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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]  the sound of your voice in the aching
    #1

    DESPOINA

    She is changed, but she cannot pinpoint exactly why.

    Perhaps it is the quest, where she was forced to face demons that she did not overcome.

    A quest where she did not come back changed. Did not come back better or stronger.

    Perhaps it is the oily feeling of betrayal. Of having birthed two children who were not his own. Demonic children from a bond that she had maybe wanted as a youth but did not want any longer.

    She doesn’t know how it happened, but she knows that it did, and the guilt brands her with it.

    So perhaps that is why she avoids him, avoids their two children. Why she slips through the night as a hellhound, as if proving to herself that she is that and not the small puppy she had been forced to be. Why she hides away the treat because she is certain that no good will come of it. Why she abandons her other children. She does not hunt, although the idea of tempting. Instead she just runs.

    She runs and she waits.

    She watches the sun set and the darkness creep forward.

    She sits quietly in that darkness, avoiding the parts that remind her of him.

    Tonight, that happens near the river. She is resting on her haunches, crimson eyes staring unseeing out at the tide that churns, pushing up against the riverbank like some unspoken promise. Despoina has never been a strong swimmer, but she feels a distinct urge to go down and step into that current.

    Would it pull her out to sea?

    Would it simply pull her down?

    She doesn’t know. Cannot possibly guess at the depths of the river. Cannot possibly know the yearnings of her broken, bastardized heart. Instead she just tilts her canine head to the side and considers.

    Dreams quietly of the breaking.

    I guess the sound of your voice in the aching will just have to do



    @Torryn
    Reply
    #2
    YOU'RE WALKING IN THE SHADOWS OF YOUR FEAR AND YOU'RE HEADED
    FOR THE GALLOWS, SIN AROUND YOUR THROAT AND NO ONE'S NEAR

    She has been avoiding him, and while he did not understand why at first, he let her. He watched her silently from the shadows, always cautious of being unseen as he tried to piece together what he had done wrong—because he could only assume that it was something he had done. He thinks that maybe she had changed her mind on forgiving him, that perhaps the scar of his betrayals ran too deep and she realized she could not move past them. He can’t say that he would blame her for it, though he had made a concentrated effort since their reconciliation to not give her a reason to doubt him. He knew that he could not undo all the things that he had done, and that it was unfair to expect her to forgive and forget.

    But the longer he watched her (stalked her was more like it) the more things began to fall into place, and the less he understood.

    He noticed that she was pregnant, knew almost instantly that they were not his, and while it suddenly made sense why she had locked herself away from him and their own children, he still could not find a logical reason for it. It did not seem like her to seek out revenge against him, though he would not hold it against her if she had.

    It’s a darker thought that twists through him like a knife, though, this idea that someone had hurt her and she had not thought it safe to come to him.
    This is what plagues him, and this is what drives him away, and why for the next few weeks, he does not follow her.

    When he finds her tonight it is mostly by accident, having just finished hunting in the forests that flank this section of the riverlands. Still in his canine form as he prowls along the treeline he is momentarily caught off guard by the silhouette of the hellhound sitting at the bank, but he would know her anywhere and in any shape, and his chest twinges painfully in response. Without even thinking he slips silently across the grass, stopping not far from her.

    “You can’t avoid me forever,” he says, and his voice sounds rougher than he had meant for it to be, but it is only the hurt he feels trying to find a release. Immediately he softens, lowering his red gaze and following her own to the rapids that she watches in the river. “I wish you'd tell me what's wrong instead of hiding.”
    T O R R Y N


    @despoina
    Reply
    #3

    DESPOINA

    Despoina wasn’t particularly skilled at anything, but she was talented at avoiding. At running. At burying her head in the sand. She was a champion at turning the other cheek, pretending that she was not constantly falling on the sword of her making. But despite this, she cannot avoid him. Finds that it is nearly impossible for her to do so. He finds her, a beacon in the light, and she shifts, angling toward him.

    “I can try,” she murmurs and is surprised to find the her voice is nearly insolent, almost petulant. She had never considered her particularly moody before but he has always seen the worst of her and it is not a surprise to find that today it is no different, not when the guilt eats away at her. Feeling the corrosive nature of it, she sighs and would go to leave if she did not feel that constant tug of his own gravity.

    She swallows hard and glances toward him, studying the canine shape of him. How natural that they would have found one another like this. How tragic. How perfectly fitting for her life.

    “I don’t have the words,” she finally admits, and this at least is the truth. Something dredged up from the depths of her bastard heart. How could she explain to him what she didn’t understand? How could she tell him what had happened when it still doesn’t make sense to her? Once, once there may have been a time when this was all she wanted. Children with Draco. Draco who was strong and powerful and everything she was not. Draco who did not love her but at least looked at her—at least saw her.

    But now?

    Now the thought of it sickens her.

    And she can’t change it.

    Her eyes hunt for his and hold onto the red of them.

    “Please don’t make me say it.”

    I guess the sound of your voice in the aching will just have to do

    Reply
    #4
    YOU'RE WALKING IN THE SHADOWS OF YOUR FEAR AND YOU'RE HEADED
    FOR THE GALLOWS, SIN AROUND YOUR THROAT AND NO ONE'S NEAR

    If her tone sounds testy he either does not notice or, more than likely, is simply not put off by it. They have both already seen each other at what they might think is their worst, though he would argue that she does not have a worst, meanwhile he has hardly any good. Whatever good was left of him after being devoured and spit back from the pits of the earth was reserved for her, even if he didn’t always know how to show her.

    The good that was left is why he was able to ward off the darkness from consuming him entirely, it is why he was able to change to be something at least almost worthy of being loved by her.
    He knows he has failed her time and time again, but he is determined to not let this be another one, even if he does not know what he is fighting against.

    He watches her, the dark shadows and almost harsh light of his eyes managing to mask most of the doubt that settles there at her response. There is a tightness to his jaw, not because he is mad at her, or even mad that she won’t tell him what happened—it’s just anger with nowhere to go, no target to fit into his crosshairs and seek some kind of justice. And maybe he will find a release for it later, but looking at her, and sensing the hurt that she is trying to burrow into the center of herself, he knows that now is not the time.

    “Okay,” he says on a low exhale, forcing a grim smile. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”

    The words are spoken evenly enough, and his red eyes hold onto hers steadily. He does nothing to hint at the turbulence in his own chest, at how he cannot stop imagining any and all scenarios that would have resulted in this, and how every last one of them pushes his blood closer to boiling.

    Instead, he stands, but only to close the small space that still existed between them. He sets himself directly alongside her, close enough that his shadowed body is all but pressed against hers; close enough to feel the pulse he recognizes even in a hellhound shape. “But you don’t have to do things alone, Despoina. I thought you knew that,” he says quietly, searching her face in the dark.
    T O R R Y N


    @despoina
    Reply
    #5

    DESPOINA

    Despoina has only ever known how to do things alone. She has only ever known how to let the world take bite after bite out of her—how to let the teeth sink into her skin and rip away until there is nothing left. She does not know how to extend that. Does not know how to let him in, lest he too bite or be bitten. But she tries. She does not flee even when her bones ache and her pulse thrashes. Instead she just bites down until she tastes copper on her tongue and wills her body to remain still, to remain rooted, to remain.

    There is a noise of protest in her throat when he comes next to her, or perhaps it is a noise of submission, she can hardly tell anymore. All she knows is that he is the sun and she finds herself leaning toward him, subconsciously pulled into his orbit as always. There is a nod, the movement jerky, as she acknowledges what he says, but she doesn’t trust herself to respond right away, so she doesn’t. Instead she just feels how it is to sit near him and feel the heat of him and know that he is not repulsed by her. Not angry.

    (No, she is the angry one now, she is the weak one, she is—)

    Despoina cuts off her thoughts violently before bringing her red gaze up to him and searching his face. He knows, she thinks, and she cannot decide if that is relief or pain that lances through her. “Why don’t you leave,” she finally asks, and she is surprised by how steady her voice sounds, how it does not waiver.

    “You have every reason to go.”

    The agony writhes in her, that question that goes unanswered, and she feels it simmer beneath the surface. Would he take it from her? If she asked? She wishes he would. Wishes that he would end this. Consume every dark thought and pain-filled moment. But she remembers the self-loathing on his face and she cannot bring herself to ask.

    I guess the sound of your voice in the aching will just have to do

    Reply
    #6
    YOU'RE WALKING IN THE SHADOWS OF YOUR FEAR AND YOU'RE HEADED
    FOR THE GALLOWS, SIN AROUND YOUR THROAT AND NO ONE'S NEAR

    She is brimming in despair in a way that he has never seen before, overflowing with every negative emotion until he is afraid she might drown beneath it all.  He could take it from her, and he almost feels guilty for not doing it immediately, but it does not feel like a real solution. He could relieve some of that pain, but he also knows it will not fix anything. He can drain it dry but even he can see that what she is feeling is a bottomless well and it will only refill itself. For as long as this hurt lives inside of her there is nothing that even his power can do to get in front of it.

    He feels entirely helpless, but he tries not to show it. Tries to keep the way he oscillates between sorrow and rage from showing on his face, though he cannot keep the tension out of his jaw. He does not want her to think for even a second that he is upset with her, but his veins are a livewire and harnessing the tension is nearly impossible.

    He only softens again at what she says, his bright red eyes for once managing to reflect the grief and regret he feels when he looks at her.

    “I told you I would never be the one to leave. That I would never be able to let you go. Nothing has changed,” he tells her, quiet and earnest. Reaching over he gently touches his nose to her cheek, shifting himself closer to her so that now he is pressed firmly against her, hoping she will not pull away but internally bracing himself for the chance that she might. “There is nothing that could ever happen to make me not love you.”

    He is quiet for a long moment, though inside his mind is loud and screaming. His jaw is rigid as he feels her broken heart beating beneath her skin, and the way he can still taste the anguish that spills from her. It seemed unfair that he had the ability to remove her agony but no way to actually heal her; that all he can do is siphon emotions from her and leave her as an empty shell.

    The anger breathes to life beneath his ribs again and this time he is unable to head it off, his eyes hardening. Reaching over he pulls her into his chest, the rage of his heartbeat matching tempo with hers. He rests his mouth near her ear and he says in a low, darkened tone, “Give me his name, and I can fix it.”
    T O R R Y N
    Reply
    #7

    DESPOINA

    Would he drown beneath the magnitude of her sorrow if he truly tried to drain it from her? Would it simply rise up and crash down around him? She is certain it would. Certain that even he, in all of his glory, would not be able to contain the ocean of her grief—the unending sea of it. She is made of it, carved from it, and she knows she contains entire galaxies of sorrow, of pain, of loss.

    It used to frighten her, how endless it all seemed, but now it just feels inevitable.

    It feels eternal.

    So she wades further and further into its dark water, and it is only when he speaks that she is called back at all, her attention hooking and tethering her. Her eyes close at his admission and she leans into his touch and then collapses into the shadows of his chest. Home, she thinks, as she breathes in the spice of him, and she wonders how she has gone so long without ever having it—without ever knowing it.

    At his dark promise, she smiles, softened by his violence, but she shakes her head against him. “A name will fix nothing,” she knows, and if she does it to protect Draco or expel him from her life, she is not sure. “It would just extend this,” part truth and part falsehood. She swallows hard and then rears back to look at him, to let her mouth touch his cheek gently before dipping beneath his chin and curling there.

    “Just hold me,” she asks, her voice soft, and she wrestles her instincts to push him away, to run away and drown in her grief. “Hold me close,” she repeats with her eyes closing.

    She could survive this, she thinks, shaking with unspilled tears.

    She could survive so long as he is here.

    I guess the sound of your voice in the aching will just have to do

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