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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


    [private]  You're not like anything I know or I've known| Mazikeen
    #1
    Gale
    this is going to break me clean in two --
    this is going to bring me close to you



    The winter rain patters down on the dead branches of the elm and the empty boughs of the oak and the evergreen bramble that shelter the blue-eyed creature are already encrusted in a half inch of frozen rain.

    Winter in Hyaline is a bitter season.

    He shifts his golden forelimbs, feeling the feathered skin along his belly shift and some of the chill seep against his skin. He curses, and sets himself ablaze with Mazikeen’s fire aura.

    It’s not something he keeps up for long (he still does not have his full reserves of Power), but it drives the cold from his bones and warms the soft skin of his pale pink nose. A nose that is wrinkled in distaste as he looks up at the grey sky, which promises only a night of snow after this freezing rain.

    He has been sleeping off the effects of his hunt with Mazikeen for several days, and his head and chest still ache. Might always ache, he thinks, since his Regeneration hasn’t made any noticeable improvement.

    There have been positive changes too, and changes that the Curse is not quite sure about either way. It was probably something in the blood of the bay stallion, he’d reasoned, mixed with the empathy he’d taken recently from Aela, and the darkness he’s set to festering in Mazikeen.

    Those magics, and the magics of the Monsters, and the Dark God, and whatever sick thing it had been to make its first kill those eons ago. Those things are the essence of the thing that wears Gale’s face, and while he still thirsts for blood and ruin, there is at last one thing in all these centuries that it wants more.

    It is the white queen he searches the surrounding landscape for once he tears his gaze from the sky. His lightning-filled blue eyes are sharp and watchful. He wonders if she has been watching him as he recovered from their not-quite-lovemaking, or if she’s been hunting alone, or if she’s been plotting his demise.

    Any of those possibilities might have been the source of the lazy smile that appears on the stallion’s face, and he is at last distracted from this miserable weather by more pleasant thoughts.

    @Mazikeen



    current appearance: glowing perlino stallion with feathered quetzalcoatl forelimbs, lightning, and iridescent navy blue scarring
    #2
    mazikeen
    At first, when Mazikeen wakes up hungry, she’s disappointed that Gale continues to slumber. She wastes some time watching him, entertaining herself by telling his unconscious form how their second hunt might have repeated some particular favourite moments from the first (almost exclusively inspired by what came after he took them to Hyaline) before she feels the need to rise and distract herself. It is instinct to brush a kiss against his cheek before leaving, memories seeping in of other days when she had watched him sleep and done the same. There is no sting of pain, no flash of sadness as she considers these thoughts.

    She no longer wishes that Gale would return. He surely wouldn’t like her as she is now and he’d probably apologize to her over it. That little thought infuriates her and she almost turns back to the sleeping Gale to see whether tearing him apart will rid her of him forever. Perhaps this is her moment, as he recovers, but she chooses not to even try.

    Mazikeen wants to kill him but that is a day in a hazy future. She’d once said she would do it when he became too much - but her definition of that threshold keeps evolving. Now she isn’t sure she even has a limit.

    Instead of feasting on him, she focuses on filling her hunger in other ways. She tries grazing, only to find no satisfaction in the awkward way it sits in her stomach and makes her feel sick. It’ll be meat again, then. And maybe forever more. So she hunts for the deer he had mentioned, finding their speed a thrilling challenge until she is finally able to wrench the leg out from under one and snap it. As she eats, the bloodlust subdued without Gale there to inflame it, she thinks of encouraging the others to leave the rest of this herd. Leave the swiftest to breed and make fleet-footed children.

    Though her mind occasionally drifts to where Gale sleeps, there is no instinct to return to check on him. She isn’t worried and she doubts the Curse will be taken out by the cold or a fluke avalanche (though these thoughts bring some delight to consider as she bathes in the cold lake).

    There’s no supernatural tingling at the base of her spine to let her know he’s awake - she simply turns her head while prowling through the freezing rain as a thick-coated smilodon and spots him. A small smile grows instantly. Anger isn’t in her first thoughts, though it waits patiently beneath the surface to be drawn out. She feels a thrill instead, marvelling at him, and feeling again that possessive thrum. He is hers.

    She has not forgotten how he told her she was too dangerous to keep alive and this knowledge delights her in ways she cannot explain.

    Mazikeen moves forward to close the gap between them with confidence she has never had come to her so easily with him. Whatever uncertainty she feels is minimal and it does not stop her prowling movements as she fluidly shifts into her horse self, crowned with her glowing horns and with her red-orange gaze locked on him. She presses close, brushing a greeting against his neck. “About time you woke up.”


    @Gale
    #3
    Gale
    this is going to break me clean in two --
    this is going to bring me close to you



    Gale had known the source of the broken fang in Mazikeen’s smile, but the Curse only appreciates the way it adds danger to her face, danger that does not fade even when she adopts a less predatory shape.

    The flaming curve of her horns remind him of a crown, one that befits the title of Queen she’s taken. Once, Mazikeen had used the Pack as a reason to stay in Hyaline. And the Curse, eager for so many loved ones to use against her, had swayed its host to agree. Now, many of them are gone, but the prospect of not having to share her at all is worth their absence.

    Her boldness is unexpected, but Gale murmurs his appreciation of it along her cheek as he kisses her. The motion had been lazy, the sleep still heavy in his limbs, so he does not pull away and instead leans against her. She smells of venison.

    So she’d not gone after another horse, it seems, and Gale feels a brief pang of disappointment. If only she’d kill the angels, and save him the trouble.

    Perhaps they can do it together.

    Will their blood glow, Gale wonders? Will it taste of light? His stomach rumbles, and he asks with the audacity of a grown male lion: “Did you save any for me?”

    @Mazikeen



    current appearance: glowing perlino stallion with feathered quetzalcoatl forelimbs, lightning, and iridescent navy blue scarring
    #4
    mazikeen
    The lazy kiss she receives would not be her first choice of greeting, but it is still pleasant and she relishes the contact. Could he still be tired, she wonders, as he leans against her. It is amusing, this ordinary weakness from such an extraordinarily powerful creature.

    “No.” She answers him simply, her voice curling in a mockery of sweetness as she shifts her weight just a little to lean back into him. It is a good idea, though, to bring him a meal sometime. Just as Mazikeen had enjoyed a vision of him watching her fight, she enjoys this too - coming to him with another kind of victory, watching him feast on and enjoy what she had brought him.

    But there is also no particular interest in making this offer today because another idea comes to her, one that makes the shadows in her rich eyes dance. “But I saw a pair of snow leopards near the starlit cliffs if you’re in the mood for something with a little more… bite.” She tugs on his skin with her teeth as she says this last word, her face bright with a wicked grin. Mazikeen had told Gale once about snow leopards, how they are her mother’s favourite shape and the first that Mazikeen had ever tried.

    Would it feel like killing Agetta, if she were to hunt them? She has to admit she’s curious. Perhaps he will be too, though she imagines he might need reminding of that little fact about her family. She is still uncertain about when the lines had begun to blur between one Gale and the next, though her interest in those details has faded. It doesn’t matter, not when she finds so much delight with this one.


    @Gale
    #5
    Gale
    this is going to break me clean in two --
    this is going to bring me close to you



    No food left for him, she replies, and the imitation of sweetness in her voice does nothing to feed his appetite. She leans against him, smelling of meat and blood and flesh, and the possibility of eating her simmers at the back of his mind.

    Not this morning. Not her.

    That line of thinking does lead to an increasing warmth in his caresses, another kiss placed on Mazikeen’s neck where he rests his head, and then another.

    He nips at her neck with pointed teeth, hard and firm without ever breaking the skin. Not enough to draw blood, not enough to start a real fight, but enough to convey his desire. He is tired still, despite his days and nights of sleep, and his limbs are heavy. But she nips him back with fire in her eyes, and the heat of it sears through him in the way his own early morning lust had not.

    She sets him ablaze, as she always has.

    Some of the weariness burns away, and Gale’s touches grow hotter as well, searing and bruising her pale flesh. He pulls her toward him.

    “Breakfast later,” he growls, knowing she can feel the low thum of his purring voice against her skin. He shifts till she’s beneath him and goes no further. She can feel how he wants her but he moves no farther, holds her bones she she cannot move to meet him

    The Curse does enjoy the long game, and means to tease her with this. Means to frustrate Mazikeen and see her skin aflame.

    But more than that he is growing tired again and knows it.
    He had slept too long before; he cannot do so again.

    But nor can he wear himself out so quickly, even when she glows beneath him in the pale morning light. She looks almost like an angel, and he thinks of her outright refusal to shift to Wishbone, and the infuriating bullheadedness that he’d nearly snuffed out.

    Well, had snuffed out, and had reassembled in a far better fashion.

    He burns at the memories, at the Sight of all the blood and the death and the magic that has passed between the pair of them. It is Weakness to cave first, to end the teasing he had started, so he uses the words he had heard her say at the end of their first hunt, when perhaps she thought he was asleep.

    Perhaps neither of them mean the words, but there is still a heat to them - like fire and lightning - as he growls them in her ear, digging claws into her shoulders to pull her toward him:

    “Show me you love me.”

    @Mazikeen



    current appearance: glowing perlino stallion with feathered quetzalcoatl forelimbs, lightning, and iridescent navy blue scarring
    #6
    mazikeen
    She feels more properly greeted when heat enters his touch, when that lazy kiss turns into hard nips that awaken the fire in her. It continues to be a thrill to find her own desire reflected back to her in him, and she is able to enjoy the roughness with which he touches her now, knowing she will find a way to repay him for it again and again. Her own purr rises to greet his as he moves against her skin and he settles over her.

    When he pauses again, Mazikeen immediately tries to shift against him but finds that she is held fast and unable to move. A rough growl escapes her, and his goals of frustrating her and setting her aflame are accomplished as her glowing markings grow down her spine and illuminate them both.

    If she could think clearly, she might have returned the teasing. Might have danced away from him until they were both so frustrated there would be none of this hesitation and they could clash together until her heart gave out.

    It is a problem, probably, how single-minded she becomes but it does not feel like a problem now and so she does not think on it at all. There is no embarrassment to be felt over wanting him so much, no guilt. She is only thinking of him, his weight, and the words that are growled in her ear that cause her grin to burn a little brighter. As soon as she feels the hold on her bones release she shifts her weight forwards, relishing the way his claws dig into her as she pushes against them, and then backwards again with his pull until there is no space between them at all and she knows he can feel the pleasant shudder that runs through her.

    Mazikeen's horns disappear from her head only to emerge in the form of claw-like thorns down her back that sink into his skin as deep as his claws are in hers, holding him to her. There is only so much she can do in this form, in this position, but she does not want to separate enough to change into anything else and does not intend to let him leave until they are both breathless. She turns her head back, her burning gaze seeking his as her voice comes out thick with wanting. “Only you.”

    She both feels and not-feels the freezing rain on her face, dripping down her neck against the bruises he's left there. Nature itself is dull in his presence and surely the ice turns to steam against them as they begin to burn.


    @Gale
    #7
    Gale
    this is going to break me clean in two --
    this is going to bring me close to you



    Her growl accompanies the flaring of her markings, and Gale laugh-purrs a sound of unadulterated pleasure against her ear. He can feel it against his skin, feel it joining with his lightning, which flickers more rapidly - and much more brightly. The blackness inside her feeds the blackness in him, satisfying a hunger no less carnal than the way he moans against her ear or digs his claws deeper in her flesh.

    She binds her to him further, and Gale hisses in pain against her ear even as he bears down on her, as he holds her against him so tightly he considers never letting go at all. He is lost in the bliss of her body, of the magic, and for a time he is content to simply cling to her, to press long hot kisses against every bit of her he can reach and caring not that she marks him with blue.

    Only you, she says, and he knows without any doubt at all that she means it. “Only you,” he repeats, because there is none in this world or any other who might tempt and test him so. He shows her this, proves with his kiss and his murmured words until they are both breathless and satisfied.

    The morning sun creates a crown of light behind her head, and the red-orange embers of her eyes are bright in her shadowed face. Gale moves a strand of hair from her face, yawning as he does.

    “Come take a nap with me,” he says, becoming something that might more easily twine around a mate at rest. “Then we’ll have breakfast.”

    @Mazikeen



    current appearance: glowing perlino stallion with feathered quetzalcoatl forelimbs, lightning, and iridescent navy blue scarring
    #8
    mazikeen
    His moans, the hiss of pain - all of it is sweet to her as they are carried on hot breath next to her ear. All of it feeds the fire inside of her but nothing so much as when he repeats the words she had said. She was already lost in everything he was giving her but she cries out her approval of how he proves these words to her. Mazikeen believes him, because how could he want anything else?

    How could she?

    She has no wish to move far afterwards, a satisfied and very feline grin in her eyes as he yawns and then lays out a plan for them to start the day. “Whatever you’d like.” Mazikeen murmurs against his skin. Though she means this with more restrictions than the other things she’s told him lately. She will hunt with him for equine or animal but not the former here in Hyaline, not for those protected by the deal they had made - the one he said he would still keep. For now a voice in the back of her mind tells her, but for now is enough and she is not worried about the future.

    She pulls him to somewhere more sheltered before tangling herself around him as they lie down, enjoying the heat of his body against the winter chill. There is some lazy teasing but it is a game she ends quickly as his eyes begin to close and she feels hers doing the same. She had not thought she was tired but as her breathing and heart rate ease she finds she’s able to relax into this moment where they are pressed together and simply let herself be content.


    @Gale




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