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+---- Thread: [P] . your company's fine but i get on better with mine (/showthread.php?tid=1982)
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. your company's fine but i get on better with mine - Moira - 04-18-2018
I paid the price and own the scars
why did we climb to fall so far ?
Lost. She should not have been lost here, not yet, as most of her time during the Spring months had been spent haunting the halls of the keep during daylight hours when so few of the court were strolling about - they preferred to come alive when night settled, and Moira was fine to read in those lively moments in a secluded corner or the topmost floors of the library. Today, she had been on the hunt for a rather notorious book on herbs, something her family had had for years and years before. It was a bit of a classic, she'd hoped on her trip here in the witching hour, but instead only dead ends met her once more. Life was a coalescing culmination of those lately, slowly the built up one by one until she was in over her head with so many routes that hadn't worked out it made her want to scream. But screaming was not fit for a Tonnerre woman - especially now that she was an adult, and a rather lovely one at that.
Still, the hours crept by as she'd devoured novel after novel, shelf after shelf, scroll after scroll, until a rather angry sigh is pushed into the world. Her eyes droop with fatigue, for she'd been out during the day to gather more herbs along the lakeside. Really it was an excuse to see the sky reflected on the calming surface. Often she wonders how something can be so still and yet stay so long? Stagnation causes a slow and terrible death, it's something she could not accept and would not allow for herself. A busy mind is key in keeping her life orderly and running smoothly. There'd always been a schedule, and now that she is in a new home she is struggling to find just that.
Did it help that Moira has yet to actually find a friend? The odds are never in her favor in that regard, for she is rather bookish and keeps her heart hidden when it could so easily be shown. She knows her mother would be brimming with sorrow at Moira's lack of expression. Gizelle was such a lively figure, and such a hard act for the girl to follow. So she'd chosen a different path, one that now leads to the pitter pattering of her feet across the stone floors, through archways and among wooden shelves and groan with every tome she lifts and swiftly replaces after having found it unsatisfactory.
What good is a library if you cannot find what you seek?
Another stifled sound erupts, ears flattening among braids and puns alike. Perhaps it's time for a break, she thinks glumly, looking toward the end of the floor where silence and solitude would surely meet her. Although, she doesn't really have to worry about too many others waltzing right through right now. No, the Court is most active at night, and her candlelight would draw them near, but they are alive having fun together elsewhere. So she picks up her candle once more and moves down to the end of the row, turning to a wooden table nestled near the shadows that could mask any sort of mischief (but sound would be another issue). There she sits, shoulders drooping ever so slightly as her head falls to the wooden surface and arms splay before her. "I'll just close my eyes for a moment," she whispers to no one in particular, rather surprised to hear her voice after such a long bout of silence.
@Caine silly girl is falling asleep already and hasn't even met him! Sorry this is super ambiguous and open, I'm still getting a grip on her c: let the snuggles begin
we made our love out of stacks of cards
RE: . your company's fine but i get on better with mine - Caine - 04-27-2018
THE MOON IS MY SUN
THE NIGHT IS MY DAY
THE NIGHT IS MY DAY
S
omeone else is here.
An onyx brow arches ever so slightly upwards as Caine pauses at the marbled entryway of the plush-carpeted antechamber. Silver eyes narrow as they skim towards the scarlet winged girl, curled like a cat in a shadowy corner of the vast library. Even from his distance, behind tomes and wood and tapestries, she is impossible to miss. A flame in the night. Under the light of the moon, her gleaming pelt shivers like a blood drenched blade, and Caine half expects her to be little more than an apparition. A vengeful spirit sent from her grave to haunt him for eternity, perhaps. It is a bemusing thought.
His eyes shift away from the crimson sylph to glance at the scrolls hovering in front of him like delicate moths. Despite his lost magic (which he still grieves for, achingly), it had taken the boy only a few idle nights to wield the weak telekinesis that the land had gifted him with perfect control. It’s poor consolation, of course, but Caine is not in the position to be picky.
His wings, as black as pitch, trail along his sides like a cloak as he strides silently down the aisles, pausing every so often to slide a scroll back to its proper resting place. He had landed in Denocte just an hour ago, his gait swift and his mouth drawn as pale eyes narrowed at every ripple of ivory, every glint of gold.
To his utter dismay, however, the prince was nowhere in sight.
And so Caine has settled for the night, his expression darker than the starless sky. Leaving the confines of the castle was unthinkable — the Denoctians were already insufferable enough in the day. Just how infuriatingly lively would they become when it was night?
It was no surprise, then, when the library beckoned him with a crooning hand. It always did.
A tendril of obsidian hair drifts lazily in front of his eyes, and Caine brushes it back with a wavering sigh. The air around him is empty; he does not wish to spend another hour bent over papers, straining to read faded words under a half-lit chandelier. The damn Denoctians and their love of the dark, Caine thinks, as he remembers Agenor’s brightly-lit mansion with a bitter sort of longing.
Strange, that a boy of shadow hails from a place of light — blinding light. Stranger still, that he detests the shadows he wraps himself so fully in, loathes the sunless nights he endures. For Caine is a child of the sun, as much as any of the gilded denizens of Vectaeryn are.
But life is nothing if not cruel.
His gaze drifts back to the girl. There is little left for him to do, and Caine hates being idle more than he values solitude (too much time for the mind to wander). And there, lying so peacefully that he is sure she’s asleep, is a perfect distraction.
Silence is an art, and Caine wields it better than Death himself (death is always so loud, in the end, because of how much they struggle), and he makes no sound as he approaches. An amused smile dances along his sleek jaw as he slides himself softly into the seat directly across from her, silver eyes glinting as she doesn't so much as stir. How long will it take for her to notice?
A shame for her, though, because tonight Caine has grown tired of waiting.
“Is it really so comfortable here?” he asks, voice as lyrical as a songbird as he props his head lazily against a wing. His gaze on her is that of a curious raven, and his handsome smile grows sharper, more feral, by the second. “If you aren’t careful, you’ll drool all over these precious books, and I doubt they’ll like that.”
@
RE: . your company's fine but i get on better with mine - Moira - 04-30-2018
I paid the price and own the scars
why did we climb to fall so far ?
In such a state between dreams and wakefulness, she finds herself rather blind to the world and finally in a blissful repose. So many times she's tossed and turned in her chambers, unable to find a comfortable position, wishing that she had the twins to curl against, or even her cousin who would laugh like they were girls again and throw herself wholly against Moira's side. It is calming to know the darkness so well and encompass herself in its silent embrace, twine her fingers with its own riddled hands and kiss them as though she'd propose. For a time, she lays here with such blatant disregard for the rest of the world that she doesn't know another approaches and sits, is unaware that every fiber of her being is currently under examination, and only when a voice as warm as the first taste of Spring crawls into the folds of her reality does she furrow her brows.
When you wake up, you're not quite sure what's going on. It's a hazy world she finds herself in, eyes half closed still as she stretches, a comical display of the wooden table still visible upon her dark cheek and the crease of a book upon her forehead. Only when he speaks again does Moira bother to look at those lovely silver eyes that analyze her with such interested disinterest, glances down to the teeth which are bared in a display that she cannot decide is feral or charming, and comes to the conclusion he should not have interrupted her nap like that at all. Moira huffs, casting a rather dark, unbidden flick of her eyes his way even as she hurriedly pulls the tome nearer her body. "I don't drool," she growls, daring him to counter that statement with a storm broiling in those amber eyes. Usually there would be a calm pool to stare at the world with vague interest, but mostly memories. Now, in such an addled state storms brew as they do at sea, the possibility of a hurricane on the horizon.
"Isn't there something about how it's rude to wake another who's sleeping? Or were you raised an awful brute with a pretty face?" Only after she claims he's pretty does she realize what she's said and seems to fully awaken. A shocked gasp eliciting from between red lips as a blush steals up her neck. Were she fairer, she would have been crimson by now, but the gods bless her with a sunset for skin, and those conflagrations now cover the redness seeping into her face. "It's quiet here is what it is," she finally states with another indignant huff, unwilling to dig herself out of this yet. Maybe this tall, dark, and handsome stranger would just leave her alone with her lists of poultices and knot-tying strategies so that she could get another few minutes of sleep. Maybe he'd simply disappear into the darkness that he so obviously blends with (even though it's something she keeps glancing at around them, and then looking at him once more.)
@Caine i'm so sorry this post isn't that great ;o; she also hasn't realized he has wings yet, we're still waking up c': I love caine !
we made our love out of stacks of cards
RE: . your company's fine but i get on better with mine - Caine - 05-12-2018
THE MOON IS MY SUN
THE NIGHT IS MY DAY
THE NIGHT IS MY DAY
S
he is snatched cruelly from her world of dreams like a little cardinal thrown to earth by the wind of the heavens. He has never before been privy to such a moment of vulnerability.
Pale eyes follow every twitch of her limbs, every flutter of her lashes, like a slender-fingered musician admiring his lyre. Caine does not avert his gaze in courtesy, nor temper his interest with modesty. For once, he is not bound by a reason to be proper, a wolf dressed in the skin of a lamb. For once, he does not have to play the game of coyness like a spider weaving its silken web.
For once, the mask has been plucked from the Illusionist’s eyes and left, forgotten, by the side of the door.
“I don't drool.” He lifts a brow at that, silver eyes gleaming with amusement, but she unleashes the full storm of her vexation before he can reply. “Isn't there something about how it's rude to wake another who's sleeping? Or were you raised an awful brute with a pretty face?"
She is certainly awake, now. He watches as her irritation spills from her in waves, her sleep-numbed eyes sharpening to thorns. “I don’t think my face has ever played a part in how I was raised,” he replies with a tilt of his head, the sharpness of his grin softened by the moonlight that drenches his pelt in liquid silver. He speaks the truth, however casually he says it. Even an angel’s beauty would not have kept Agenor from corrupting the heavenly messenger with sin.
The snapping girl’s unbidden compliment is pleasing to hear, but only because of the reaction it elicits from her. Vanity has never been a trait of Caine’s (as vanity requires adoration, and Caine has never been adored in his life) but the appeal that beauty carries is something the boy knows well. “They will never suspect you of anything, with a face like that,” his master had murmured to him once, as he examined the delicate angles of his student’s solemn visage. Agenor had nodded, as if in satisfaction. A knife as pretty as it was sharp — he had chosen well, this time.
“It's quiet here is what it is," Caine hears her mutter, and his attention turns fully to her once again. “I suppose it is. Not much for privacy, though. Denocte’s castle harbors some interesting fellows, I’ve heard — to leave yourself so unguarded was a rather bold thing to do,” he says, his voice lowering with the lightest of warnings. It is gone as quickly as it comes, before he can mean anything from it. He looks instead to the tomes she clutches tightly with a guarded glare.
“Are you a healer, perhaps?” he asks, after easily making out the worn titles of the books, upside down as they were. His gaze is steady in her golden eyes, and his wings droop to skim the marble floor like a cat’s drowsy tail.
If she had wished for him to simply leave her be, then she is in for a sour night indeed. Caine is far too bored, far too keen, to resist the crimson girl and her ire. A life of isolation has led him to savor with relish even the most mundane of things — let alone emotion itself. Whimpering and begging aside (he felt he’d seen all the world could offer of that), the way they felt, the way their passions spilled from their hearts unfettered, was a phenomenon the silver-eyed boy could never — would never — understand.
Not to say, however, that Caine will ever stop trying.
@
RE: . your company's fine but i get on better with mine - Moira - 05-13-2018
M O I R A
she looks into her mirror,
wishing someone could hear her, so loud
"that's a shame," she breathes somewhere between admiration and damnation, assessing him once more with a raised brow and pursed lips, "perhaps you might have been enough of a dignified prat to leave me be and get your amusement out of my sleeping face. Like any other brute would have." No, that statement wasn't necessarily true, but it suits her in the moment and she's too aggravated to take it back or reconsider now. Already Mo is making an ass of herself, why not just let her tarnish her reputation more than already has been done?
The laughter in his eyes is really what pushes her, forcing fire into her bloodstream until she truly seems a phoenix reborn, just hatching in a beautiful display of fiery breath and arching wings. Wings that now flare - something that would be threatening if they did not wobble, did not show how much she did not understand of her own abilities and reveal exactly what the woman is lacking. Control - control of her own emotions and even her own body. His attention fades, and she hopes it is the last he'll give her for a few short hours more, thankful for his silence and the glossy look in those pretty silver eyes. If she were honest, Moira would admit she can get lost in those eyes, much like the stars in Asterion's gaze, it's easy to fall into the mercurial pools to try and riddle out answers that will not come as words. Even when young, Mo was always a sucker for eyes. "They're the windows to our souls, Moira Elizabet Tonnerre," her mother would whisper in the mornings before sending Mo off to lessons where she would see the coldness in her family's gaze. It did not matter which mirror she looked in, which lessons she perfected in which she gained top marks, Moira was always a stain upon her family's name until she proved otherwise. But her mother... Mo always trusts in her mother and father.
However, this man before her... she does not trust him and only offers a roll of her pretty golden eyes when he opens his mouth again. She could be a lioness in those moments between their heartbeats, blazing to life like a flame and roaring at him. Of course, a cause more noble that waking her up would have been lovely, but Moira usually keeps herself more gathered when she is working and fully functional. "To take another's life in your hands is to be bold, isn't it?" Not quite the answer others would give, but she's finding herself rather liking the edges that Caine has found on her. Before, Mo would have told you she's trained to be as smooth as a stone in the river, having spent years being nurtured into what she is today - levelheaded, calm, tenacious. Now... Now there were edges that are not yet rounded, untampered by all the training she's endured to get here, edges that might be useful if she ever saw this prickly man again.
Of course, when wings rustle upon the ground, becoming visible in the moonlight that streams in from a window high above (forgotten save for when it is brightest outside), and illuminated before her very eyes, she gasps. Shock is a living monster within her, pounding at her ribs, seizing the rhythm of her heart until she's nearly silent and looking toward the grounds. Wings... Obviously there are others with wings outside of the Family - her mother is not a Tonnerre and she has wings... But her mother gave up flight for the family, to remain with Moira and Anselme no matter the cost to her freedom.
Wings...
Seconds pass and the phoenix does not draw breath, caught between here and somewhere else. Is this what it feels like to be in shock, she wonders momentarily? Will she start hiccupping with hysterical laughter soon, or simply faint from lack of oxygen?
It takes a moment for the terror to settle in her blood, until she tastes iron in her mouth from her torn lip that she is not sure when she bit so hard. Bright eyes - alight with something that is anything but fire - flick up to be sure she sees the wings that are there. Two twin sets are illuminated under the moonlight. And it's a sight so completely awful and horrifying she turns away. "I should put these up." A lame excuse, but is it enough to escape him?
@Caine waves. so apparently we have a fear of wings. that's pretty neat ovo
wishing someone could hear her, so loud
"that's a shame," she breathes somewhere between admiration and damnation, assessing him once more with a raised brow and pursed lips, "perhaps you might have been enough of a dignified prat to leave me be and get your amusement out of my sleeping face. Like any other brute would have." No, that statement wasn't necessarily true, but it suits her in the moment and she's too aggravated to take it back or reconsider now. Already Mo is making an ass of herself, why not just let her tarnish her reputation more than already has been done?
The laughter in his eyes is really what pushes her, forcing fire into her bloodstream until she truly seems a phoenix reborn, just hatching in a beautiful display of fiery breath and arching wings. Wings that now flare - something that would be threatening if they did not wobble, did not show how much she did not understand of her own abilities and reveal exactly what the woman is lacking. Control - control of her own emotions and even her own body. His attention fades, and she hopes it is the last he'll give her for a few short hours more, thankful for his silence and the glossy look in those pretty silver eyes. If she were honest, Moira would admit she can get lost in those eyes, much like the stars in Asterion's gaze, it's easy to fall into the mercurial pools to try and riddle out answers that will not come as words. Even when young, Mo was always a sucker for eyes. "They're the windows to our souls, Moira Elizabet Tonnerre," her mother would whisper in the mornings before sending Mo off to lessons where she would see the coldness in her family's gaze. It did not matter which mirror she looked in, which lessons she perfected in which she gained top marks, Moira was always a stain upon her family's name until she proved otherwise. But her mother... Mo always trusts in her mother and father.
However, this man before her... she does not trust him and only offers a roll of her pretty golden eyes when he opens his mouth again. She could be a lioness in those moments between their heartbeats, blazing to life like a flame and roaring at him. Of course, a cause more noble that waking her up would have been lovely, but Moira usually keeps herself more gathered when she is working and fully functional. "To take another's life in your hands is to be bold, isn't it?" Not quite the answer others would give, but she's finding herself rather liking the edges that Caine has found on her. Before, Mo would have told you she's trained to be as smooth as a stone in the river, having spent years being nurtured into what she is today - levelheaded, calm, tenacious. Now... Now there were edges that are not yet rounded, untampered by all the training she's endured to get here, edges that might be useful if she ever saw this prickly man again.
Of course, when wings rustle upon the ground, becoming visible in the moonlight that streams in from a window high above (forgotten save for when it is brightest outside), and illuminated before her very eyes, she gasps. Shock is a living monster within her, pounding at her ribs, seizing the rhythm of her heart until she's nearly silent and looking toward the grounds. Wings... Obviously there are others with wings outside of the Family - her mother is not a Tonnerre and she has wings... But her mother gave up flight for the family, to remain with Moira and Anselme no matter the cost to her freedom.
Wings...
Seconds pass and the phoenix does not draw breath, caught between here and somewhere else. Is this what it feels like to be in shock, she wonders momentarily? Will she start hiccupping with hysterical laughter soon, or simply faint from lack of oxygen?
It takes a moment for the terror to settle in her blood, until she tastes iron in her mouth from her torn lip that she is not sure when she bit so hard. Bright eyes - alight with something that is anything but fire - flick up to be sure she sees the wings that are there. Two twin sets are illuminated under the moonlight. And it's a sight so completely awful and horrifying she turns away. "I should put these up." A lame excuse, but is it enough to escape him?
@Caine waves. so apparently we have a fear of wings. that's pretty neat ovo
RE: . your company's fine but i get on better with mine - Caine - 05-22-2018
THE MOON IS MY SUN
THE NIGHT IS MY DAY
THE NIGHT IS MY DAY
T
he girl’s temper is as irascible as a Vectaeryn dragon’s, and Caine is not the least bit remorseful. Her words, as sharp as rose thorns, glide harmlessly off his skin like rain against a glass window. If anything, he is impressed — no one has ever spoken to him quite like this, and he is enjoying himself a tad too much.
Perhaps it is time to make his amends, though, before he is dismissed as nothing more than a shallow prick. Limited as his interactions with… the living are (as evidenced by how well their conversation has gone), Caine prefers to keep his list of people he has wronged as short as possible. Gods knows how difficult his occupation makes that task already — and it is precisely because of that occupation that he even bothers.
“If I have offended you,” he begins, silver eyes softening to a shade of starlight, “then I apologize. It might be hard for you to believe, but I do possess some semblance of decency.” A glittering lie — decency belongs to knights and princes, and shatters at the feet of wraiths and deceivers — but she will never know. His act is as convincing as a magician’s sleight of hand, and that has always been enough for those who choose to be fooled.
Is she a fool? A fragmented part of him hopes that she isn’t.
“To take another's life in your hands is to be bold, isn't it?”
With difficulty does he keep his jaw from tightening at those sinless, noble words. They pierce him in a way they had not been able to before… how much of the light she must walk under, to say such a sentence and invoke nothing but goodness in his mind. He can see it wafting from her, sparkling like crystals under the moonlight. How much a dark part of him wishes to be able to say the same, without it turning immediately to blood and gore and death. Bold — did taking a life in his hands and squeezing it until it beat no more, count as bold?
Should he be concerned at how unaffected he is by it all? At how callously he wipes the blood from his hands, at how easily he slips the smile back upon his lips, after he has sent another life to its death? He does not know. He does not know, and it is a dagger in his chest that will not stop throbbing.
For the first time that night, he does not answer her.
His wings beat against the table in steady thrums, as they often do when he is agitated and cannot reveal it. When Caine sees the girl’s golden eyes widen in blooming horror, then, he freezes. What has he done to cause that fear? Still he says nothing, his wings settling once again against his sides as he stares at her.
“I should put these up.” The silence is broken by her voice, and it displeases him how much it trembles. Her fire of before, such vibrant, bright fire, has vanished without a trace, and Caine is left more puzzled than he has been in a long time. Emotions are such fickle things, he thinks with a sigh.
“Let me,” he says, and he is behind her before she has the chance to rise. “As a show of my good manners, that I insist do actually exist.” His accent, normally subdued to fit the Novus tongue, emerges in full now as his words become as lyrical as a siren’s song. The accent of a Taeryn far from home. Black wings surround the crimson girl in a cocoon of onyx feathers as he plucks the books from her grasp, and moves them towards a high shelf with a tilt of his head.
He is not aware of how close he is to her, too focused on slipping each leather-bound volume carefully into place. He is not aware of her trembling, too engrossed in his telekinesis to care.
He is not aware, and it is another mistake in a night that flows with them.
@
RE: . your company's fine but i get on better with mine - Moira - 05-26-2018
M O I R A
she looks into her mirror,
wishing someone could hear her, so loud
Boasts of his own manners and sweetness fall on deaf ears that are turned back with distaste. Even though his eyes lighten, shadows fleeing from them as crows away from a disturbed corpse, her own eyes are narrow. She does not care that he says pretty words, for her own family teaches one how to speak so that others will listen. It is an art form, one that is easily mastered if given an attentive student. Moira has always scored the highest marks in any class (save history, bless her heart) she's taken. That may not have been the one she was most interested in when young, but it certainly serves well now.
With a hmph the phoenix dances nearer, a smile that could cut glass, a pure provocative dare, testing everything he was, is, and will ever be, and at last speaks. "Actions prove the worth of a man, and yours have proven nothing."
There is a harshness in her words, a coldness to the look as though she is measuring him and finds him wanting. She knows that look only too well, the one that now is upon her face and bearing down with full force upon the Pegasus. How many times have her uncles and aunts looked at her with the same disbelieving disdain that strips you to your soul, shows all that you are, splits you open until you are nothing but starlight and dust and bones? How often were those very looks following her around long corridors when she'd helped tend to others, change rooms over and over, learned to be a part of the Tonnerre's and still held separately from them all? The weight of it should have crushed her, would have were it not for Estelle, and then the twins when time came for her to join the ranks of the Family.
Moira turns from him, books in hand, before he can answer her next question. Heart beating too quickly, palms sweaty, eyes so focused on the darkness that looms ahead, pulls her nearer and further away from the gaping maw of memories that drip down from sharpened teeth just waiting to sink into her soft, supple flesh. The phoenix believes she's escaped, a sigh almost running from her lips, tasting freedom and fresh air.
But there is no forgiveness today.
Instead, wings envelope her as the books are plucked harmlessly from her hands, the man's words a mere blur in the darkness she's now cocooned in. Briefly she wonders how something so wicked can be this warm and gentle. But those thoughts don't even have a chance to grasp at life before visions flash before her, memories surging and roiling in a sea she's avoided for so long. Ashes are on the ground, they surround her just as broken feathers do, just as the burning smell of her wings do. Hair is not something that has an appealing smell, when you catch wind of that, you know something awful is happening. Over and over, season after season, Moira remembers how she was held down, screaming until her throat was raw and her lips bled, crying for help when no one would come, only to have those precious wings burned and chained. Feather after feather plucked or trimmed or set afire. Bandages would often cover the tips of those flaming wings after, sore and raw for weeks on end even as they were chained to her sides. Not even allowed to flex them as a child, to learn what it was to move them as a part of her own body, as an extension of herself. Caged over and over until it became a living monster, the terror that arose, every time her feathers grew back. She knew what would come shortly after they were long enough for her to reach the skies. But she never tasted the wind or the rain as those of her ilk should.
So with his wings around her she lashes out. A hard blow to his chest, his shoulder, tears glittering in amber eyes as Moira lurches from his grasp and knocks the books from the air. "I said I'd do it," she snarls, looking every bit a frightened, cornered animal. "You say you have manners, but you don't even listen. No name given, cloaked in darkness, you think so highly of yourself don't you? Able to come waltzing in like some bastard prince." It's a raw growl, her low voice as shredded as her heart right now. Even his accent, as musical and beautiful as it is, is lost on her. "I can put them up myself." She gasps at last, picking the fallen books from the floor, wincing at the broken spines that are as shattered as she is. How has she let it come to this? For a second she longs to be among her family - familiarity where they let her alone unless they had need of her. Instead, she is stuck with the likes of him. And his name, should she learn it, would forever be a curse in her mouth, ash on her tongue.
@caine 8I this did not go as planned.
wishing someone could hear her, so loud
Boasts of his own manners and sweetness fall on deaf ears that are turned back with distaste. Even though his eyes lighten, shadows fleeing from them as crows away from a disturbed corpse, her own eyes are narrow. She does not care that he says pretty words, for her own family teaches one how to speak so that others will listen. It is an art form, one that is easily mastered if given an attentive student. Moira has always scored the highest marks in any class (save history, bless her heart) she's taken. That may not have been the one she was most interested in when young, but it certainly serves well now.
With a hmph the phoenix dances nearer, a smile that could cut glass, a pure provocative dare, testing everything he was, is, and will ever be, and at last speaks. "Actions prove the worth of a man, and yours have proven nothing."
There is a harshness in her words, a coldness to the look as though she is measuring him and finds him wanting. She knows that look only too well, the one that now is upon her face and bearing down with full force upon the Pegasus. How many times have her uncles and aunts looked at her with the same disbelieving disdain that strips you to your soul, shows all that you are, splits you open until you are nothing but starlight and dust and bones? How often were those very looks following her around long corridors when she'd helped tend to others, change rooms over and over, learned to be a part of the Tonnerre's and still held separately from them all? The weight of it should have crushed her, would have were it not for Estelle, and then the twins when time came for her to join the ranks of the Family.
Moira turns from him, books in hand, before he can answer her next question. Heart beating too quickly, palms sweaty, eyes so focused on the darkness that looms ahead, pulls her nearer and further away from the gaping maw of memories that drip down from sharpened teeth just waiting to sink into her soft, supple flesh. The phoenix believes she's escaped, a sigh almost running from her lips, tasting freedom and fresh air.
But there is no forgiveness today.
Instead, wings envelope her as the books are plucked harmlessly from her hands, the man's words a mere blur in the darkness she's now cocooned in. Briefly she wonders how something so wicked can be this warm and gentle. But those thoughts don't even have a chance to grasp at life before visions flash before her, memories surging and roiling in a sea she's avoided for so long. Ashes are on the ground, they surround her just as broken feathers do, just as the burning smell of her wings do. Hair is not something that has an appealing smell, when you catch wind of that, you know something awful is happening. Over and over, season after season, Moira remembers how she was held down, screaming until her throat was raw and her lips bled, crying for help when no one would come, only to have those precious wings burned and chained. Feather after feather plucked or trimmed or set afire. Bandages would often cover the tips of those flaming wings after, sore and raw for weeks on end even as they were chained to her sides. Not even allowed to flex them as a child, to learn what it was to move them as a part of her own body, as an extension of herself. Caged over and over until it became a living monster, the terror that arose, every time her feathers grew back. She knew what would come shortly after they were long enough for her to reach the skies. But she never tasted the wind or the rain as those of her ilk should.
So with his wings around her she lashes out. A hard blow to his chest, his shoulder, tears glittering in amber eyes as Moira lurches from his grasp and knocks the books from the air. "I said I'd do it," she snarls, looking every bit a frightened, cornered animal. "You say you have manners, but you don't even listen. No name given, cloaked in darkness, you think so highly of yourself don't you? Able to come waltzing in like some bastard prince." It's a raw growl, her low voice as shredded as her heart right now. Even his accent, as musical and beautiful as it is, is lost on her. "I can put them up myself." She gasps at last, picking the fallen books from the floor, wincing at the broken spines that are as shattered as she is. How has she let it come to this? For a second she longs to be among her family - familiarity where they let her alone unless they had need of her. Instead, she is stuck with the likes of him. And his name, should she learn it, would forever be a curse in her mouth, ash on her tongue.
@caine 8I this did not go as planned.
RE: . your company's fine but i get on better with mine - Caine - 05-27-2018
THE MOON IS MY SUN
THE NIGHT IS MY DAY
THE NIGHT IS MY DAY
S
omewhere, somehow, he knows he has crossed a line. There is venom in her eyes, venom in her voice, and her blows against his chest startle him enough that he steps back, black wings withdrawing as if they’ve been burned by a girl who is a phoenix aflame.
The carefully woven facade he wears like a shroud slips from his face, if only for a second, as Caine struggles to comprehend the magnitude of his actions. The source of her inferno. Silver eyes, dilated with bafflement, fly to hers, and he almost flinches at the loathing that glows like embers from eyes gone molten.
"You say you have manners, but you don't even listen. No name given, cloaked in darkness, you think so highly of yourself don't you? Able to come waltzing in like some bastard prince.”
The insult barely even registers. Better a bastard prince than what he truly is. If she knew what he did, what he was... The books fall to the marble floor with a thump, and neither of them make a move to retrieve them.
Whatever he says, she scorns. Whatever he does, she flinches. It is the fear in her gaze that silences Caine, renders him motionless as his eyes flash like dancing blades. All of the knowledge the boy has ever known about human pain, human emotion, lays smoking like a candle extinguished. A bitter laugh aches to slip past his lips, as Caine marvels at his own ability to strike such fear in the heart of another — are his efforts at seeming pleasant, at seeming human, forever destined to fail? A monster cannot change its nature, Agenor had told him, before he had stripped him of his heart. And a monster you will become.
He is a statue of black marble as he watches her tears fall like crystals across her cheeks. You made her cry, a voice in him whispers, and a wave of — guilt? — slips its icy fingers down his rigid spine. It is not the first time, he responds, his impenetrable gaze shifting away from the girl’s distress. They always cry.
Yes, the voice says, but it affects you still. The illusions… they had helped. The illusions. The memories he had plucked from their minds like roses, and shaped into a haze of dreams to ease them into the arms of death. Had they helped?
“I can put them up myself.” Her voice, wobbling and hoarse, snags him from his thoughts like a jagged hook. A sigh streams past his lips, slow yet soft, as Caine looks back at her with eyes gone still. “Wait.”
His magic may be gone, but there is something else he can do. To show what he can never say.
Torn pages, scattered across the floor like autumn leaves, rise up into the air towards him. They settle in a pile on the table until just one remains in front of him, fluttering like a captured moth. Corners begin to fold together, the paper bending into halves and quarters and eighths, the seconds rushing past like sand in an hourglass.
One last fold, and a crane hovers in the air above them.
“Did you know,” he begins, looking almost fondly at his creation, “that if you make a thousand paper cranes, your deepest wish is granted?” Two winters ago, Caine had spent an entire night deciphering a scroll of foreign script he’d found behind a shelf. The legend it had told had fascinated him, the pattern drawn in black ink at the bottom eagerly replicated until his room had overflowed with the colorful paper birds. His wish had not come true; he’d never expected it to.
But it had shown him, that hands stained red with blood could still create things of beauty. And that had been enough.
Caine watches as the crane drifts lazily down like a feather. It lands softly on the oaken table. “If your wish is to be left alone, then only one of these should suffice.” His smile, when it comes, is dim.
“My name is Caine.” He looks back to the crane, a shadow across his eyes. "I never meant to frighten you."
Moonlight streams like a lullaby through the window, bathing them in liquid light. "Wish me to leave, and I will."
@
RE: . your company's fine but i get on better with mine - Moira - 05-27-2018
M O I R A
she looks into her mirror,
wishing someone could hear her, so loud
Moira knows her reaction is ridiculous, feels as it stings him like a bee, can see the moment he withdraws, retracts. Some days, she still surprises herself with how emotional she could be. As a healer for the Tonnerre Family, she is supposed to be cool and collected at all times, but Caine puts her on edge, riles her in ways she never knew she would still feel after so many endless days, months, years of practice. Really though, only two years of tutelage had pushed her abilities to be far beyond others her age. Florence and Gael often helped keep her awake, night after night, just so she could finish her book while they studied their laws and other things they needed for their own lessons. Grueling tasks both daunting and exciting awaited her day after day, conditioning her stomach for broken bones protruding from corpses, faces smiling in death in the most gruesome of manners, and children ill on their deathbeds. Mo was privileged enough to have worked with Eluoan as a healer, to see all he saw and come out all the smarter for it. She thought her nerves were made of steel, tempered in fires so cold they burned.
The phoenix woman had thought wrong.
As soon as she feels his wings snap away from her, returning to their position as a mere cloak upon Caine, a scarf of darkness encompassing his body, she feels the air move once more. So quickly does the room expand once again, filling with oxygen that was forced from her lungs. She pants as though she's been cast at sea, left to drown without knowing how to swim. Tears on her cheeks are shameful, and quickly they're wiped away - expunged from existence as though they never were. Moira would have left, rushing from the room with only the clattering of her feet on the marble floors below, were it not for the regret she hears in that single word. 'Wait,' he asks.
Calculating each step, she turns with brows high, defiance in every curve of her arched neck as shoulders square and she prepares herself for the onslaught. But as a cloak about him, unmoving, it is easier to deal with those hateful things at his sides that she herself wears. Now, her own wings cling to her sides, quaking just as her heart settles into a steady drum once more. However, it is not the man that holds her attention but instead the paper folding itself in the air. Forgotten are the books now neatly piled upon a table, she is transfixed as a crane emerges at last.
Soft words meet soft eyes, still bright from unshed tears that are once more held deep within her. Moments pass as his words die in the air between them, and it is minutes until she moves. Lifting the small offering of peace - of friendship? - and turning it in the moonlight until she can see every angle, every word crumpled and shifted until it makes no sense, she hums softly. When the inspection has ended, when her nerves once more ring with courage instead of fear, only then does she step close to him. Leaning forward, on the top of her toes, she places a gentle kiss upon his cheek. "I wouldn't even know what to wish for, Caine." It is an admission as quiet as she is after coming down to her own height once more.
Perhaps she's been too hard, she thinks, regret tumbling in at last. "I'm Moira Tonnerre. Will you teach me to fold a paper?" There's a lightness to those soothing lyrics that are so easily forgotten in a crowd, a hopeful edge to her tone as she peers up to him, and then turns to find a book she doesn't care for instead of those so rich in healing arts that lie upon the table. Plucking one from the shelves near the lower levels, Mo places it upon the tables and sits with both the novel and the crane in front of her. When she looks to him again, she waits, expectant and eager as ever. After all, she's missed learning new things.
@Caine what a lovely novel. what a lovely boy !
wishing someone could hear her, so loud
Moira knows her reaction is ridiculous, feels as it stings him like a bee, can see the moment he withdraws, retracts. Some days, she still surprises herself with how emotional she could be. As a healer for the Tonnerre Family, she is supposed to be cool and collected at all times, but Caine puts her on edge, riles her in ways she never knew she would still feel after so many endless days, months, years of practice. Really though, only two years of tutelage had pushed her abilities to be far beyond others her age. Florence and Gael often helped keep her awake, night after night, just so she could finish her book while they studied their laws and other things they needed for their own lessons. Grueling tasks both daunting and exciting awaited her day after day, conditioning her stomach for broken bones protruding from corpses, faces smiling in death in the most gruesome of manners, and children ill on their deathbeds. Mo was privileged enough to have worked with Eluoan as a healer, to see all he saw and come out all the smarter for it. She thought her nerves were made of steel, tempered in fires so cold they burned.
The phoenix woman had thought wrong.
As soon as she feels his wings snap away from her, returning to their position as a mere cloak upon Caine, a scarf of darkness encompassing his body, she feels the air move once more. So quickly does the room expand once again, filling with oxygen that was forced from her lungs. She pants as though she's been cast at sea, left to drown without knowing how to swim. Tears on her cheeks are shameful, and quickly they're wiped away - expunged from existence as though they never were. Moira would have left, rushing from the room with only the clattering of her feet on the marble floors below, were it not for the regret she hears in that single word. 'Wait,' he asks.
Calculating each step, she turns with brows high, defiance in every curve of her arched neck as shoulders square and she prepares herself for the onslaught. But as a cloak about him, unmoving, it is easier to deal with those hateful things at his sides that she herself wears. Now, her own wings cling to her sides, quaking just as her heart settles into a steady drum once more. However, it is not the man that holds her attention but instead the paper folding itself in the air. Forgotten are the books now neatly piled upon a table, she is transfixed as a crane emerges at last.
Soft words meet soft eyes, still bright from unshed tears that are once more held deep within her. Moments pass as his words die in the air between them, and it is minutes until she moves. Lifting the small offering of peace - of friendship? - and turning it in the moonlight until she can see every angle, every word crumpled and shifted until it makes no sense, she hums softly. When the inspection has ended, when her nerves once more ring with courage instead of fear, only then does she step close to him. Leaning forward, on the top of her toes, she places a gentle kiss upon his cheek. "I wouldn't even know what to wish for, Caine." It is an admission as quiet as she is after coming down to her own height once more.
Perhaps she's been too hard, she thinks, regret tumbling in at last. "I'm Moira Tonnerre. Will you teach me to fold a paper?" There's a lightness to those soothing lyrics that are so easily forgotten in a crowd, a hopeful edge to her tone as she peers up to him, and then turns to find a book she doesn't care for instead of those so rich in healing arts that lie upon the table. Plucking one from the shelves near the lower levels, Mo places it upon the tables and sits with both the novel and the crane in front of her. When she looks to him again, she waits, expectant and eager as ever. After all, she's missed learning new things.
@Caine what a lovely novel. what a lovely boy !
RE: . your company's fine but i get on better with mine - Caine - 06-11-2018
THE MOON IS MY SUN
THE NIGHT IS MY DAY
THE NIGHT IS MY DAY
H
is head tilts, birdlike, as he watches her, silver alighting in gold. Silence stretches its membranous wings over them, sealing away the moon, sealing away the stars. Until there is nothing left but darkness, and him, and her.
Does it scare her, the darkness? Caine has never feared the dark, not even as a child. The notion is as illogical as a fish fearing the sea; how could the boy fear the only thing he has known? No — Caine fears one thing, and one thing only.
That one day, he will have something to lose.
The Illusionist’s eyes are bewitchingly bright, twin moons in a starless sky. The urge to move, to speak, to do something, buzzes through his bones like electricity — but he curbs it with frigid resolve, his jaw setting to a knife’s edge. Sharp teeth bear down on his tongue until they are just shy of drawing blood — he doubts it will improve the girl’s image of him, if his muzzle is suddenly stained crimson — and the familiar sting of pain draws the fragmented pieces of his mind together again. A technique, however barbaric it seems, Caine has used like a tonic when the magic in his blood begins to drive him mad.
Sometimes it worked, and other times…
“I wouldn't even know what to wish for, Caine.” She moves like a wick of candlelight, her silver curls staining blacker and blacker the closer she draws to him. Tensely, Caine expects her to stop — for surely she is close enough now — yet his brow creases when she does not, when her delicate hooves halt a mere hairsbreadth away from his own. His mouth opens to say something —
and closes in shock when she touches him.
Lips as soft as satin ghost across his frozen cheek, and Caine stills until he is immortalized in black marble. Silver eyes turn to hers, and they are no longer anything lunar; they are flames, white fire that leaps from him like crackling lightning. Control slips from his grasp and shatters at his feet, the broken shards slicing his skin until he bleeds.
He bleeds, and suddenly Caine doesn’t remember a time when he has ever stopped bleeding. Hot pain rings through his head like a bell being struck, the markings on his forehead burning so violently that his vision cuts to white. Her kiss has stirred the piece of his heart that had been locked away with a rusted key, the only part of himself he'd salvaged from Agenor's ruin. It beats like a infant's, a measly, weak thing. He hates it, hates it, mourns for it.
Finally, the pain — if he is not so familiar with it, he would've cried out; but his lips remain as sealed as a tomb — is enough to bring him back. Caine's teeth grit savagely as he wills for the magic to settle. Black wings draw tightly to his sides as he sweeps past the phoenix girl to make for the head of the table, so she will not see the agony flashing like a beacon from his wild, blazing eyes.
“I’m Moira Tonnerre. Will you teach me to fold a paper?” Moira. Moira. The sound of her voice steadies him, and he swallows as the pain fades into nothingness once more. A curse slips from his breath along with a choking laugh, and after one last exhale, Caine turns back to Moira with a smile that is blindingly radiant.
“Under one condition.” Raven wings remain drawn as he sinks softly into the chair, so she will not see them trembling. “Tell me why my wings frighten you.” The paper crane rises slowly into the air again, flapping in a halo around his head.
She has chosen to stay. Caine wonders if she will regret it.
@