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 Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 12:16 am
A cold silence settled in the room. So shallow was her breathing that it, for a moment, would have seemed as if she had stopped breathing altogether. The memory he shared left her winded in disbelief, lips parted yet not a word was spoken, not even a thought whispered through their shared link. Her pupils fluctuated in size and shape, from blown-out spheres that caused the tidal blue irises to recede before pulling back into slits so thin that the glacial ocean swallowed it whole. What he showed left her with a numbness so strong that it was not unlike a strong tranquilizer forcibly quelling the furious feral youma that threatened to overcome her human nature. In their minds, there was a deep threatening growl that echoed through the ocean’s trenches yet the surface of the water remained undisturbed. “Your body… Your mind…” Laven’s voice was no higher than a whisper as she repeated his vow slowly. “Your energy… Your soul…” To that, she paused to blinking away the burning tears. “Your pain… Your will…” A lump grew in her throat, silencing her so that the last part remained unsaid but not unthought as a whimper escaped her. All your futures… Twin trails of tears slid down her cheeks and onto her lap but she made no move to wipe them away. His voice then echoed the final part I promise. I am yours. To keep or take whenever you feel the inkling of betrayal. Destroy me whenever you see fit. All I am or will ever be. They all belong to you. “You where never mine to have, not truly.” All he ever asked for was to love him as he was and to support him. But a true relationship was not needed for such things. But even the strongest foundation would sink into ruin if built upon sand or not cared for properly. “There never was going to be a future for us was there?” The home he talked about building together in the ruins of the Dark Kingdom, of new memories they were to share together. How stupid was she to have foolishly allowed herself to believe that there was more meaning than he likely ever meant there to be? She withdrew into herself as a cold wind whipped out across the water freezing its surface like the lake he had pulled her from. A shield to protect her broken heart as she sunk deeper into the abyss where he had originally found her where the leviathan coiled it’s scaled body around her lithe form protectively. I am human. But I am also youma. A beast that desired the wolf beside her, that was claimed by it the day their consciousness met upon that sandy shore. But also a girl that longed to love someone and be loved in return. To someday have a family again; perhaps not as husband and wife but as mates, a term that seemed better suited for what they were made into rather than forever being boyfriend and girlfriend. However, both were wants and desires she could not tell him the day they built the snowman together because they were just dreams, fantasies derived from loneliness and projected upon the one that looked at her with a smile and held a hand out to her. The one that she slept soundly beside, who banished the nightmares saved for the one formed by his own mind in a world of shared creation. “Your family is the Negaverse. There is no delineation between life and work, for you they are, and always will be, one and the same. And you… you already gave yourself to another.” Someone with whom she would never be able to compete with or challenge. Someone of strength and power she would never obtain. “I would always be third in your eyes,” in his heart, “assuming I had a place at all.” There was nothing left of himself to give and yet these last three months he had made her feel important, special, an exception to the deeds of his past, a light for a path to a better future. But it seemed as if that was just a mirage, a grand illusion for something that could never be just to keep her here by his side so he didn’t wither away in the darkness alone. “And yet you broke your vow to Queen Laurelite,” not my Queen or our Queen. “Why? At the risk of your own life, why tell me?”
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Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 6:50 am
He could sense it. The primal desire to curl the tenderest underbelly of a creature as the youma in her closed over her emotional weakspots. Scales growing over the exposed skin that she showed to him. A shield being thrown up before teeth and poison. It was defensive and a gesture against a threat. An enemy. But there was yet to be aggression against him. At this point,, maybe she just didn't have the right left in her. A long journey from when they met to here caused a exhaustion.
Look how far we've come. He thought with a sad kind of bitterness.
With the earrings, he could speak into her mind even if he coughed with his voice occassionally. Which was good because he had a lot to say. Fevered or not, he could think. So he leaned back to lay down again, staring up at the ceiling and closing his eyes to focus.
"I mentioned her to you, but I forget. You weren't here from the start. Back when we knelt in meetings organized by rank. Back when we killed because collecting energy wasn't an option. Back when we were all here unified and pledged. I'm a old relic of a past no one cares about." They had all moved on while he waded through cement to catch up.
In his swimming mind, imagined of the entire Negaverse floated up in the fevered heat to show them all lined in a dark room by rank with the past King and Queen there talking to them all. There was a quiet obidience of everyone in the room as they listened.
"I would be dead by now. Either I would have killed myself or she would have. I let her decide if I was worth taking back. Now I want to prove it to her that she didn't make a mistake. I respect my Queen for that, and I will fight for that. Back then, I wasn't thinking of the future or even someone else. I left my husband tht night. I didn't want to be with anyone ever again. Not after what I destroyed."
Cold, red fingers typed his last message to Hawa as the snow fell. The woods were dark as he shivered, tears rolling down his face as he severed his toes as Faustite waited to take him back. He didn't even go home to see him face to face. He worried he would loose his chance to go back. He worried Hawa would plea to him to stay or worse - give up his future to go with him and loose even more of himself.
"She has my futures because I wouldn't have one without her decision, but that does not mean she wants me or I want her. It means she is the leader of this army and war I have dedicated myself to. I thought I was clear on that to you, but I guess I wasn't."
Who would have wanted a dog like him. A traitor line him. A monster of a human like him. The Queen knew what he was. The every idea she would have liked any part of him was laughable.
Unlike her, he was settled in the spot and his own primal side was behind, watching if she should strike at him, but otherwise lowered and still. It sought no need to cover over him, but left him out in the open to her in the exposing light of day.
So much he had done in the dark, unseen by her. Ommissions made great camouflage.
"When I met you, I didn't tell you because I knew you missed being home and you hated being here. Telling you would be a risk in loosing you to the senshi and making a new enemy for us. I had already vowed not to do that. Not before you understood the scope of the war and were less depressed over what happened to you. But as time passed and we got closer, it became harder to give this information, because I wondered if you still felt the same way regardless of our time together. You always tried to smile and make the most of your situation, but I knew this wasn't what you wanted. You make the most of a bad thing and you were forced to settle. With being here, living here, being a half-youma, and with me. You settled and convinced yourself it was fine."
All her smiles and sad confessions flickered through his mind's eye one by one as a collage of her optimism and hopefulness. Her depression and resignation. Her masks and desire for more.
"But you'd find out eventually and after this long, I thought it wouldn't be as bad since you seemed more stable. Maybe I started convincing myself that you were actually happy here. You needed to know anyways because if we wanted a future, you needed to know why I was like this. And that there would be others who purified. Who would come to you with that offer to change sides. I wanted you to be mine and wanted to give you what you wanted from what you lost to tie you here. To make the decision easier."
"But you ran."
The kitchen door was a fixed imagine in his mind that said everything. None of it mattered. She wanted home.
This was not her home. Not the Negaverse. Not him. Not the Queen.
Her futures were not his futures. Not the ones they both envisioned.
Her chuckled but it hurts his throat and it caused a bought of coughing for a moment.
"Third in my heart? Everyone thinks of hearts like a line. First. Second. How much room in this little box is mine. Is love all so generic from one person to another. My love of my Queen. My love for you. My love for my General. My love for my ex-husband. They are all different colors. Maybe my heart is ******** up. I love the Queen differently than my love for you."
"But I did love you "
"......you always doubted it, didn't you? t's so sad."
"...so sad...."
It felt warmer in his head now. Too warm.
And now he spoke, turning to look at her, speaking weakly though half-open eyes.
"If you run.....I'll find you."
"That's a promise."
"Still is." But it was much darker then the soft vow of dedication to be by her side had been.
If she wanted to escape, she's have to fight for it. He'd dig his claws in deeper than any owl could.
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Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 2:32 pm
“Of course I ran...I needed space, I needed time. Time to think.” To process what he told her in a place away from all distraction. “I couldn’t do that here, not with you still in the room holding on to me as you were.” The conversation came out of the blue that she was left feeling blindsighted and confused by the abruptness of it. He could have approached the topic in far less jarring ways but it seemed he lacked that kind of tact. It was a wonder how he got so many agents to disobey their Sovereigns. Without thinking overmuch on her actions, Laven rose to her feet and moved to stand beside him. She looked down at him, sweat upon his brow his eyelids set at half mast as he struggled to stay conscious. “Never once did you tell me you loved me,” she stated calmly, running her pointed claws through his hair, brushing his bangs to the side. “You only told me that you wanted to love me.” Leaning forward she placed a chaste kiss upon his fevered brow. “I cannot doubt something I did not know.” “You held my heart and took my body. But I am just as guilty for keeping those feelings to myself.” I was scared of being rejected, of you pulling away. You were not ready to love again and I was not going to force that on you. And yet he asked for hers greedily and she gave it freely. Laven cupped his cheek tenderly as their Queen had done in his memory. Her touch was not unlike a stream born from freshly melted snow, cold as the damp cloth she had used to try to break his fever before he woke. A part of her hoped beyond reason that he would forget all of this when his temperature finally started to come down and his thoughts were less strained and more clear. The leviathan moved then, shifting forms granted by the magic they shared its scaled body turned into that of water. For a minute it disappeared until it flowed through the ice that separated them. It shot out, not at the man but at the youma beside him, body coiling around the wolf before its form resolidified into its natural armored stats, it’s maw clasped around the other beasts throat grip meant to hold not harm as it was not their place to interfere. Laven was under no delusion that he was much stronger than she was or ever would be which is why she would have never done something so rash and even though he was in a weakened state she still felt guilty for it. Her hand trailed down the strong line of his neck until it came to rest upon the very spot where his starseed was hidden. How easy would it be to sink her hand into his chest, to touch his seed as their Queen did? To hold it in her hand to see its corrupted light. The thought both terrified and thrilled her however, she did not act on the curiosity, not yet at least. The ice shuddered then cracked and from the newly created hole Marissa emerged from the shattered shards that cut her unprotected skin. Soft blue hair clinging to her fair skin as she walked onto the shore. A dusting of pulverized rocks clung to her bare feet as she closed the distance between her and their beasts. Sad eyes regarded them closely. Seething hate stared back at her through yellow eyes and she knew then that when given a chance that it would devour her completely. “I believe you when you say that if I run again you will find me.” As Tyr so foolishly placed his hand in Fenrir’s mouth she too reached out. The leviathan dissolved into droplets of water then reformed behind her, annoyed by her decision but obedient nonetheless. “I don’t want to hate you for hiding this from me,” she admitted honestly even though the betrayal still hurt. “If there is any part of you that still loves me, then make me forget that purification exists. Show me a future that is still possible and I will never consider leaving again.” Marissa turned to the man that stood mere feet away. Whether he had jet black hair and green eyes or dual yellow moons and twin pointed ears atop his head he was one and the same in her eyes. “However, if the possibility is gone and you feel nothing for me then devour me now because I will not survive the darkness nor will I go back to solitude or isolation again.” There were places she could go where he could not. And in his current state he would be helpless to stop her without calling for help and admitting that he had given her tools needed to truly disappear.
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Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 5:43 pm
"Didn't I?" He said in a dazed tone, looking around before settling on her and staring back. " - guess I was afraid."
Afraid what admitting that out loud would mean. That he went too far, wanted too much, and was trying something that he lacked as much faith as he should have when admitting it. It was terrifying now to say that. To think it. That he loved someone. Especially someone who wanted it so much and would take it from him. He half-hoped to be rejected and yet, also was terrified of that happening too. What was that about having cake and eating it?
The touch was cool and he closed his eyes, liking the way her fingertips moved through his moist hair and ran across his scalp and brow.
The kiss had him hopeful, heart skipping lightly as he felt the cool touch of her lips against his salty forehead. Her attention and touch was something he could focus on more easily than words and images right now, and he let his eyes stay closed as he just took that in, wondering if he could drink another glass of water now.
The blanket felt heavy. He felt heavy.
The hand moved and he cracked his eyes a sliver open to look at the hand at his chest. A hand moved to rest over her own hand. If she did something, then he hoped she would do it quick. And if she should be gone, he hoped he she would be the one to eat him whole.
If it's you -
- just be the one to eat me
- else we'll be destined to do this all over again.
The wolf struggled but was weak, and the hot sun overhead baked the field he sat in and made everything bright white. The very air was heavy with humidity, making it a labor to breath. But he sat there, unprotected from the wolf that twisted and growled against the Leviathan who thought it could overtake him in any state.
Released, the wolf growled but went quiet, moving around her and beside it's charge, curling about the man who leaned against it, tired and wanting to rest in the fur and heavy smell of Earth.
Here, he was only a man with blackened hair and mismatched eyes. One a forest green while the other was pure white, blinded ages ago even in his mind. Blinded by a fist of ice.
And yet the same element, warmed, stood here before him.
Water was so hard to hold onto. Slipping through fingers and yet able to swim past everything, under every nook and cranny, to get where it needed. Eroding what it wanted. Turning pristine to weak rust.
The word devour sparked the canine's interest, and he showed teeth in a smile as he curled around him, knowing the taste of her now from that night together. It knew the taste of blood. It knew the thrill of visceral violence. It always hungered for a taste of just that. Of that victory from raw carnage.
"A future..." He muttered in his half-sleeping state, eyes closed as he turned into the pillow to seek a cool touch.
The setting they were in was gone, and they were spectators of his own imagination. A kitchen that was quiant with the two of them open to a small dining room which opened to a patio lined with lights. The entire house was clustered with plants well maintained and vibrant with care, and there was a smell of the same meal they had for Thanksgiving in the oven. A TV was playing a Home Alone, disregarding sense of time and reason in his dreamscape. Here their bed was large and warm. Here their house was theirs and welcoming to themselves and others. Here the place was bright and alive. Here they were healthy and fine and nothing was troublesome to them because they somehow had it all figured out in the end. Here she was happy and that most of all was the most enjoyable to him. That he somehow made her happy - despite all his failures.
That she actually enjoyed being here with him.
But the dream was hard to hold onto, going dark as he faded into a deep rest, and going further away from her conscious mind. The hand at her chest shook as he coughed again.
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Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2020 3:33 pm
Darkness feathered the edge of the beautiful moment until all that remained was the Wolf, curled around the dark haired man who slept soundly beside it. Even with his face partially buried in that dark purple fur she could see how each breath was strained. Laven remained beside him, one thumb stroking his cheek tenderly before removing the ear cuff that was no longer needed. He had fallen silent and would have looked peaceful while sleeping if it wasn’t for his labored breathing. For a moment she watched him while her other hand, pinned between his chest and paw, slowly sunk beneath the fabric of his clothes and further still until her fingertips brushed against his precious starseed. It was as if her actions were no longer her own as a dark voice whispered a mix of warnings and sweet promises in the back of her mind. All he showed was slightly altered images of what he already had. “No, that wasn’t true.” There were similarities, yes, but it held in it dreams of things he missed, things he wanted to have again. “And I…” HA. You what? The voice asked mockingly. Saw yourself there with him and thought that you would be an exception to his deception, his betrayal. It’s not a matter of if he will hurt you, but when he will hurt you again. Your heart craves love, dear. The leviathans voice was like silk draped over her shoulders. Smooth and cold like water but still very much there as something only she could truly hold on to. Laven’s fingers moved inside his chest, curling around his starseed carefully until she could feel the sharp points press against her palm. Pin pricks of awareness that she quite literally held his life in her hands as he had once offered to their Queen, yet she had permission to take and consume it, to cease this cycle before it could have a chance to repeat itself as he had warned. You are not an exception to his past whims. While he may be an oathkeeper he is a vow breaker. It warned, annoyance tearing at the seam that held its patience in place. “Stop it…” She hissed back through clenched teeth, struggling to take back control least her youma side force her to commit a sin so atrocious she would never be able to forgive herself. Without a conscious thought, her hand around the seed tightened. You know you want to see it, how the chaos swirls inside. To see how damaged it has become. The suggestion was trailed with an eloquent hum. Tell me why we shouldn’t take what was given, what is owed.“I-” Laven hesitated, her grip on his starseed loosening. “I love him.” She admitted outloud and to herself. Tears clouded her vision before racing down her cheeks and onto the blankets that covered him. “I love him,” she repeated again. My nieve whelpling, my foolish charge. You love the idea of him. The idea of someone who seems to care and will give you attention. Remember… I am the one who saved you from death itself. It is through me that you have gifts unlike any other. Learn to love yourself for who, and what, we are before giving your heart away so carelessly. But it was too late, she already had. That much was known between them.
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Posted: Sat Feb 29, 2020 6:15 pm
A starseed.
It felt like a warm gem. A crystal with perfectly cut corners that filled an entire palm. If a gem like that existed in the real world, it would have gone for millions on the auction house. But what price was a human life.
In her hand, it hummed with his own life. A pulsing of warm energy floating in the abyss of his chest where all starseeds were suspended.
As her fingertips grazed the surface, his brow creased to the invasive sensation, but he was lost in sleep, in sickness, to be able to do much else. Fingertips twitched against the covers as he continued to rest, body gripped in fatigue but eased by dreams she prompted in him.
And then came pain. A sharpness that exploded inside his entire body from the core of his being as she squeezed over the empacenter of his being, and his body tensed as he gasped hard, eyes rolling behind his eyelids as his hands gripped against the covers, twisting them as his back arched up towards her grasp.
There he was suspended in the height of that grip, that pain, and was left frozen for a moment before his body gave out and fell back down to the bed, twisting still as she held him deep inside. Despite his body coughing, she could not be able to feel it, her hand lost inside the emptiness of his body and the one fixed star she held against her palm.
Despite is appearance, the starseed fluttered with life against her hand, unmoving but still beating with the weak pulses of energy.
Outside, a man coughed loudly as he twisted the blankets up towards his chest, racked with the pain of being gripped so aggressively. Too close to the time he was corrupted or disciplined in such a way.
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Posted: Sat Feb 29, 2020 7:50 pm
Laven withdrew her hand quickly, startled in surprise by his sudden bought of coughs. Her heel caught a discarded shoe that had been left on the floor from when she had managed to get him into bed which sent her stumbling backward. The back of her head slammed against the dresser and the cup of water she had set atop it teetered and fell to its side dumping its contents down the side of the wooden piece of furniture and on her before the glass itself rolled off the edge and onto the ground beside her where it shattered. She sat there for a moment, heart pounding so hard her ears were left ringing but at least the voice in her head had fallen silent. Too silent… For a moment she watched Wolframite while trying to get her breathing under control but knew from his stillness something wasn’t right. Sleep was necessary for recovery but his skin was turning ashen. “Wolframite?” She called out to get him to wake up, as she shifted to get up and it was then Laven realized that there was something in her hand. With wide eyes, she looked down at the dark violet gemlike crystal with swirls of green mixed in. Bile rose in her throat as the leviathan grinned. Just that simple… and now you know… and knowing was half the battle. “No… no no, oh God…” Quickly she rose to her feet and rushed back over to the side of the bed and put the starseed back where it belonged, hidden within him. Panic struck her and with shaky hands she tried to wake him up if only to make sure she hadn’t killed him by mistake. “Wolframite, open your eyes. Please…” She cupped the side of his face, a cold touch against his fevered skin. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Please, I need you to look at me.”
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Posted: Sat Feb 29, 2020 8:15 pm
Pain. He was used to so many kinds of pain. Pain was just part of living. Part of fighting. But tired a d strained, everything felt like too much. The starseed entered his chest and with it he let out a large gasp of breath.
Shaken, be felt his sore body scream back at being moved so harshly. The bliss of nothingness was gone and he was pulled back to being awake to Laven staring back at him. Tears rolled down the corners of his eyes down the side of his face into his sideburns.
"...good morning.." He managed with a raw voice, not sure how long he'd been asleep. A hand went up and fingers touched the crook of her arm at the elbow to give it a soft stroke before he went to close his eyes again. He knew nothing of what happened or his seconds in death's embrace. All he knew was that Laven was here and that was enough.
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Posted: Sat Feb 29, 2020 11:40 pm
"Oh thank God," Laven fell to her knees. Her hands gripping the comforter to keep from falling over as she simply cried into the blanket. Despite his betrayal, she had never wanted to hurt him. Not physically anyway. Leaving had more than likely caused a different kind of a pain but at the time, when he told her, she didn't know what else to do or where to go. "I'm sorry." Those two words became a mantra for the next several minutes until she was able to calm down enough to finally get up and clean the mess she had made when the glass shattered and water spilled on the floor around her. In her heart, she knew, that even if she wanted to she would always end up coming back to him. Be it as it may he was the only one who could understand her and what she was going through. Beyond that though, she loved him. It didn't matter if he never said those words to her in return, the heart knows what it wanted and right now it was for him to get better, so they could go back to the Dark Kingdom and work on building the home he showed her in the dream he had shared.
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