others near, that the sisters nestle together would be safe in the quiet kingdom.

    "Follow me if you think there is any part of us left to save."

    And think over whether those are the words you meant to say, she doesn't add out loud.

    Then, she runs.

    She gallops across the open grasslands with a fury, her weariness is forgotten. She will yell if she wants to yell, she will draw his blood if it will make him see straight. She crosses a stream of lava in a bound, then another stream, then another, and she tells herself the tears streaming across her cheeks are from the wind.

    Over the thunder of her hooves, Warlight can't tell if he is with her, and she never looks back. She doesn't know how long she runs for, but she only stops when the loam grows sandy, and a grove of coconut palms marks the spot where the ocean kisses the earth. Her momentum slows as her hooves splash into the shallows, and the ocean rises to her knees.

    "If you wanted peace, you shouldn't have tied yourself to me," she gasps into the night, her lungs burning and her ears pinned. Still, she doesn't look over her shoulder to see if the stallion is there or if only the stars are there to hear her. Had they been wrong to think that the lust of their youth was a love that could last a lifetime, or even two?

    She wanted to think so, oh, how badly she wanted to think so. But they had never seen the world the same way, and now it seemed that same spirit that had drawn him in was pushing him out.

    So she appeals to the stars and the tides again, hoping that he is there to contradict her. "Maybe we need some time apart if you need to clear your head and think about what it is you want," she draws her breath as her sides constrict at the sound of those words, "but you are all I've ever wanted."
    [Image: Warlightpageddoll1.png]
    #8
    He wishes he could shout. That he could roar like a beast at the world that didn't care. He'd lost that ability, though, long ago now. So long ago, that several new lives had sprung into existence since then. Lives had been lived, love had burned and flared and now... The embers of it singed his breast with their existence. 

    There was a kind of pain you could only feel if you loved hard enough, and that pain lanced through him now, hearing himself, hearing her reply. Feeling the cracks of resentment widen the space between them. He would rather have his throat torn out again, than face what was before him now. 

    He is stunned for a moment, watching the banner of her tail flag in the wind of her own making as she soars away from him. And he hesitates. His own anger is coloring his thoughts, exhaustion making him brittle. Cursing beneath his breath, the buckskin stallion gave in. Leapt into a powerful gallop as her lead kept her ahead. 

    By the time the chase was over, sweat foamed across his pelt. It had been a good run. The kind he hadn't felt the need for in recent years. Not when everything he'd wanted had been within easy reach. He'd grown complacent, perhaps. Used to comfort and ease, and happy with it. Had she missed the need to stretch and reach? 

    Blowing, ribs swelling with oxygen, he watched her as he slowed. She spoke, but her didn't catch her phrase. Not until she spoke again and the blood rushing in his ears settled enough for him to hear. It's like a dream, the way the world shifted at his feet to hear her. Likehe was watching from outside while someone wearing his skin lived the scene out for him. 

    "You're all I ever wanted too, Warlight. But I can't run forever. And you can't seem to stop leaving me behind." He felt withered. Incompetent. Like there was some piece of him missing that she was forever going to be looking for, that he simply never had. 

    @[Warlight]
    #9
    Her heart rate slows as the cool salt air bathes her skin. It blows form the north, whispers of glaciers and ice dragons riding on its tide. Her words seem to fall into nothingness, but still, she resists turning her head. The thought of finding no one at her side was too harsh a reality to contemplate.

    But the rumble of his voice is there, and she feels herself inhale, searching for the comfort of his scent. The muscles of her jaw clench and her eyes close, and she listens to what he has to say.

    She had been born with that need to run, that intrinsic drive to challenge the world around her. She had paid with her life for it once, and only the help of others had made it so that was the only time. But she was a stubborn creature, and selfish in her own way, and she had not taken these lessons to heart. Even in the afterlife, she had been locked into the eternal clash; she had fought one thousand battles and spilled rivers of blood.

    But here she was on the peaceful shore of a quiet but thriving kingdom, standing next to a man who loved her.

    "I don't know who I am without a fight," she admits. He had fallen victim to this, she realizes. Her own unbalance was making his life miserable. She doesn't know why she equates her own rest with weakness when she never judged others for it, why she trivialized the happy ever after.  

    She shakes her head, the weight of her decisions suddenly so heavy on her shoulders that her strength visibly flags. "I'm sorry, Raul. I never wanted you to feel that way."


    @[Raul]
    [Image: Warlightpageddoll1.png]




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