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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


    break in the sun 'til the sun breaks down; Tarnished
    #1


    and death shall have no
    DOMINION
    Lightning split the night-black sky, flashing crashing jolts of electricity that cut through the dark just long enough to remind her the dark stretched on forever.  Thunder rolled through her, shaking her bones and setting her teeth to chattering.  Rain poured down, drumming on her skin and pasting her long, tangled mane to her neck.  Cold rain, running down her body in rivulets, mocking little caresses that echoed the feel of his lips on her shoulders, her spine, her hips, her sides.  She bared her teeth at the vicious rain, snarling as the wind whispered her name with his voice, breathy, aching, wanting.  Dom.  It ripped through her, tearing her open until she screamed, wordless agony lost in the roar of thunder as she fell to the ground.

    Her sides heaved, spotted skin stretching as her ribcage expanded and contracted, fighting to draw breath even though the world was ending.  Again.  It had been so long, she’d almost forgotten the world was always only ever ending.  Stupid, stupid girl, letting roses grow and climb and crack through all the lessons learned in a youth spent doing nothing but surviving.  Forgetting the roses die and leave behind only thorns that catch in flesh and cut and tear, piercing through hide and leaving blood running down skin and mingling with rain, just another sacrifice to the ever-ravenous earth.

    He was already dead when she found him, his neck twisted at a grotesque angle, empty eyes the same rich, dark brown as her father’s staring blankly into the sky.  Her heart, her breath, her Benedict.  She’d laughed when he told her his name meant blessing, but he was exactly that.  A blessing from his own benevolent gods, sent to welcome her into a world unlike anything she’d ever known.  Safe.  Vibrant.  Filled with the kind of peace she had never even dreamed of.  He’d won her jaded heart with a grin that dared the whole world to just try not to join in, the carefree charm of a heart unbroken by endless tragedy, and the sparks that danced along her skin every time he brushed against her.  God, how she’d wanted the life he’d offered her, love, happiness, a home where she wouldn’t have to fight every day to keep herself and her loved ones alive.  Four years not fighting every moment just to survive.  And he'd been there every step of the way, coaxing her deeper and deeper into complacency.  So stupid, to forget.  But the world had reminded her, stealing him away with no warning, no lingering feeling of foreboding, just fucking gone.  Her Ben.  And their babies.

    God, her babies.

    Ragnar, tall and strong and steady as the drummer blood that ran strong in him, sleek liquid black like his father with even the same lopsided star on his forehead that made her heart melt into a puddle and coaxed a silly grin onto her face every time she brushed her lips against it.  He didn’t have the fire of his namesake, the desperate hunger for life she’d seen in her baby brother’s eyes as he fought to live in a world that didn’t want him.  Her son was the quiet, solid presence of the mountains, and those cruel bastards had taken him back.  She’d found him not far from his father amidst the ruin of their home, and had known him by the shape of his legs, the growing-boy scent of his skin that was part hers and part Ben’s and part something uniquely his own.  She didn’t see her Ragnar’s brown eyes empty.  The mountains had taken his face, crushing him beneath rocks shook loose by the quaking of the hungry earth.  No brush of lips against lopsided white, no kiss goodbye for her very first baby boy.  He was just…gone.

    Maybe she should thank those fucking mountains for taking him quickly.  He didn’t suffer.  Neither of her boys suffered, their breath stolen away between one moment and the next.  But her Aya.  Oh god, her Aya.  Her tiny dancer, still so small.  Only a few months old, all gangly legs and awkward grace and bright green eyes shining out of a tiny, spotted face like her momma’s.  Dom hadn’t recognized the cries at first, drowned out by the screams of the few of her friends unlucky enough to have only been mortally wounded by falling rocks instead of mercifully slaughtered or swallowed by the damn earth.  Her little girl had never screamed like that before, had never even felt more pain than a bump or a bruise or hurt feelings.  She didn’t think she’d ever be able to forget the sound of her daughter’s screams.

    Her body knew before she did.  It wasn’t until she saw her Aya’s face, saw the incomprehensible agony in innocent green eyes, saw the rock crushing her back legs that she understood.  Her tiny dancer would never dance again.  No matter how she struggled, no matter how she flailed and clawed at the ground with her front legs, she was already lost.  “Hurts, Momma,” she’d pleaded, eyes dull with pain.  So Dom had made the hurting stop.  And she’d watched and sobbed as the light faded from those shining green eyes forever.

    When her throat was raw from hours of singing her Aya’s favorite lullaby, its melody transformed from soothing to desolate by the weight of her grief, when her little girl’s body was cold and her tears had run dry, when the sky had clouded over and taken up the mantle of her grief, heavy drops of rain falling from dark grey stormclouds, Dom finally stopped rocking her baby to sleep and forced herself to her feet.  The dying screams of familiar faces had faded without her help.  She had given all the mercy she had in her broken heart to her baby girl.  The others were gone.  Dead, gone, all of them gone.  And she was not.

    And death shall have no Dominion. 

    It had never felt like a curse before.  A vow, a prayer, a mantra she chanted in her head to keep going when she had nothing left.  Never a curse.  But now, those words rang through her head with every heavy step, her hooves beating the earth like a drum, pounding out a slow steady rhythm as the rain fell down, washing away the past just like the cold, bitter sea had done so long ago, another lifetime left in the dirt.  Friends, family, home, four short years wiped out in an instant.

    Dom walked aimlessly, growing colder with each step, grief seeping through her skin, down down down into her bones.  She couldn't stay, couldn't watch the vultures and the wolves and the wildcats devour everyone she loved.  So she left them behind, walking until she couldn't walk another step.  She didn’t notice the familiar silhouette of the willow tree, didn’t realize she was walking back to the lake she’d called home for a few short months while her body had recovered from starvation and her soul had recovered from the loss of her people.  She didn’t see the place someone she used to know had given her as her own, not until the lightning flashed again and hit the tree in front of her, scorching the trunk and sending one of the two sprawling branches crashing to the earth beside her as thunder shook the world again.

    Even then, Dom only looked up, blinked grief-dulled green eyes at the fallen limb, and collapsed against the trunk of the tree, her body remembering the spot that fit her just right. She stared out at the water through a curtain of long, weeping branches lashing in the wind and lowered her head to the ground.  It was only right that the whole world should mourn.  Even the trees and the sky and the lake.  She closed her eyes, ignoring the pain of wounds caused by the earthquake and the falling rocks, and willed the lightning to strike again.  To fucking dare.  And death shall have no Dominion.



    No more may gulls cry at their ears
    Or waves break loud on the seashores;
    Where blew a flower may a flower no more
    Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
    DOMINION BY SAMSHINE | HTML BY MAAT
    Reply
    #2
    we were caught up in all our vices
    In their hurry to escape the wrath of the storm, the deer do not notice the predator in their midst. Not that he made himself easy to spot in the first place. He is hiding in the reeds when the rain starts, and is barely visible slithering across the surface amidst all the ripples; they’re paying him no mind when he crawls up on the bank, shedding one skin after another—from lowly snake to mighty crocodile, from mighty crocodile to stealthy jaguar. The tall grass provides him adequate cover and they’re practically leaping over him to get to the woods when the lightning actually starts. Tarnished waits, rolling his shoulders and wiggling his hind end—they’re coming, he knows they’re coming. The anticipation is almost too much for the young immortal to bear, but then it happens.

    The stragglers come bounding after the younger, faster does and Tarnished, ever impatient, springs and lands on the first one he deems close enough. He doubts the old doe even realizes what’s happening before he sinks his claws in and wrestles her to the ground. No, realization doesn’t dawn on her until he has his mouth wrapped around her throat and is sinking his fangs into her jugular. He can see it in her eyes and she aims a slow, weak kick with her hind hoof at his side that does little more than make him grunt. It isn’t long before she goes limp, not that he waits. He starts tearing into her before her heart has stopped, overwhelmed by the absolute need to feed.

    For all the devils they worshipped and the sex rituals they performed, well, religiously, the old cult certainly didn’t appreciate this kind of diet nor when he hunted around them. Senseless, they said, meanwhile they raided herds and raped both the mares and their daughters and murdered their stallions and sons. Priorities.

    Tarnished snorts, which sounds a bit funny in his current spotted-kitty form.

    He chuckles between bites.

    At least, until the lightning strikes and the resulting thunder spooks the ever-living fuck out of him.

    Snarling, the frightened jungle cat whirls around to face his would-be attacker, which turns out to be a scorched willow tree that appears to be a few limbs short since the last time he saw it. Oh. Tarnished blinks, rolling the tenseness out of his shoulders. He almost turns back to his dinner when another flicker of lightning reveals a bit of white through the willow fronds that shouldn’t be there. Curious, the shape-shifter assumes his horse form and quietly creeps in for a closer look.

    The wind picks up, so much so that it rips a few of the willow’s fronds from their respective branches; he bows his head against the rain, against the fronds that whip furiously at his face and neck, his golden eyes fixed rather intensely on that bit of white. There’s spots, too. Black ones. Tarnished holds his breath, slowly maneuvering around the tree—he knew those spots well, once. Knew them as well as he knows who this is seconds before he even sees the utterly broken look on her face. “Dom?” Tarnished says, softly. “Dom… it’s… it’s me.”
    Vanquish x Nocturnal
    equus mutatio, immortality, disease manipulation, trait immunity
    Reply
    #3


    and death shall have no
    DOMINION
    “Dom?”  The voice was wrong.  Not the silky crooning of her lover gently coaxing her to stir.  No, she would never hear that voice again.  This was oddly familiar, gentle, as if the speaker were afraid she would shatter at the sound of her name.  Perhaps he wasn’t far off.  “Dom…it’s…it’s me.”  Her head was too heavy to lift, to turn to face him.  She cracked one eye open, red-rimmed green meeting gold eyes she’d known so well a lifetime ago.  He’d said goodbye, and she had figured it was forever, no matter that he’d said he’d come back someday.  There was no such thing as someday.

    “Nish.” She didn’t have enough voice left from the sobbing and the screaming to produce more than a rough croak.  Her eye drifted closed the moment she stopped fighting to keep it open, and she drew a deep breath, fortifying herself and drawing the energy from god, somewhere, just to move.  Slowly, despite the ache of weary muscles, despite the weight of grief, despite the bruises and the cracked ribs and the blood trickling down her sides, she forced herself to get up.  It would only get harder the longer she stayed down.  She knew that.  God, she knew that.

    She tried.  She fucking tried to leave the screams and the sobs and the agonized echo of “hurts, Momma,” on the ground behind her as she fought her way to her feet.  Her jaw clenched, her breath shook, but she had no tears left to cry and if she was nothing else—not a mother, not a lover, not a herdmate, not a sister or a daughter or anything to anyone anymore because they were all dead and gone—if she was nothing else, she was a goddamn survivor.  So she dragged herself to her feet, drew herself up, and looked her old friend in the eye for the first time in four years.  “Hello.”

    Jagged.  She felt so jagged, shards of glass that had been shattered and melted back together into nothing but sharp edges in every direction.  With every breath, those edges sliced her open, pouring blood into the hungry earth.  If he came closer, would they cut him too?  Her laugh was harsh, bitter, almost a caw as it tore out of her throat.  Probably.  Everyone who touched her died.  Everyone who loved her poured out their blood to feed the barren ground beneath her, its appetite never sated no matter how many lovers or brothers or fathers or children or friends fell in the attempt.

    And still she stood.

    "You always seem to find me at the end of the world, Nish."




    No more may gulls cry at their ears
    Or waves break loud on the seashores;
    Where blew a flower may a flower no more
    Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
    DOMINION BY SAMSHINE | HTML BY MAAT
    Reply
    #4
    we were caught up in all our vices
    He’d thought about her. Not often, because learning how to survive within the ranks of the lot that had taken him in took a toll on both his mind and body, but when he was alone – when he disappeared during ‘guard duty,’ when he took the time to remember who he was – he thought about her. She was his last and only friend when he left Beqanna. He had promised to come back to her, whatever the cost; granted, he’d made the promise mostly for selfish reasons. He had needed a reason to come back and she seemed like a pretty good reason. And there has never been a time when Nish didn’t keep his word.

    Well, unless you count him swearing his loyalty to the cult.

    But that’s a different matter entirely.

    Tarnished isn’t certain about what he should do next, and considering he spent the last four years meticulously planning every move he made (he couldn’t take a shit it seemed without mulling it over first, but details), the feeling is completely alien. New, almost, but he remembers experiencing it before; back when he’d been wobbly in the legs and believed life was as good or bad as you made it. Dominion isn’t fragile, even when he first found her half-starved to death and soaking wet, she’d struck him as someone who could still fight the good fight – so long as he made it fair – and put up a decent enough struggle if he proved to be dangerous. He isn’t used to… this.

    “I live at the end of the world, y’know. You only come to visit me every once in a while,” Tarnished grins, trying to coax a laugh out of her; deep down, of course, he knows it isn’t the time. But this is what he does, it’s the only way he knows how to cope – how to try and make it better, despite the tell-tale look in her eyes. Nothing is going to make this better, whatever it is. “I don’t really like visitors,” he seems to shrug, but once they lock eyes he almost knows what she doesn’t want him to know. Hers are green, but he’s seen that same brokenness in a pair of eyes that were both blue and gold and it causes his chest to ache painfully.

    What had happened to her?

    “Should I be decapitating someone right now?” Tarnished asks, casually. “Not that you couldn’t do it yourself, ladies first and all….”
    Vanquish x Nocturnal
    equus mutatio, immortality, disease manipulation, trait immunity
    Reply
    #5


    and death shall have no
    DOMINION
    Living at the end of the world.  She used to do that every day.  Back before the bitter sea swallowed the last of her people, every moment was the end of the world.  Every breath was precious, because it could always be the last.  Hunger, drought, disease, war, there were so many ways to die, and she’d seen them all.  Somehow, four years with Ben had made her forget.  “I might stay this time,” she replied, her voice cracking.  She’d loved every second of those four years, every morning waking up next to her lover, every touch of his skin on hers, every taste of him, every grin that lit him up from the inside.  She’d loved every moment watching their son grow from a tiny, wobbly-legged marvel into a strong, clever lad with a quick tongue and a steady heart.  Every touch of her lips against his baby-soft coat, every impatient snort as she’d licked him clean, every happy little cuddle when he’d decided he’d put up enough of a fight and snuggled up against her.  Every last one of their daughter’s frolicking dances, her voice ringing out and echoing off the mountainsides as she whirled with fierce joy in just being alive.

    She couldn’t do shiny and new again.  Not when it only led to goodbye.

    “So I guess I wouldn’t be a visitor.”

    The forced humor faded from his eyes as he searched hers, seeing more than she wanted to show him.  More than she wanted to show anyone.  His casual offer of decapitation drained the steel from her limbs and she wobbled, her vision blurring and flashing to her son as she’d seen him last, his head crushed by fallen rocks. “No,” she whispered.  “That won’t be necessary.  Can’t kill the earth.  And it wouldn’t change what happened.”  Too soon to speak of the dead.  Had to give them time to find their way to the stars, or they might get stuck here forever.  She could hear her father’s voice, liquid silver and lilting as he told her people’s stories.  But the stories were lies, weren’t they?  Just words, just shining silver words that meant nothing when there was no father-star in the sky shining down and watching her. "There was a quake. Rock slide. Killed...killed some people I loved." Her face twisted as two words echoed in her head again.

    "Hurts, Momma."

    "My mate, my boy, they were...they were quick. Dead instantly. I had to--" She shook her head, choking on the words, swallowing hard before she tried again. "God, she was so little, Nish. Such a tiny little girl, and she was begging me to make it stop hurting. There was nothing else I could do. Couldn't save her, couldn't even move the giant fucking rock off my baby's legs and--"

    She pulled in another deep breath, stretching cracked ribs until they screamed inside her, and the pain cleared away the memories, chasing them out of her head.  “I’m alive.”  Her voice shook.  “That’s all I’ve got, Nish.  I’m still standing. They're all dead, and I'm still standing.”  Even though the rain had washed their scents from her skin for the last time.  Even though memories of the day and of their too-short lives made every beat of her heart hurt for what she had lost, she was alive.  And for the moment, it was all she could do just to stay that way. "For all the damn good that's worth."


    No more may gulls cry at their ears
    Or waves break loud on the seashores;
    Where blew a flower may a flower no more
    Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
    DOMINION BY SAMSHINE | HTML BY MAAT
    Reply
    #6
    we are the nobodies, wanna be somebodies
    we're dead, we know just who we are
    Tarnished wishes she would have just agreed. In fact, he doesn’t think he would have minded being pointed in the direction she last saw some shadowy assailant—he would have thoroughly enjoyed making the mess and he would have let her deal the killing blow, if she wanted. But this? He closes his eyes, steeling himself against the emotion in her voice; his thoughts, of course, race off in a million different directions. The kidnapping. The war. The rapes. His birth. Her death. The cult. Dominion, he’d found her half-starved to death and she had been grateful for simply being given a place to stay; he had left her shortly afterward, she found someone—found love, made a family. Lost them.

    He couldn’t imagine losing something so precious.

    “I—“

    The roan stallion closes his mouth, then blinks open his eyes. He what? Wished he could make it all better? Obviously, anyone capable of feeling the tiniest amount of sympathy would wish something like that. Still doesn’t make it better, still doesn’t change anything. Tarnished grits his teeth, his fangs even audibly crack under the pressure but he forces them out (they pop out of his mouth one after the other) and replaces them with a brand new set. “You should come with me, then,” he suggests, after feeling his new teeth with his tongue. “I’ll show you around.”
    Tarnished © Venge | Seamless Fire Tile © Suicide Crew




    Yay for not being good at emotions!
    Vanquish x Nocturnal
    equus mutatio, immortality, disease manipulation, trait immunity
    Reply
    #7


    and death shall have no
    DOMINION
    Speechless.  Dom snorted her agreement, because what could he really say?  He was sorry?  Wasn’t his fault.  He wished he could fix it?  There was no point wasting words on the impossible.  She didn’t need pity, had no use for it.  The words had been too big to hold in, but she didn’t want comfort.  Didn’t want anyone to try to make her feel better.  His fangs cracked under the pressure of his clenched jaw, and she watched the broken teeth fall to the ground, her head nodding once in acknowledgement.

    She wished she could tear something apart too.  Wished she could bite down on the world itself and make it bleed, make it scream, make it beg for mercy.  But the world didn’t care about her pain, didn’t care what it had stolen from her.  She would only be cracking her own teeth, breaking herself down trying to get revenge on a cold, unfeeling rock.  “Yeah,” she said as he ran his tongue across new fangs.  “Me too.”

    “Come with me.”

    Green eyes studied gold, her head tilted as she considered.  Nish had helped her back from the end of the world once before, found her shelter and kept her company for the months it took her body to heal from a lifetime of hunger and thirst and struggle to survive.  He hadn't done it with pretty words and platitudes, just with his company and his unspoken understanding that sometimes all there was to life was getting through it.  Surviving when survival was the only thing left.  He'd been a good friend a lifetime ago, and she thought she'd been the same to him.

    Maybe they could be again.

    She nodded, accepting his offer.  It was sure as hell better than wallowing, and it would be good to get a feel for the place.  Better still to get to know Nish again.  “I need a few days.”  Three days to honor the dead and let go of what was lost.  Three days for her wounds to start to heal.  Three days to say goodbye to her love, and to pray to the soul of her silver-tongued father to watch over her babies now that they were beyond her reach.  “Then you can show me around.”

    No more may gulls cry at their ears
    Or waves break loud on the seashores;
    Where blew a flower may a flower no more
    Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
    DOMINION BY SAMSHINE | HTML BY MAAT
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