• Logout
  • 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]  the kind of heartbreak time could never mend, atrox
    #1
    Ryatah

    — there's something tragic about you, something so magic about you, don't you agree?

    She cannot remember the last time she was able to touch him, and yet no matter how deep the ache spreads in her chest or how far her heart seems to split apart at the idea of it, she has yet to actually die from the hurt she feels. Of course, she supposes it is impossible to die if you are already essentially dead, though if anyone were to be able to test the probability of that theory, she is sure it would be her. 

    But even in this horrible in-between, where she existed as a ghost among the living and everything else about her felt muted and washed out, there was still an ember of hope in her chest. It was not the soft, wistful kind of hope; it was desperate and ugly, a lifeline she was clinging to keep from drowning. It was what made her reach for him every day to see if today would be the day their skin finally would meet again, that she might again trace the familiar curve of his jaw with her lips or feel the sharpness of his teeth against her side. 

    And every day for the past year, they are greeted with the same disappointment. She would catch the hard glint of his eye, see the way they sharpened like cut diamonds, and even though she knew it was not anger directed at her it was enough to make her recoil, to whisper the same weak apology that he has heard a hundred times. She was not surprised that the universe was punishing her this way. For years it has watched her destroy anything good she ever had, and of course it would not be enough to repent her sins by trying to love him the right way—of course she would still be paying for all of the things she has done.

    The sun returned, and she could not even find it in herself to care, because she did not return with it.

    Weeks went by, and soon spring came to Hyaline. She is alone beneath the fading sun, only partially paying attention to where it dipped in the sky; perhaps absentmindedly wondering if it was going to come back when it left, but she is so used to leaving or being left that she had learned it was no use to beg things to stay. 

    A cold breeze whips from behind, and she pulls her wings closer instinctively, at first not noticing that she had felt the coolness against her skin or the way it wound through her pale feathers. It is the shower of stardust floating around her that causes her to still, to stare in confusion and surprise when she realizes the stardust had fallen from her. 

    She glances backward, shifting her wings—watching as the once golden feathers that had lined the edges and the underneath were now coated in a golden, shimmering stardust that lazily drifted away when she shifted them. But they are solid and whole and real and the way her heart leaps into her throat sends her away from where she had stood, desperate to see if it’s true.

    When she finds him she is breathless and glowing, the dark having finally settled in enough that her brilliant aura—seemingly brighter than it used to be, but maybe just a trick of the eye after being dim for so long—is unmistakable. She pauses for only a moment, her nearly black eyes glimmering and uncertain as she takes him in, suddenly afraid that she has perhaps set herself up for an impossible letdown. Her steps to him are slow, leaving behind her a faint trail of stardust in her wake, but when she is alongside him she throws all caution aside. Touching her pale nose to the strong curve of his neck she is greeted by the warm, solidness of his skin, and her heart again jumps into her throat.

    “Finally,” the word is a choked whisper, burying her nose into the crook of his throat and closing her eyes, afraid that pulling away would somehow send it all crashing down.
    there's something wretched about this, something so precious about this, oh what a sin —
    #2

    hangman hooded, softly swinging; don't close the coffin yet, I'm alive

    He has been patient, he thinks. As patient as he knows how. Patience that has been steeped in a rare kind of anger. Anger that she had been punished for trying to help while he had stayed home and suffered no wounds. That she had been the one to charge into the fray and he could only watch helplessly in the aftermath. He feels useless. Furious. He wants to rage at the gods. At the faeries. At Beqanna herself.

    And he does.

    He slips from her, shifting into panther form with two specters that haunt his steps. He hunts until his belly is full and he just slaughters with no intention of eating his fill. He leaves carcasses littered around Hyaline with marks of his fury on their throats. He rips and tears and shreds. Roaring as he realizes again and again that he should be the one. He should be the one with the war wounds. Not her. Never her.

    But he comes back gentler, for her. He lies as near to her as possible and soothes himself with her presence, even if that presence cannot be physically felt. It is enough, he thinks, which is a novelty in some ways. Novel that he would choose to spend a year with her without being able to touch her.

    And though it does not bite back his anger, his guilt, his impatience, he learns new things.

    Learns what it is like to live with someone and be sated by their laughter, or their quiet looks, or their observations when shared. Things he had always appreciated more but somehow has come to appreciate even more when the rest was stripped away. He falls in love again. In new ways. Deeper ways.

    So when she comes to him, nearly blinding, he blinks in surprise and then bellows in joy as he catapults to her. She is hesitant but he is not. He is unleashed as he rushes to her, as he pulls her close, his throat thick at the satin of her underneath his lips. “Ryatah,” is all he can manage as he crushes her to his scarred, empty chest. He barely notices the other changes—the brightness of her. The stardust.

    All he sees is her.

    All he ever sees is her.

    ATROX | THE PANTHER KING
    [Image: atrox.png]

    now be defiant, the lion, give them the fight that will open their eyes

    #3
    Ryatah

    — there's something tragic about you, something so magic about you, don't you agree?

    It would be a lie to say that she had not been afraid of what this would do to the two of them. It was hardly a secret, what they were known for—he with his numerous children, her with a body worn and scarred by the countless marks others have left. She has lived her life knowing that most only wanted her for one thing, and while she knew it was foolish to ever think the same of him, it was a doubt that proved impossible to shake. No matter how badly she believed that this was different from anything that had come before it (and that there would be nothing after), it did nothing to keep her age-old insecurities at bay.  It crept into her mind late at night if he was not there, and she would let suspicion and unrest get the better of her. She, of anyone, did not deserve any kind of loyalty; she had certainly never offered it to anyone else. 

    Night after night, day after day, she was always surprised when he returned—flecked with blood and smelling of torn flesh, but nothing else.
    No one else.

    The realization that he is hers—entirely hers—hits her again for what must be the hundredth time, and still, it feels like the first. 

    With her breath and heart lodged in her throat she lets him pull her close, her skin trembling at the feel of him after so long without it. She breathes him in as she presses herself closer, the porcelain-white of her chest a stark contrast against the velvet-black of him, and for a long moment she is still, save for the uncontrollable way her heart pounds in her chest.

    When she pulls back just slightly it is only to trail her lips up his neck, lingering against his cheek as she says with a low laugh, “That was a cruel way to find out you really do love me for my personality.”
    there's something wretched about this, something so precious about this, oh what a sin —
    #4

    hangman hooded, softly swinging; don't close the coffin yet, I'm alive

    Atrox had never been in a relationship long enough to know about the insecurities that came with it. Even when he had been entangled with Twinge, they had never been exclusive. He had never been tied down, let alone content with it, until Ryatah. So this is all entirely new for him. He doesn’t know the right things to say that would ease her heart or soften a blow before it even connects. Atrox can only tell her what he thinks and do his best to prove, every day, that he’s going to be there—even when she thinks he won’t.

    But none of this rises to the surface. Not now.

    Instead he can only bask in the warmth of the moment, feeling the curves of her press against him and know, finally, what home feels like. Home wasn’t the cool pines of the Chamber or the battlecries of an open war. It wasn’t the glory of conquest. It was here, in this quiet moment, with her at his chest.

    Smiling down, he kisses her neck, lingering and enjoying the moment. When she pulls back, he lets her, but only just so, determined to keep her close. “I am very good at pretending,” he laughs, the humor clear in his yellow eyes. “Now get back here,” he says with a growl, closing the space between them.

    There is another kiss, and then another, and then a nip of teeth against the impossible white of her coat—just to reminder her that he remains the same panther she had first fallen in love with. He continues like that, exploring her once more, discovering the angles of her that he has long ago memorized, until he pauses near her shoulder, smiling into the curve of it. “So should we discuss the,” his voice fades for a second as his sharp eyes flick up to consider her stardust wings, “recent changes or not.”

    ATROX | THE PANTHER KING
    #5
    Ryatah
    His response draws another laugh from her, followed by a pull of his mane with her teeth in teasing admonishment. “But you’re not very good at lying,” she says as he moves closer, because she knows that he would have never pretended such a thing, not even for her. She wonders if she will ever stop being surprised that he chose her. That she did not have to beg him every day to show that he loves her, that she did not have to be afraid of him leaving each time she makes a mistake (she is sure he has figured it out by now, that is often).  She has spent nearly all of her life having to learn to search for the small, nearly indecipherable things that meant someone cared for her even minutely, and yet with him, it was never a secret.

    It wasn’t a game.
    It wasn’t him always setting her up to lose, or making it abundantly clear how she constantly falls short.
    It wasn’t her trying to sabotage it at every turn, by spending nights in all the places she should not be, entangled with those that she knows either would never truly want her, or that she could never entirely love back.

    To love someone so absolutely and have them love her back was the most profound and terrifying thing, but she was so grateful that it had happened with him.

    Her own body caves to the gravitational pull of him, and after over a year of not being able to feel the sureness of him pressed into her, she is starving for it. She never tired of finding the softness he hid behind his sharp teeth and even sharper tongue, and she does not bother to hide the way her body shudders beneath his touch. You will never be close enough, he had told her, and she is reminded of how true that is, because no matter how close she presses into him or how many times his lips and teeth graze her skin, it is not enough. Her own lips press slowly against his neck and shoulder, as if by taking her time it might somehow sate the voracious hunger the clawed inside of her.

    It’s never enough, but it’s more than what she has had in over a year, and she tries to find a way to be grateful.

    They will have more than enough time to make up for what they lost, though, and she tilts her head just enough to look back at her own wings when he mentions them. “I don’t know why they changed,” she says, perplexed and thoughtful, before turning back to settle against him again. “Everything feels different,” because when she focuses long enough to look beyond the exhilaration of being able to touch him again, she can see that there is so much more than just stardust shimmering from her wings. It is not just her heart racing and skin flushing at the way he kisses her, but the way her veins feel alight with a strange fire that was so much more than the healing she had possessed before. “But I don’t know what it is, or why.”
    EVEN ANGELS HAVE THEIR WICKED SCHEMES
    #6

    hangman hooded, softly swinging; don't close the coffin yet, I'm alive

    Atrox has spent too much of his life being broken—and breaking others—to hold her shattered pieces against her. He’s known her heart from the start and never shied from it. He did not begrudge her her secrets or wish to change her because it was that which she was that drew him to her in the first place. He loved the shadows in her impossibly dark eyes. The promise in the curve of her mouth. The heady mix of innocent and sin that she seemed alone in being able to balance—a balm and a stimulant all at once.

    So he just laughs at her accusal of lying, shaking his scarred head. “Indeed, you are a terrible bore,” he bites out from fanged mouth, nipping at her. “It’s a miracle I didn’t walk straight into the lake.” Another rumble in his chest, this time more predator in nature. “If I had to hear about our children one more time, I don’t know if I would have survived it.” A roll of his eyes and another nip at her neck.

    He gladly accepts her when she collapses to his pressure and loses himself in the moment, forgetting to sass or snark at her when the emotions well up in his empty chest. He growls at her own explorations, both reactionary and guiding, never one to shy away from the pleasure that exists between them. A shudder races down in his spine, something carnal roaring to life, but he dampens it for now, curious enough about her current state to deny himself the more immediate desires that spring to mind.

    “Have you tried exploring it?” he asks, sharp yellow eyes glancing over her—taking note of all the tiny ways in which she was different. His lips quirk into a lopsided smile. “Concentrate, love,” he whispers, gently coaxing her. “Find your way down that rope. Let’s see what’s at the other end.”

    ATROX | THE PANTHER KING
    #7
    Ryatah
    They could get lost in this moment, the two of them, and she knows that all too well. He had a way of making her forget that anything else in the world existed beyond the two of them entwined, and her favorite part is she doesn’t think he really tries. She is a creature easily captivated, and she knows this about herself. For so long she allowed herself to indulge in anyone that she wanted, or anyone that wanted her—equal parts her way of surviving a world meant to tear her down, but on many occasions it was also just her being reckless with her heart.

    And how terribly predictable of her to fall so wholly for the man that played at being the least interested in her.

    She isn’t sure, even after all these years, if he did it on purpose. If he knew that all he had to do was keep her close by all but demanding she follow him back to Hyaline, and that fate would do the rest. Perhaps he knew all along that she would be unable to resist his sharp-edges and roguish smiles, but she is almost certain not even he had intended to wind up here. Here, with his mouth on her warm skin, with her heart belonging entirely to him in a way it has never belonged to anyone; with her every tomorrow sure to intertwine with his, and that simple, sweet understanding in knowing they had both found a new meaning to the word forever.

    “I have to talk about them so you don’t forget we have them,” she says with another low laugh, skimming her lips along his side. He wasn’t exactly a doting father, but it was not something she held against him. She is certain that he would do anything for her, including ensuring the safety of their children. That was all she could ever ask for.

    Reluctantly, she lets her exploration of him come to a stop, smiling into his neck when she murmurs into his mane, “You think I can actually concentrate on anything besides you?” But she shifts away from him anyway with a disappointed sigh that she does not bother to disguise, though without his touch it does make it easier to distinguish the heat that he ignites from the strange, electric-like current that hummed in her veins.

    She closes her eyes, waiting for the echo of his face to fade, until there is only dark.
    The dark, and her heartbeat, and that unnamed feeling trying to crawl out of her skin, and finally, she just lets it.

    It happens fast enough that she almost does not realize it is happening, only that there is the sudden feeling of the entire world dropping out from under her, and when it finds its place again and she opens her eyes, they are no where near where they had been standing moments before.

    They stand instead on Hyaline’s northern shore, the mountain range at their backs and the cold waves crashing at their front. She recognizes it, though she did not often venture this far, and from the way her legs begin to tremble she wasn’t entirely convinced she hadn’t physically made the trek on foot.

    Breathless, she finds his familiar yellow eyes, her own filled with a muted wonder, but mostly confusion. “I don’t know how I did that. At least I brought you with me.” She tries to smooth away her unease with another smile and a step in his direction, close enough to brush her mouth against his jaw as she adds with a somewhat forced lightness, “Lucky you. You always get to be here when I figure out something new.”
    EVEN ANGELS HAVE THEIR WICKED SCHEMES


    if it wasn't clear, she teleported them from wherever they were in Hyaline to a different part of Hyaline lmao

    @atrox




    Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)