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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]  i wanna be saved
    #1
    GALADRIEL

    What a silly thing, Galadriel once thought of ambition. Fickle and fleeting, never loyal to any single desire. She didn’t follow it—ambition—for an agonizing time. She let her emotions rule her every move, allowed the capricious creatures around her to convince her to remain stagnant and so terribly, terribly sour.

    But now? Now, Galadriel swells with the might of her drive. She feels the pleasing certainty of knowing exactly who she wants to be and what she desires to be hers. So many, many things she longs to shelter beneath her umbrella of will. It’s the thread of power Reave first threaded into Rel’s skin—it’s the mystery of who she might become if she were to only give in to admitting her needs.

    A pretty dance she twists through the fog, beneath towering redwoods and past shadowy, blinking figures. What might and mystery Taiga has always beheld. Rel allows it to flow through her, to breathe life into her: her body melts into water, collecting dewdrops and lingering mist as she goes. A lovely thing, fae-like and mischievous.

    Hardly a soul knows of what roils beneath that sparkling, liquid skin.

    Galadriel hums to herself, keen eyes scanning the ground the early morning fog does such a good job of camouflaging. It isn’t until she spots a pretty woman that she stops, violet eyes glimmering beneath fluttering lids.

    “Hello,” Rel calls, voice sure and echoed. She approaches confidently, head held high.

    “Do you live here?”




    @Wrenley
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    #2
    let it all come out and burn like a fire
    She has always been drawn to the fae things. The pretty and the strange. But then, she is a self-absorbed creature, as capricious and fickle as the ones who had convinced Galadriel to remain stagnant and sour. If they had met in days gone past, she would easily have been one of those devils whispering on her shoulder, convincing her to be little more than a vain, pretty thing.

    After all, the vain and pretty love to love one another.

    Wrenley has never doubted her own beauty. Even before the soft curls of twilight had settled on her skin, she had known her own worth. Now however, after the enchantments of evening had seen fit to bestow their gifts upon her, she knows it beyond any shadow of doubt. She had grown from a creature built from the loveliness of shadow to one made to bathe in the glow of the setting sun. She is meant to be seen and admired, and she has ensured she would be both.

    She sees the other woman of course, lovely in the way only something glistening beneath the gleam of water could be. It reminds of a girl she’d met moons past, and she is curious. She does not try to hide (she is not made to be hidden), and when the glittering woman’s eyes find her, a smile dances across her sunset lips.

    She shifts, the elegant sway of her body somehow drawing the essence of evening in each movement. The long strands of her blossom strewn locks curl around her neck, draping her like the most exquisite of gowns, scenting the air with evening in bloom. She eyes her a moment, chin tipping up slightly, giving her a haughty grace. That was something she had mastered long ago.

    “Of course,” she croons, her voice as melodic as her movements. “But you do not,” the nymph continues, knowledge in her jewel-bright gaze. It's hard to say whether it is welcome or dismissal in her painfully lovely features however. “Unless you have come to stay, rather than pass through.”

    Wrenley



    @galadriel
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    #3
    GALADRIEL

    Wretched, so damnably wretched on the inside—Galadriel will never admit to how truly terrible she can be to get what she wants. There will always be a reason, an excuse—always someone else to blame. She prefers it that way, of course. And when an offense is particularly awful, she repeatedly tells herself that is what they get for stepping in her way.

    Yes, a wretched child turned to a wretched woman; but too often she means well. That nastiness is not borne of evil.

    “No,” Galadriel purrs back, feeling the draw of the nymph’s power. She is pleased to be met so well, violet eyes dragging over the evening sky this stranger wears. She tilts her head, not caring to hide her unabashed staring. A leisurely smile spreads across her face, as inviting as a warm summer night.

    “Is that an invitation?” Galadriel asks, smile splitting into a grin. She had already been planning on sticking around, to feel out the land left with an absent leader. She was not foolish enough to blindly poke the bear that is the North, even if their land is left with an opening. The people are tricky, indeed—they might lead you with a hole but leave you in a pit.

    “How do you like the Taigan woods?”




    @Wrenley
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    #4
    let it all come out and burn like a fire
    They are not truly evil, the creatures like them. Wretched perhaps, but hardly things of blackened hearts. For all her capacity for selfishness, Wrenley still finds it in herself to care. Sometimes. Her parents had instilled that much in her. But then, her selfishness had also been a thing her parents had gifted her with, however inadvertent it may have been.

    They love her, you see. Deeply and forever. She had so often heard how lovely and perfect they believe her to be that she had been helpless to do anything but internalize it. Those kind and well-meaning words had taken root in her heart and blossomed there.

    So no, she is not evil. She is merely a product of her upbringing.

    And perhaps that is why she had never been shy about telling lovely things that they are lovely. She has heard it so often that it seems the correct and proper thing to do.

    The woman (she shimmers like rainbows, fleeting and impossible to catch) responds in kind, and Wrenley tips her pretty head, sly smile pulling gently at the edges of her mouth. She too can simper, revealing her beauty in the soft turn of her expression. “Maybe,” she demures when the woman asks if it were an invitation. She doesn’t respond immediately to the second question, instead mulling it over thoughtfully. Finally, on a soft sigh, she replies, “It is… adequate, I suppose.”

    High praise indeed. But then, Wrenley has spent much of her life in these woods. They have not been new and wondrous enough to capture her praise since she had been a young child. After another heartbeat of silence, the nymph continues, “And who, pray tell, am I inviting in?” She pauses, a slight frown briefly marring her lovely features. “I am Wrenley.”

    Wrenley



    @galadriel
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    #5
    GALADRIEL

    She is like darkness, but not entirely. Not a metaphor but a simile. A loud, gorgeous dedication to the twilight of evening—and so very unlike the whispered rumors of roguish, shadowed Northerners. Galadriel cannot help but to take to her immediately, to be drawn in by the gossamer evening spell and the velvet voice. She thinks if she were to find a friend amongst any of the Northerners that were not Reave—a true friend, if a bit capricious—this might be the one.

    “Wrenley,” Rel purrs the woman’s name back at her while tilting her head. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” she adds, then pauses, “And I hope to soon call you a friend.” She knows the smile that arches her lips should be diplomatic, generous. It should be warm and welcoming and so, so lovely; but faced with a creature so like her, so genuine in her garbs of shadowed silk, she cannot help but to allow a companionable bite gleam in those teeth.

    A quiet hope between wretched girls.

    “Galadriel,” she answers, considering her next words carefully. “I came by way of another Northerner . . . One in Nerine.” Rel doesn’t dare reveal Reave, though the thought of him leaves her words breathless and murmuring.

    “What’s your favorite place in Taiga?” Rel quickly deflects from the emotion, settling curious violet eyes back in her companion.




    @Wrenley
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    #6
    let it all come out and burn like a fire
    Though the loveliest sunset may swath her skin, her entire family are things of darkness. She had been born from shadow and risen above it, but still she remains intimately familiar with its embrace. She laughs at the whispers of these shadowed woods. She laughs because they should not be whispers.

    The shadows consume these woods. Only fools would fail to recognize it. Only fools would miss the bite of her many siblings' teeth in these sheltered trees. But then, as far as Wrenley can tell, the world is filled with far too many fools.

    She hums when her name rolls across the other woman’s tongue, head lifting as she basks in the admiration. Her words are a faint praise, but praise nonetheless. And Wrenley is not so proud that she wouldn’t accept even such minor compliments.

    “Perhaps if you stay, we will be.” The words are said on a smile, an extension of that invitation Galadriel had stolen from her. Truthfully, it intrigues Wrenley. The glistening stranger is clearly a creature who does not shy away from her own worth. The twilight nymph rather likes that in a friend.

    When the other woman introduces herself as she shares how she came to be here, Wrenley tips her head in faint curiosity. Though she does not care for the politics of this place, she knows the Northerners. They are all so very close after all. Both the one with the disgusting bones in Nerine and the gilded pegasus of the Isle frequent these woods often. The rest - the ones that cower in their caves and hunker like hermits in the snow and ice - Wrenley does not bother to try knowing.

    In the end however, she does not comment. In truth, she doesn’t care enough to ask who had told her to come.

    She cannot avoid the question though. Brows furrowing, she releases a small, breathy sigh as her lips form a moue. She has her favored haunts of course, but she would hardly call them worthy of the name favorite. After a moment, she sighs again before glancing to the west. “The beaches at sunset.”

    She does not bother trying to hide the disinterest in the answer. They are lovely when the sun sets, it is true. But it is not a subject that excites her, nor is it one she has ever given overly much thought to. With a faint shrug, she turns her indifferent gaze back to Galadriel and adds, “But it is just a place.”

    Wrenley



    @galadriel
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    #7
    GALADRIEL

    Traversing any kind of affectionate relationship is mostly foreign to Galadriel, though she often learns something new about the often nuanced bartering between individuals. She is learning from Wrenley, quickly and deftly; and she finds pleasure in every twinkle and twist of the woman’s words and body language.

    As a child, Rel spent too much of her time screaming. Screaming because she felt misunderstood, because visions plagued her, because there will always be a part of her that is so inherently sour. Sometimes—in interactions like these—she wants to yell at the top of her lungs, either from the thrill of realizing how complete she has become or from the frustration of not understanding the easy banter that wafts around her like the heaviest incense.

    She considers that now: what Wrenley might do were she to begin hollering her pleasure across the ancient redwoods. She then wonders if that youthful exuberance might wake the sleeping giants sure to live beneath the pine needle earth. If they might strike her down for such insolence or bow to her for accepting the power of knowing who she is.

    “The beaches,” Rel muses, violet eyes glimmering with mischief. “Perhaps you can take me there sometime?” She peers out in the direction she thinks the beaches are, wondering how she hasn’t made it there in all of her exploring.

    “Yes, just a place.”

    Rel turns back to Wrenley, eyes now sharp with astute observance.

    “And what are places, if not just stepping stones to creatures as lovely as us?”

    The smile on her face writhes like a serpent, a glimpse into the shadows Rel fights to keep from swallowing her whole. For now, it feasts on her mind, nurtured by the subtle darkness her new companion seems to bear.


    Reply
    #8
    let it all come out and burn like a fire
    When one is as terrible as they are beautiful, there is a certain amount of penance to their company. This fact has never bothered Wrenley. After all, if another cannot stomach such penance, she does not want them anyway. In a strange way, it helps weed out those who are not worth her time.

    It’s a strange sort of thing to have in two directions. Deserved perhaps, yet invariably strange. Wrenley has not decided yet if she cares for it or not.

    As the conversation peters, Wrenley does not try to inject meaningless or insignificant fillers into it. She has never minded silence. Lapses in speech have never bothered her in the same way it seems to bother others. Indeed, she often relishes the discomfort of others at such moments. Yet she is strangely pleased when she finds none of it here with Galadriel.

    She laughs - a trilling, lovely sound despite the lack of gentleness in it - when her companion asks if she will show her the beaches. As uninspiring as she finds most of the landscape, it is a transparent bid for continued company, and that in itself pleases Wrenley. “Of course,” she replies easily, a small smile flirting with her lips. “Find me before sunset one evening and I will.”

    Tilting her head with faint curiosity, she doesn’t try to hide the coy amusement lining her delicate features. “Naturally.” The word whispers softly through the twilight, an indulgence of her whims. “Some backdrops are better suited than others.” Her smile deepens, sunset eyes gleaming coquettishly. “Ask me again some time and perhaps I will tell you of others.”

    Wrenley



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