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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]  When did the colors fill in the spaces where there were none?
    #1

    I'll settle for the ghost of you.

    The jaguar fire-wielder stays in the desert just as she had asked. He comes and goes as he pleases in these early days of Lillibet’s leadership, his main purpose on finding those that had been lost. Anyone from the South including Lily’s family, anyone from the Pampas that might have survived. There is always one scent, one face, he searches for more than the others. He had thought he had caught a whiff of it amongst the ruins after his reunion with Sickle but there had been so many stronger scents and if it was hers he couldn't be certain. There was also that pressing against his skull which had begun to thunder so hard he could no longer physically stay there. Of one thing he was certain, there had been a lot of death around the ruins and it was hard to concentrate on anything in that place when so many souls were pounding on his bond to be let in.

    It is with frustration that he returns back through the low winding canyons with moonlight at his glowing back, arriving late in the night after trying (and failing) to search amongst the stones. The ache in his head had seemed to start the moment he had stepped amongst them and had only gotten worse as time went on. He had stood with his back against the locked door, feeling those souls clamoring to get out, felt as if they were literally pounding on it (on him) to come through and tell their stories. He doesn’t want to hear them. Not yet. Perhaps, not ever.

    Before he could be physically sick, he had passed through the meadow with that eternal hope of finding Liesma and her stars. Alas he found no-one, the common lands unusually empty. So he heads home, or what they call home for now. Despite the headache that still makes him wince, he heads towards a familiar glowing figure and manages to find a small smile for her. “Lilybee.” He rumbles quietly, pulling the fireballs out of nothing before she can even request them. “All still quiet?” He murmurs as they begin their orbit around her but he finds himself looking away, the light hurting his feral eyes as the pain in his skull threatens to split apart again. 

    FYR

    Photo by Little Willow Art


    @Lillibet
    Reply
    #2



    Lillibet



    She should have listened to Bolder when he’d told her that Pangea was too hot during the day. Lillibet’s first summer in the red-rock canyon territory had been nothing but sweaty and uncomfortable. Even her alabaster coat has offered no reprieve. It hadn’t taken her long to work out a schedule: remain in the caves and by the river during the day, and then venture out to explore the other parts of her home once the relentless sun dipped below the tall canyon walls. She would always take a few minutes to watch the orange light of the setting sun splash against the upper reaches of the stone before she began her wandering.

    Today is no different, and it’s only after the orange glow has faded that the ethereal woman moves away from the river. She chooses a nearby fissure that is dipped in darkness, her own perpetual light providing just enough illumination to guide her down the unfamiliar pathway. A breeze feeds down through the wind tunnel created by the surrounding canyon walls, cooling Lillibet and tousling her lilac-accented mane and tail. She sighs involuntarily in relief and reduces her speed to meandering.

    She follows the path as far as it will bring her before it opens up into a wide valley. In the darkness, a familiar stallion and his moonglow are approaching at a leisurely pace. Pangea’s sovereign smiles on instinct as Fyr nears, though she does her best to keep it modest despite the butterfly that flits inside her ribcage at the nickname. “Fyr,” she murmurs back warmly, a greeting just for him. She chooses to pronounce it like his elemental affinity this evening and finds that she appreciates the sudden apparition of the floating, roiling balls of flame considering the dwindling heat of the night.

    Pangea. Too warm during the day, too cold at night.

    “Still quiet,” she confirms, though her assessment lacks disappointment. She’d never intended for her canyon home to grow to bustling. Simply having a place to call home again is enough.

    Her gold-flecked eyes search for his saffron ones, but Fyr has turned his gaze away. There’s tension in the middle of his forehead and in the tightness of his jaw that she had not noticed initially. “What is bothering you?" she asks, once again proving that a healthy respect for one’s privacy is not something she possesses.



    I do not want to move mountains;
    I want the mountains to see me coming
    and to crumble.



    RAYOFLIGHT
    Reply
    #3

    I'll settle for the ghost of you.

    Heat had never been his adversary and he’s found that he’s adapted to Pangea’s climate with surprising ease (although the young jaguar stallion still has his own misgivings on what living here actually means). Being a fire-wielder had its advantages and he’s not as susceptible to the climbing temperatures like most others would be. The unrelenting summer is a welcome reprieve to the hell on earth he had found on the Isle, even with the assistance of flames he had constantly felt frozen to the bone. Pangea was in every way an improvement compared to that and despite the cold nights here, they are much more bearable compared to where he’s been.

    Her absence’s during the day haven’t been noted much by him (being gone much himself during daylight) but what drives them from the desolate canyon during waking hours are very different motives. He is a dog with a bone, unable to give it up so easily, and although he had yet to visit that stretch of land left of Loess and see the drowned South for himself… There is a strange feeling of being close to something. As if any second he would discover the clue to solve the case, one way or another. He feels it's in the Ruins but every time he gets close enough to snatch whatever it is, it always disappears at the last moment. Like having something on the tip of your tongue and being just a fraction away from knowing it.

    It hadn't gone over his head how she has taken to ruling like a duck to water. Yes, the land was pretty empty and apparently there were only three of them calling it home for the moment. And yet she moves through the barren lands with an easy grace and a way about her that gives no doubt in his mind who this desert belongs to. As if she had been born for it, despite her misgivings on the weather. The same breeze that tousles her lilac strands begins to coil into his own long fiery threads. They catch in the current and curl gently against his broad spotted neck which arches slightly as she murmurs his name in greeting, sending fresh flames to light along his back.

    Feral eyes glance away from her, inwardly cursing himself for this nervous tic he’s seemed to carry around since he was a child. He doesn’t stew on it long, the sharpness in the back of his head chasing out whatever lingering embarrassment that’s left and his wince it seems is noticeable enough for the perceptive likes of her. For a moment, he battles with himself on what to tell her. She knew well enough about his fire magician ways but when it came to his connection to the otherworld, he had kept his lips tightly sealed. A small part of him worried that she would press him to use his connection in the same way he had thought of using himself many times. In that way that he knew he wasn’t ready to do yet.

    There was also that memory that curled around his brain, remembering her playful challenge. ”I think I want to play with Fear.” One that he still wished to hold her to in a strange dark way. So he settles on something in the middle, something true without the whole truth. “The Ruins.” He says with a slight shrug of his dappled shoulder. “There’s something about the place that’s… strange.” He finally says, looking back at her with that peculiar flickering in those bright yellow eyes.

    Shaking his pale skull, as if it might dislodge the pain and pressure building there, he casts her with one of his faint smiles. “Nothing for you to worry about, Lilybee.” He says, a flicker of amusement playing across the shadows of his face, quite warming up to the nickname he had given her. 

    FYR

    Photo by Little Willow Art

    @Lillibet
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    #4



    Lillibet



    For all of the mysterious machismo that drips from Fyr, there’s always that minor flare of flame that tries to knock him down a peg or two. Lillibet spies the brief flash across his dorsal, satisfaction welling warmly in her stomach that she could affect such a reaction from the fire-wielder, but refrains from acknowledging it lest it make him too self-conscious to let it occur the next time she happens to cross his path. The fresh intrigue of her new home has coaxed her away from recent conversations with both he and Herrin ─ she had assumed that the former was wandering in pursuit of answers and the latter had taken to roosting in his cliffside cave ─ but to find the opportunity this evening feels natural. Comforting, even.

    His flames flare again, this time persuaded by the brief gust of wind. Lillibet revels in the preternatural heat as her inquiry is voiced, a curious ear tipped forward to receive Fyr’s answer. His response is delayed momentarily and the catch at the middle of his forehead draws the glowing woman’s attention, her gold-flecked eyes lingering there as she wonders at its source: pensiveness, or worry?

    The Ruins. Lillibet, too, had felt the strangeness in the common land that had appeared just as suddenly as her home had disappeared. But she had not lost sleep over it. The areas where Loess, Sylva, and the Pampas had proudly existed were still beneath the sea and the Ruins, presumably, did not directly have anything to do with that. “Strange, in the same way the Beach is strange?” she asks, her thoughts catching on the existence of the land that few spoke about at more than a whisper. The Beach, Beqanna’s graveyard. She’s always found it odd to think of death, though it is not a thought that crosses her mind often ─ perhaps now that their island is home to two areas where many have lost their lives, she will think of it more often.

    Perhaps now, that her family and Fyr’s family have not─

    She clears her throat, a veil of discomfort working its way over her ivory and gold face until she has the expression under control again.

    What remains is a playfully pouted lip ─ Nothing for you to worry about, Lilybee ─ and a coy glint in her honeyed eyes. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Fyr?” A bat of her lashes. A shift from pouty innocence to knowing grin. And then silence, to let him play off her guile.



    I do not want to move mountains;
    I want the mountains to see me coming
    and to crumble.



    RAYOFLIGHT
    Reply
    #5

    I'll settle for the ghost of you.

    The logic in his mind was that the South had fallen and then the Ruins had appeared. How could that not correlate to something, how could that not be tied? He hadn’t heard of any others that had ended up on the Isle like he had (and he figured that would always remain a mystery, how he had come to be there), and Tephra or even the Forest were far more likely to have survivors wash up on their shores before the Ruins. And yet, that nagging feeling always brings him back to that same place.

    There had to be something that ties them together, the disaster to their sudden appearance.

    She mentions the Beach and he looks at her, his expression unreadable. ”I’ve never been there.” He finally says but she isn’t wrong, he thinks. It is probably just as “strange” as the Ruins. No… It was probably worse. There was a reason he had never been, had never wanted to go, has no desire to see it even now. If the Ruins were hard enough to navigate then surely the beach of the dead would destroy him completely in more ways than one.

    They are both eager to shake off these thoughts of death that hound them and she opens the way, gives them an outlet with her coy glance and pout that make the fire along his spine crack and swirl. It had been awhile since their last bantering but one he had not forgotten and so he welcomes this playfulness from her, matching her switch in energy. Getting his mind off of everything from the eerie stones, the graveyard, the throbbing near his temples… It’s the best medicine he can think of.

    "Maybe I would.” He says, mischief curling his mouth into a teasing smile. Tilting his head at her, a sharpness in his feral eyes. “Everyone has their secrets Lily, although I’ll admit I’m quite curious to learn about yours.

    FYR

    Photo by Little Willow Art


    @Lillibet
    Reply
    #6



    Lillibet



    “Neither have I,” but she had heard of it plenty, and sometimes she wonders who will be the first that she must visit on those desolate sands after their soul has left their body. She hopes that it won’t be Link. And she hopes, for Fyr’s sake, that it won’t be Aela. Her face softens and the inquisitive glint in her golden eyes goes away as she drops the subject. There would be other days to think on the Ruins and the Beach. For now, they have the whole of Pangea laid out before them to explore, and hardly anyone else in the territory to ruin their good time.

    Her playful pout is well-received and the resulting roil of his flames, both in the floating balls around her and across his back, licks orange light across the glow of her ivory face. Maybe I would. An amused grin breaks the surface of her pout and Lillibet sighs exaggeratedly as she pivots her lithe ethereal frame to stand at Fyr’s moonlit side. He tilts his head knowingly and she returns his gaze with confidence. “Secrets?” She begins to walk back across the dusted firma and towards the nearby maw of the canyon before looking back over her shoulder at the fire-wielder. “What makes you think an angel like myself could have secrets?”

    She chooses a narrow entrance that would force Fyr to walk behind her, but only initially. The tight walls of the canyon pathway soon open up and sprawl out into a wide valley sluiced by Pangea’s only river where Lillibet halts her meandering and waits for the stallion to join her. Her glow splashes against the lazy flow of the water and the smoothed, weather-worn rocks at its banks. A fairly relentless breeze accosts them, whipping the young woman’s lilac-tinted tresses into a tousled mess, though she remains warm enough with the help of her companion.

    As she waits for him to come to rest at her side, she wonders ─ what secrets did she hold that he may want to possess? The only thing that comes to mind is the hot acid that roils in her stomach in the presence of his magic ─ any magic ─ when she truly takes a moment to think about it. The hot envy never ceases, though sometimes it’s easy to forget about when they have other things to talk about.

    A coy smile finds her lips as she gifts Fyr a golden side-eye. “Do you like it here so far, Fyr?”



    I do not want to move mountains;
    I want the mountains to see me coming
    and to crumble.



    RAYOFLIGHT
    Reply
    #7

    I'll settle for the ghost of you.

    A snort of laughter escapes him, amusement written all over his face, as she turns to look at him over her slender shoulder. Something in her gaze makes his flames curl, both the ones along his spine and the warmth that suddenly stirs in his belly. He had never met anyone like Lillibet before. Sometimes sassy, sometimes sweet. And then the coquetry that naturally seems to rise between them, this was new as well. He was aware of the birds and the bees, Aela had made sure to impart that wisdom on him before the Pampas had been destroyed, a clueless Fae stallion probably lingering in the back of her mind and wanting him to be as prepared as he possibly could be for a life outside of the wildflowers. However it still confused him, this whole flirting thing, and he’s not sure what to make of that stirring in his belly when he catches the moonlight shining off her back or when she looks at him with that glint in her amber eye.

    “I’m willing to bet even angels have secrets.” He teases back, falling into step beside her and thinking momentarily of Ryatah. She was the only angel he had ever actually met and seemed as pure as they came but he couldn’t help but wonder about her. The stories that must have brought her to reside in Hyaline instead of in the heavens were surely angels must belong. They reach a narrow passage through the canyons and he doesn’t bother to hide the grin when she takes the lead, a Queen in her castle already. He waits for her to move through it, like a gentleman, before following behind and this has its own set of challenges. It’s hard to focus on anything else but the gentle sway of her hips as she walks, her lilac tail flicking close enough to lightly graze his chest. His flames spike and he swallows hard as his lips press together firmly.

    It is only seconds in the narrows and then he is quick to move to her side, clearing his throat as more flames wrap around his shoulders. Realizing this, he is quick to subdue them and takes a moment to gather his bearings. His glow had dimmed in the tight canyon shadows but his golden light blazes once more as he stands beside her near the river, yellow eyes curious as he had not really ventured this way yet. He takes the moment of silence to take a drink, finding the water here tastes surprisingly clean and clear. The hardy breeze makes his flames dance to new heights and he is careful to make sure the extra warmth he had given her doesn’t suddenly spiral out of control. Although she would probably be just as beautiful with half her mane burnt off, he figures she wouldn’t appreciate the humor.

    The lengthy crimson tendrils from his own disheveled mane whip across his face and curl around his neck, clinging to his spotted skin as he turns his head to look at her. Velvet ears swiveling in her direction as he catches that coquettish smile. Did he like it here? It was a complex answer. “It’s not home.” He finally says with a slight shrug of honesty. The wounds from the South were still too raw to even try and find a sense of comfort and stability like what had been made in the South. “However…” He hesitates, sending a new wave of flames to crawl along his back before answering quietly in the brief respite the wind gives. Trying to find her gaze and hold it with his own peculiar one that seems to spark with renewed intensity. “I like spending time with you.” 

    FYR

    Photo by Little Willow Art

    @Lillibet
    Reply
    #8



    Lillibet



    One of the things she has swiftly come to appreciate about her conversations with Fyr is the easy way they can shift between playful and intimate, serious and honest. Nothing about their time together feels forced, and there have only been a few instances in Lillibet’s life that she’s felt such genuine companionship. Perhaps because they are both victims of the South’s fall - though she suspects they would have gotten along swimmingly before that happened, too. The newly crowned sovereign giggles at the moonlit man’s observation as they come to a halt at the river. Where he lowers his head to quench his thirst before answering her coy inquiry, Lillibet trudges into the icy knee-deep water without hesitation, her lips parting into a gasp at the temperature.

    She misses the way he works to get his flames under control as they glide against his shoulders, though she does notice how they glint orange more fiercely against the river for the briefest of moments.

    “I know, but at least it’s ours,” she replies once she has caught her breath, pivoting her ivory frame in the water carefully so that she does not slip on the slick rocks beneath her hooves. She doubts that Pangea will ever truly feel like home the way Sylva and Loess had. The bitter nostalgia tugs at her heart, though it is quickly ushered away by Fyr’s final comment.

    A smile creeps over her lips as her gold-flecked eyes linger on his saffron ones. There is nothing playful about it this time - there is only authenticity in the expression she displays as she looks back at him on the riverbank. “The feeling is mutual,” her voice is quiet, for him alone, though it does not lack confidence. There are few things she enjoys more than spending time with Fyr. “Does this mean you’ll agree to stick around even when I don’t require the use of a furnace?” She shivers in the cold water, but does not pull herself from it yet - the combination of Fyr’s flames licking warmth across her upper half and the extreme cold of her lower is an oddly livening feeling.



    I do not want to move mountains;
    I want the mountains to see me coming
    and to crumble.



    RAYOFLIGHT
    Reply
    #9

    I'll settle for the ghost of you.

    His gaze never leaves her figure as she slips into the cold waters without another thought, a smirk curling at the corner of his mouth as she gives a soft gasp of surprise. For a moment he considers joining her. The thought swiftly leaves as the icy water hits the back of his throat, as he glances at the dark spots in the water where moonlight doesn’t reach and remembers a dark sea that had swallowed him whole.

    His flames reflect back at him as they dance across the water, following her movements and hovering just above the surface. It is strange to see her illuminated so brightly against the dark background of the river, framed in a cascade of orange and lavender glows that play across her glimmering alabaster skin. She turns to him carefully and he thinks about teasing her, reminding her that this place was hers and he was just along for the ride. Except the way she says ours makes that warmth flare in his chest again which is quickly followed by the sputter of flames and he finds the feeling pleasant, the thought of sharing something with someone else like her.

    Something seems to shift in the chilly night air when she meets his gaze, when that smile finds him and seems to shimmer in the haze of heat and flame. Her words stir that heat within him again and he can’t help the gruff tone of his voice as he tries to navigate through these unfamiliar waters. He wants to say yes, that he will always be here. That she will always be able to count on him. The future is still so uncertain and he is reluctant to make a promise that he might break, especially to her. There was also that tiny problem of being terrible and while Aela might have always seen the best in him, he was still uncertain when it came to others. What they really meant, what they really thought when they looked at him. He had never forgotten the whispers behind his back in the den, the muttering and fearful looks. 

    He had made friends since then, had met several others that had looked at him with kindness. Yet even to this day, he still can't shake that small voice that reminds him why he had been abandoned to begin with, that there was a reason why it was happening again, and that was to be his story until the day that his soul crosses to the other side and joins the others.

    It’s easier to deflect by teasing, by falling back into that familiar pattern he’s come to find with her. “Luckily for me it looks like you won’t be replacing your furnace anytime soon.” He says with a grin, a brow raised to her as his bright eyes follow the shiver across her barely exposed shoulder. His head suddenly feels clear and the ache subsides to a less annoying throb. 

    When his lingering gaze finally returns to her own, flames flicker in the depths of yellow that have nothing to do with the fire spiraling around her.

    FYR

    Photo by Little Willow Art


    @Lillibet
    Reply
    #10



    Lillibet



    Despite the ease and comfort with which she navigates it, Pangea does not feel like it is truly hers. She hasn’t voiced it aloud, though there are times she finds herself feeling troubled in the middle of the night, wondering at why this could be. More often than not, she blames it on the fall of the South. Leaving Sylva had not been her decision - it had been decided for her by the dark god Carnage. Leave, or die. Her sense of self-preservation had not allowed her to stay in the golden forest for any longer than her animal instincts had deemed safe. Another part of her, too, likes to think that the canyon wasteland does not feel like hers because it’s not. She can learn its secrets and choose to reside within it, but Pangea is no more hers than anyone else who chooses to rest their head within the sandstone walls. That’s why it’s easy for her to share in its ownership with Fyr as they continue to speak in the middle of the night - she has not done more than him, or any of them, to make it hers.

    Lillibet smiles at Fyr’s indirect answer to her inquiry, but she does not push him. Instead, she begins moving herself slowly through the water and back toward the bank where her companion stands, unhurried and careful as her hooves find their footing beneath the inky black river. The night’s cool air accosts her wet legs when she has finally pulled herself from the current and another shiver creeps up her spine despite the flames that dance around her.

    Instinctively, the alabaster woman sidles closer to Fyr and hums appreciatively in his heat. “Don’t burn me,” she requests with a low voice and a playful smirk before she tugs her honeyed eyes from him to survey the canyon basin that lay drenched in moonlight before them. She allows silence to fall between them for a time, and though there is space for Fyr to continue speaking if he chooses, Lillibet is pleased to find that the lack of conversation does not come with an awkward silence, but instead warmth and familiarity.

    “I miss them,” she finally breaks the silence with a vulnerability that has risen suddenly in her mind. She bites the inside of her cheek, quite certain that she does not enjoy the act of sharing her feelings with anyone other than Link. But it’s the similarities she shares with Fyr that remind her there are not many people for her to confide in about the South or those who are still missing, and as much as she wants to sidle close to the moonlit stallion and continue their coy conversations,  in this moment she simply needs to feel her own sadness.



    I do not want to move mountains;
    I want the mountains to see me coming
    and to crumble.



    RAYOFLIGHT
    Reply




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