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+---- Thread: [AW] the world is a vampire (/showthread.php?tid=5127)
the world is a vampire - Euryale - 06-16-2020
This hour is her hour. She does not feel the sun, that dips low, like silk along her flesh. Nor the call of songbirds, that beckon nightfall amongst the sudden-evening breeze. Her blood is cold like the moon, and their pulse feathers as winter might. Her immortality, sighing, just barely beneath her cheek; glowing, with pearls and wine. The taste of autumn lingers against her skin. the perfume of dried leaves and coffin soil, twined in her wild, gypsy's hair. every part of her is made for the supernatural. every curve laced in beauty, and sin. how its bewitchment breathes down her spine, now. fore is she not made for spellbound lovers? is she not worth the sacrifice?
euryale calantha dances towards the shadows. she disappears within the caves. in her wake trails a seductive hurricane. the kiss of rot and death, the scent of femininity and vampiric grace, the eyes of hunger and endless thirst, they are all her. in the darkness she uncoils with snake-like fury. moving SILENTLY along the earth, a haunting laugh falling from her lips. SHADOWS of azure shall ACCOMPANY THE PALE-HAIRED mistress, trailing vestiges of smoke against her flesh. trailing over the scales, tattooed across her hips. sweeping her in a mangled gown, that reveals every aching sin, but the sins she keeps secret in her heart. when the eVENING FALLS around her, at last, it is with a final breath of gunmetal smoke. A VELVET WHISPER, as darkness slides over her body in a possessive embrace.
SHE FEELS ITS’ WET EARTH, CRAWLING AGAINST HER back. SHE CAN TASTE IT’S RANK FRAGRANCE, LINGERING as DECAY UPON HER LIPS. IT’S THE DECADENT TASTE OF NIGHTFALL, THAT BRINGS NOCTURNAL LIFE AND THE PROMISE OF BLOOD TO HER JAWS. THE LAST TRACE OF SUNLIGHT, BRUSHING ITS FINAL KISS ALONG HER SIREN CURVES; DESCENDING, INTO A SEA OF IMMACULATE LILAC CURLS, AS they tumble down her shoulders with songs of the damned. she glows as wildfire, bathed in red moonlight. to touch her, is to sleep in the flame. THROUGH THe caves, THe witch PROWLS IN feral ABANDON. HER CURVES, were made BRIGHT AGAINST THEIR ANCIENT surfaces. THE DEEP SCARLET OF HER complexiom, AND THE PORCELAIN OF HER figure, DANCING INBETWEEN THE TORN FABRIC OF REALITY AND MADNESS. HER HEART IS A WILD ANIMAL, as it pants in her chest. a lawless predator that knows no softness. only passion. only death.
for a moment she is still. for a moment, there is but silence. her heartbeat, the only ritual, breathed in the endless dark. her breath spills like mist, unfurling. A hush ENVELOPES THE CAVERNS. A LAMENTATION, USHERED FROM THE DEEP BLACK hell, as it trembles with promise. purring, so wickedly beneath her. SHE CAN FEEL ITS’ RANCID BREATH, SPLITTING FROM THE ETERNAL BLACKNESS. ITS’ SIGHS, THAT LIFT WITH INSECTS AND MAGGOTS. SHE CAN TASTE THE PAPER-THIN LEAVES, cAKED IN DAMP AMBER. THEIR DECAYING EDGES, SLITHERING AGAINST HER BARE SKIN, AS DEAD FERNS GRASP HER FRAME ALONGSIDE AN AUTUMNAL BREEZE. FOR A MOMENT, SHE CLOSES HER EYES. EMBRACE THIS MOMENT. IT’S THE DELICIOUS WHISPER OF MOONLIGHT. THE SMELL OF THE EARTH. THE TASTE OF SOIL AND BLOOD AND BONES, SO COLD AND WET BENEATH HER. THEse are ALL THINGS THAT MAKE HER FEEL, ALIVE. these are all things that make her want.
RE: the world is a vampire - Asterion - 06-29-2020
in sunshine and in shadow
It is not his head that leads him, up and up so that the plain sprawls away beneath him like a map, so that the ocean is a distant shimmer on the far horizon, so that the air grows thinner and cooler and the clouds tear themselves ragged on the mountain tops. It is not his heart that leads him, either.
Asterion doesn’t know what he’s following, as he winds further into the mountains, paying attention to nothing more than birdsong and the next place to set his foot as he climbs. Maybe he will continue all the way to the quiet, sparse peak where the gods’ altars lie, and pass the questions he can’t answer on to them. But he has been there, before, and neither time left him impressed or reassured.
He is more in a mood to go where he hasn’t before, and that is what leads him to the caves.
It is clear why they hold the reputation they do; there is nothing welcoming about the gaping, stalactite-toothed maw that greets him, nor the scent of it, iron like old blood and wet earth like a graveyard. It smells a little like the days after the flooding in Terrastella, when everything went to rot - only it is somehow cleaner, at least at the mouth of the cave. There the dying autumn leaves give the air enough normalcy to make it seem not so unreasonable, stepping inside.
The once-king does not hesitate before giving all his star-shine to the darkness.
Within it is cool, and still, and quiet save for a trickle of water that comes somewhere out of sight. Asterion turns away from the cave’s mouth at once, and bites his lip as he wonders just how far the caverns go, how branching their tunnels. He doesn’t know if the cave system is a tap-root or the endless tangle of an oak’s; he can only guess at what waits in the dark. But it has been a long time since anything true scared him (lately he frets only over feelings, and loss), and he is sure that there is nothing worse ahead than any of the rotten heartaches behind him.
With a last breath of above-ground air, he begins to walk. For a while his only companion is the sound of his hooves, ringing against the stone, but there is a scent - a feeling - a whisper of blue ahead of him - a memory of mangroves and salt and dark promise and an ache far sweeter than the guilt he is used to.
Eventually, his head and his heart both tell him he is not alone. And there, in the dark, with the velvet of ferns along one wall and the echo of cold wet stone from the other, he stops.
“Hello,” he says, as much greeting as question, just as he had the last time they met.
@Euryale
Asterion doesn’t know what he’s following, as he winds further into the mountains, paying attention to nothing more than birdsong and the next place to set his foot as he climbs. Maybe he will continue all the way to the quiet, sparse peak where the gods’ altars lie, and pass the questions he can’t answer on to them. But he has been there, before, and neither time left him impressed or reassured.
He is more in a mood to go where he hasn’t before, and that is what leads him to the caves.
It is clear why they hold the reputation they do; there is nothing welcoming about the gaping, stalactite-toothed maw that greets him, nor the scent of it, iron like old blood and wet earth like a graveyard. It smells a little like the days after the flooding in Terrastella, when everything went to rot - only it is somehow cleaner, at least at the mouth of the cave. There the dying autumn leaves give the air enough normalcy to make it seem not so unreasonable, stepping inside.
The once-king does not hesitate before giving all his star-shine to the darkness.
Within it is cool, and still, and quiet save for a trickle of water that comes somewhere out of sight. Asterion turns away from the cave’s mouth at once, and bites his lip as he wonders just how far the caverns go, how branching their tunnels. He doesn’t know if the cave system is a tap-root or the endless tangle of an oak’s; he can only guess at what waits in the dark. But it has been a long time since anything true scared him (lately he frets only over feelings, and loss), and he is sure that there is nothing worse ahead than any of the rotten heartaches behind him.
With a last breath of above-ground air, he begins to walk. For a while his only companion is the sound of his hooves, ringing against the stone, but there is a scent - a feeling - a whisper of blue ahead of him - a memory of mangroves and salt and dark promise and an ache far sweeter than the guilt he is used to.
Eventually, his head and his heart both tell him he is not alone. And there, in the dark, with the velvet of ferns along one wall and the echo of cold wet stone from the other, he stops.
“Hello,” he says, as much greeting as question, just as he had the last time they met.
@Euryale
RE: the world is a vampire - Cairo - 07-02-2020
There is something dark and twisting that brings him here. A part of him that feels at home. Maybe it is the vestiges of the fetid magic that cast him into a statue’s sleep deep within the catacombs. He slept, frozen in a scream of rage, for years. Dirt and the dust of bones settled across his caramel skin. Cairo was buried alive, sunk into darkness, chained by magic.
He was a teryr’s child and the sun has always felt warm across his spine. The desert skies have always been his to patrol, the sun gilding his back. But now the sun feels too much. Now it is something awful that brings him here, striding deeper into dank darkness.
Mildew clings to the damp, cold walls. Darkness yawns her mouth wide open and into it the leonine Arete stalks. His tail twitches with his ire, the rustle of tailfeathers over stones fill Abigo with a thousand whispers. Whispers of desire, of lies, riddles and deceit. All of the caves are full of tales carved into stone. Water drips like a pulse. It taps along his spine as the mountains stand sentinel above him.
Cairo was made for the skies and yet he presses on and on and on, an eagle crawling its way underground. Where one man brings starlight and the woman brings a red as bright as blood dripping from too-sharp fangs, so Cairo drags with him the sun, the sand, the desert heat. It ripples off his skin, heating the air as he steps out from the cave to where a woman and a man stand close.
His strides are liquid and his body disjointed with the supple langour of the alcohol haze that still laces through his veins. Cairo smiles as dangerous as a lion stalking toward its prey. Aquiline he studies the contours of their shadows, the curves of hips and throats and the length of slender limbs.
He comes to them filled with the horror of endless nights frozen within a catacomb.
He comes to them drunk upon the joy that the only man he loves is also alive and no longer buried.
He comes to them still drunk upon the alcohol he drank to forget the touch of such a man last night.
He comes to them still aching with the pain the alcohol does not erase. The pain that reminds him that not even a decade asleep has managed to erase the hurt of Zayir running off with another man.
He comes to them in the dark bowels of the earth to wonder if it might be better to sleep again for another century.
“It is a dark place to meet lovers.” Cairo breathes with a voice that climbs the walls and pours across stone hot as sunlight. Already his body is remembering the darkness, the solitude, the endless night. His body brushes against the man and the woman as he passes them, flank to flank and hip to hip. Avian, his gaze turns, tipping towards the girl. Kohl lined lashes are heavy over his golden eyes. He inhales their scents, the only things fresh here, the only things living. He feels his pulse within his throat, it reminds him he is still alive, alive, alive. “You don’t mind the presence of another, do you?” Cairo asks, the words falling like a purr.
@Euryale @Asterion
RE: the world is a vampire - Euryale - 07-03-2020
the darkness is her lover. it knows every intimate curve of her body. it knows the contours of her hips without even seeing. it knows the shape of her back and their too-familiar scars. it knows the taste of her lips and the fragrance of her skin, that drips with the syrup of jasmine, sweat and iron. every part of her is made from this darkness. she is a ghost of a queen and this hell is her paradise. she yearns for the moon, the way artemis yearns for the forests. a thousand memories become a thousand lifetimes, spent running wild beneath the lupine moon. when she sprawls in the fever pitch, the shadows climb her thighs, wickedly. they taste her curves with all the worship of a vengeful goddess. they taste her and they know they want more; fore she tastes of sweet sin and suffering; inviting, forbidden, immortal lover.
the shadows become one entity as they curl into her pale breast and fold against her supple limbs, like sheets entwined over flesh. she makes sin look delicious, for all the way she (mis)behaves. she makes a temple of her body, the way she offers her slenderness upon the funeral pyre. she is a gift upon the gothic atlar. she is the light of lucifer, an alluring flame, all to feed the hearts of those hungry demons. when the witch dances beneath a ray of light, she glows, ethereal. the way her neck glimmers like winter silk, and her blood-red lips shine, wet like rubies. her smile is a wicked thing, ivory fangs that flash too brightly beneath flowing cascades of lilac. between the moonbeams, her body moves more like a curse. they make the promise that she is more venom than love. more dragon than girl. more demon than angel. more hell than heaven would ever endure.
when she falls upon a bed of leaves, the darkness seems to bury her. the soil trembles beneath her physique and whispers, hold us. her pale hair splays over the black earth like rivers of silk. they run down her sides, flowing like fresh blood from a brightly-open wound. the spiders crawl through her lush curls, tangling their too-long legs within their lavender tendrils. her body draws in the night with every breath she takes; she feels more alive, to be surrounded by so much death. the clammy autumnal breeze slides across her sprawled frame and she leans into its cool embrace. her curves were swallowed by the silken zephyr, as they toss and turn like sensual lovers at dusk. the night is a thief, as it steals the last warmth of light and drowns her heart with the promise of winter. she feels the night wrap its fingers against her body, and she invites their touch with a whisper of frenzied heat.
she wants this moment to last forever. she wants to sink into this beautiful emptiness, where unholy things caress her flesh. her heart is a dark cathedral. her soul a winter storm. the longer she dances in this darkness, the more feral she becomes. she lives in this moment, this hour between blooming nightshade and midnight moon. the hunger that grows within her becomes savage music, as a fevered song catches her throat. she knows she is alone, yet this feeling ends, where night meets flesh. where body meets soul. when his scent strays over her lips in thin ribbons; their stolen kiss, unfurling from her jaws like a forbidden prayer. he tastes of decadent familiarity. of churning oceans and white-froth sands. of gritty salt and warm flesh, where the distant memory of a boy stands by the raging seas. she imagines dark hair and dreamcatcher eyes. his wind-tossed curls, bathed in starlight. when her khol lashes flutter open and she gazes into the night, she will find him there. he is as soft and alluring as she remembers him that evening.
"you bring the sea with you," her voice is cold, an icy whisper laced in honeyed venom. her tongue moves slowly over her sharp lips. it may look like she is smiling, but it's only the curl of her fangs, that betrays the illusion of serene beauty. "do you still wear the crown?" she draws nearer, standing upward in one long elegant motion. her hair spills down her neck and across her collarbone. they descend like a bridal gown, heavy and thick; all disheveled inch of pale, pale lavender mused over the earth with silk wickedness. she draws forward, with careless grace. she wants to brush against his frame and see whether he feels the same, too. the witch does not make it out the shadows, when the warmth of another possesses the suddenly too-narrow room. where asterion ushered the starlight, this soldier beckoned the sun's wrath. he drips of wealth and sin. the arrogant beauty of him, echoes with a godless hunger, that seems to reverberate throughout the caves like songs of sacrifice.
his features are sharp and deadly, almost too painful to hold. when euryale meets his burning gaze, she does so beneath a fluttery veil of long, obsidian lashes. he is almost too-bright, too-ivory, as he descends upon them like an eagle. his body is powerful and elegant, as he brushes alongside her with taunting purrs. she can feel the hard muscles that tremble beneath his flesh. she can taste the desert heat that ebbs from his bronzed skin. they are things she vaguely remembers of solterra. yet still, she prefers the ocean. still, she wants the cold nights of an empty shore. "what makes you assume we are here for love?" she asks, an elegantly sculpted brow is raised at the golden man. her voice is celestial, a siren hiss that tastes bittersweet. her voice flows like wine, thick and sanguine. she almost laughs, almost. "maybe, we are just studying rock formations," she taunts him, pressing a dark whisper against his chest. when her eyes finally leaves the phoenix, they only drift towards asterion; cold and hungry, icy and wicked, once more.
@Asterion @
RE: the world is a vampire - Asterion - 07-13-2020
in sunshine and in shadow
He doesn’t remember how long it’s been since that night, with shafts of moonlight like ivory and pits of soft darkness, with the salt of the sea and the whisper of the mangroves’ leaves stirring in the wind. Whether a year or three the feeling is the same, a draw he can’t put a name to, a fascination with the curve of her mouth (and the fangs within), the hue of her skin, the silk that trails and billows around her like mist. Asterion has never met anyone like her - someone who wants, who craves, who takes and does not feel guilty. Someone who rejoices in sensation, and hints that he might do the same - if he only lets himself -
And what is there to stop him now? Cradled here in the mountain, caught in darkness, a cold stream laughing a few chambers away. She is only a suggestion in the dark, an outline with a pale face, gossamer fabric. But even her voice touches him like fingers drawn along his cheek. He smiles at her question, but there is no joy in it. “No,” he says. “My head is bare.” As is my heart, he thinks, but Asterion doesn’t feel empty. Instead he feels too full, a sea close to spilling over, tides hungry to drown. And Euryale could be the moon -
But before she can cross to him, before he can feel his heartrate quicken, they are interrupted.
The sound comes first, hooves steady and sure against stone, a whisper of feathers against rock. The scent is close behind, dry and hot, dust and sunlight. Asterion stands still in the darkness when the stranger’s skin touches his, fever-warm in the cool damp; his shoulder and flank trembles as beneath a fly. He presses his teeth together, tamps down the impulse to step away, though his ears turn back. He wants to say leave, he wants the space to diminish between himself and Euryale, he wants her touch to caress him as her voice does. He wants to forget the world outside the cave, and he is angry at the disruption.
As soon as the stranger speaks, the spell is broken. The bay ignores the shame that forms like a stone in his belly and steps away from the other stallion, toward the rough cavern wall, toward the breeze that finds its way from the outside with just enough light to render each form visible. At Euryale’s answer, Asterion does laugh - softly, faintly, the laughter of a wave lapping the shore.
“I’m certainly here for the stalactites,” he says. “But I foolishly forgot to bring a light. Did you make the same mistake?” When Euryale’s gaze strays toward him again, he feels it, meets it, welcomes it.
Maybe he should be thanking the stranger, who is saving him from being willingly devoured.
@Euryale @Cairo
And what is there to stop him now? Cradled here in the mountain, caught in darkness, a cold stream laughing a few chambers away. She is only a suggestion in the dark, an outline with a pale face, gossamer fabric. But even her voice touches him like fingers drawn along his cheek. He smiles at her question, but there is no joy in it. “No,” he says. “My head is bare.” As is my heart, he thinks, but Asterion doesn’t feel empty. Instead he feels too full, a sea close to spilling over, tides hungry to drown. And Euryale could be the moon -
But before she can cross to him, before he can feel his heartrate quicken, they are interrupted.
The sound comes first, hooves steady and sure against stone, a whisper of feathers against rock. The scent is close behind, dry and hot, dust and sunlight. Asterion stands still in the darkness when the stranger’s skin touches his, fever-warm in the cool damp; his shoulder and flank trembles as beneath a fly. He presses his teeth together, tamps down the impulse to step away, though his ears turn back. He wants to say leave, he wants the space to diminish between himself and Euryale, he wants her touch to caress him as her voice does. He wants to forget the world outside the cave, and he is angry at the disruption.
As soon as the stranger speaks, the spell is broken. The bay ignores the shame that forms like a stone in his belly and steps away from the other stallion, toward the rough cavern wall, toward the breeze that finds its way from the outside with just enough light to render each form visible. At Euryale’s answer, Asterion does laugh - softly, faintly, the laughter of a wave lapping the shore.
“I’m certainly here for the stalactites,” he says. “But I foolishly forgot to bring a light. Did you make the same mistake?” When Euryale’s gaze strays toward him again, he feels it, meets it, welcomes it.
Maybe he should be thanking the stranger, who is saving him from being willingly devoured.
@Euryale @
RE: the world is a vampire - Cairo - 08-13-2020
Neither answer him when he asks to join them.
Two is company, three is a crowd.
So Cairo smiles as the man steps away. Even in the darkness he can hear how the man’s breath sharpens, displeasure bleeds, sharp like salt into the air. Cairo does not need to see how his spine grows tighter. The tension becomes taught and Cairo’s low laugh bubbles out from him like champagne spilling, whiskey-rich, upon the floor.
Their shared breaths tangle and wash upon the walls of the cave. The ocean seems close and Cairo’s sunbright gaze tips, lazily, toward the man. The girl watches from beneath the thick fan of her ebony lashes. Hunger rides upon the waves of her breath, it is in the gleam of her teeth. But there is more than blood that is wanted here. What makes you think we are here for love. She asks. He does not look at the man to see how he also wants, how he recoils from his desire. Was that how he looks when he recoils from Zayir. Cairo still has not answered Zayir when he asked why he always left.
“No, you are right.” Cairo says languidly as he regards them both. His body is sleek, leonine as he prowls out from between them. “I was too quick to judge. This is much more about lust.” Then his gaze flits to the man, stood by the entrance where traces of clear air manage to sigh down into the depths of the earth, “And shame.” There is no smile upon Cairo’s lips in that moment. They are a shadow, darkened gold heavy with his own faults. He knows the shame, yet his are born from a different source.
“But,” He says suddenly, his silken voice growing lighter. “If you both want to make it about stalactites,” Cairo wanders, casually, to where the stalactites hang like jagged lances poised to pierce the floor of the cave (like her teeth, he thinks of the girl, set to pierce something decidedly softer). “Then I must say these are interesting, but I have seen far, far more impressive sets. You two could do so much better.”
@Euryale @Asterion
RE: the world is a vampire - Euryale - 08-16-2020
"shame?" the question echoes, full of lingering enticement. a sharp, devouring word. their still-softness beating playfully, a dove-white near-laughter, almost blooming against euryale's slender, porcelain throat. in her mind she still hears the golden man laughing, a delicious whiskey laughter; spilling arrogantly, handsomely. although, the witch's gaze has never left asterion's. her gaze is ruinous flame. pulsing and sensually wicked. the hottest, most devilish, most passionate rose-red. her gaze is a penetrative language of love, hunger and lust, on its own; devouring, consuming, ravening. lust not borne of flesh, yet they ache with a sultry viciousness that is all woman. pure predator. only when she is finally satisfied do her eyes climb asterion, gently. only then, does her wrathful heart softens. for him and him alone.
with her gaze, she traces his shoulders, his muscles, his face in the intimate darkness. the depths of his dark-ocean eyes, nearly black, so full of secrets. so hidden by emotions. his wild tousled hair. his smooth, dark skin. the outline of his sensuous lips, pressed close into what appears like a frown, she wonders. o, euryale thinks. if she could call him by any other name; morpheus, the god of dreams. like the promise of a kiss could be had - if she only brought her lips near his, too. if she only relinquished her wolven shyness, and closed the distance between them with a fevered sigh and sacred breath. he appears disenchanted, now; faraway. unattainable. but didn't he know, some spells, could only be broken by a kiss? you do know that, don't you?
"i think you'd need more than just a flashlight to navigate in all this darkness, asterion," her words are almost playful, almost girlish. they tease him, softly. they tease him, relentlessly. yet within them, curls a silky, impossibly sinful darkness. euryale ached to dig into asterion's soul. snake around his heart like a hundred cold-blooded serpents that ached for warmth. whisper her affections against him, till they both fell to the earth, and held one another close. counting moonbeams, counting starlight. dreaming dreams together, forever, in the night. she wants to pull out his secrets, secrets. pull forth his songs, songs. make him growl with need, and tell him, afterwards; i told you so - you can be just as free, just as wanting, as me. a smile, lush, syrupy, forms subtly along the lilac-haired maiden's lips. her vermillion pupils, lashed in luxurious khol, remains fixated upon the handsome bay.
asterion is the lithe male, against the harsh backdrop of stalactite, as he peels away in rough silence. the breeze from outside sighs along his form, too. even euryale's silence is eating, as bemused laughter finally falls free from her smooth, vampiric lips. "my apologies, that was rather cold of me," her voice finds the golden man as she briefly turns towards cairo and apologizes. the gold's own presence, feels hot and heavy like burning suns; his masculine beauty, a sharp, falcon-king in the blackness of night. she never saw asterion as king, and so she is not surprised to hear him say he wears nothing, now. a heavy stillness hugs their dark, shadowy-forms; atmospheric, intense. this underground world feels, suddenly, so hot, so thick. one could cut the tension with a lingering blade. dark-crimson irises latch unto the golden man's form as he leaves from between them. euryale steps towards asterion then, her muscles just barely sighing against the bay, as if she were always meant to be by his ocean's side. "kings are born, they are not made," she presses her lips against asterion's shoulder, touching him briefly, like a prayer. a promise.
her slender body curls feline around him, and her tail twitches, curiously, while her gaze drifts back to the golden man. "i have learned that love is all those things. lust. guilt. want. sadness. hurt. shame. love encompasses every other emotion. only when you find the courage to face everything fearlessly, only then, will you find true love. heart-wretching love. toe-curling love. the kind of love that makes your heart ache with the promise of spending an eternity with that someone," euryale smiles quietly, a long thread of lilac falling across her eyes. rose-dusted lips curling softly in the night. what she doesn't say, is, that some-times, the deepest love found is amongst strangers, who long to be together yet cannot. the torment of what-if, what-could-have-been, the thoughts that keep you dreaming well awake into the darkest, coldest of nights. "i run to the darkness, so i can tell my heart to be still; so i can ask it what it truly wants. that's why you're all here, aren't you? to feel something, anything," no longer does she gaze at asterion, but she can hear his breathing. feel the warmth of his body. the tip of her tail sweeps along the floors, touching him and not touching him, still. when the golden stallion makes yet another sharp statement, the witch cannot help but throw her head back in low, silky laughter. "oh? what do you suggest then?"
@Asterion @
RE: the world is a vampire - Asterion - 08-24-2020
in sunshine and in shadow
These caves are not his kind of darkness.
His darkness is that of an open-sky night when the moon is new and hidden away, when the ocean is a quiet murmur and the stars outshine the torches of the city he’s left behind. His darkness is a storm at morning, keeping the birds hushed and the sky rumbling, bruised gray, heavy with rain. A wide-open kind of power, with nothing hidden away.
But here the ancient stone hems him in. There is a distant, steady drip of water that could drive a man mad if he never found the source of it. There is a still blackness that the eye must adjust to, and even then their shapes are only suggestions. Asterion doesn’t like the way the sound of their breathing carries in the space.
Maybe it is the caves that make his heart close up like a fist curling finger by finger. Or maybe it’s a different kind of dark.
It’s the strangers laugh that starts it, low and arrogant. Asterion can almost feel the brush of his feathers, carrying the smell of ancient sunshine and dust, of dunes that have long since weathered away. Lust, he says, and shame, and when the bay stallion’s gaze finds him it is sharp, and angry, and his ears are back. Desert-born the stranger may be, but there must be water in him, water Asterion could dry up with just a flex of his power -
But then the word is echoed, and it is not a judge’s mallet, not from Euryale’s lips. The black thing inside him uncoils, just a little. Her regard is like a flame held to his skin, setting every nerve alight; he feels bare, he feels seen in a way that Moira, or Samaira, or Aislinn had never looked at him. When she speaks again - to him, to him alone - he does not reply, but his chin drops toward his chest, and his gaze holds hers, and darkness, then, does not feel like another word for sin. And when she nears, when her shoulder brushes against him like a wave lapping the sand, when her lips touch him, he looks back to the stranger with less malice or jealousy. What shame, his gaze says, even as he denies himself from touching her in return.
Oh, but when she speaks of love he can do nothing but listen. In his heart he ticks off all she names and still he comes up wanting. True love, she says, and he thinks not for me, never for me. His love always ends in ash or cold dead coals. His love ends in salt and sorrow.
And that is why he is here. Not to feel - to avoid feeling.
Asterion wants to murmur to her, I did not know you were so wise. Instead he only brushes his lips behind her ear, a ghost’s caress. He barely hears the other male; once again an ear flicks back, until Euryale laughs and the sound of it turns his blood to wine and his skin to silk.
His heart a Charybdis of loss and want, hidden away from the stars and the sea, the once-king feels a black wave lap at his feet. It is cold and gently urging and he follows it, crossing the cavern’s chamber to the rose-gold man until those golden eyes are close enough to sear him.
“Yes,” he says, low. “Show us something impressive.”
@Euryale @Cairo
His darkness is that of an open-sky night when the moon is new and hidden away, when the ocean is a quiet murmur and the stars outshine the torches of the city he’s left behind. His darkness is a storm at morning, keeping the birds hushed and the sky rumbling, bruised gray, heavy with rain. A wide-open kind of power, with nothing hidden away.
But here the ancient stone hems him in. There is a distant, steady drip of water that could drive a man mad if he never found the source of it. There is a still blackness that the eye must adjust to, and even then their shapes are only suggestions. Asterion doesn’t like the way the sound of their breathing carries in the space.
Maybe it is the caves that make his heart close up like a fist curling finger by finger. Or maybe it’s a different kind of dark.
It’s the strangers laugh that starts it, low and arrogant. Asterion can almost feel the brush of his feathers, carrying the smell of ancient sunshine and dust, of dunes that have long since weathered away. Lust, he says, and shame, and when the bay stallion’s gaze finds him it is sharp, and angry, and his ears are back. Desert-born the stranger may be, but there must be water in him, water Asterion could dry up with just a flex of his power -
But then the word is echoed, and it is not a judge’s mallet, not from Euryale’s lips. The black thing inside him uncoils, just a little. Her regard is like a flame held to his skin, setting every nerve alight; he feels bare, he feels seen in a way that Moira, or Samaira, or Aislinn had never looked at him. When she speaks again - to him, to him alone - he does not reply, but his chin drops toward his chest, and his gaze holds hers, and darkness, then, does not feel like another word for sin. And when she nears, when her shoulder brushes against him like a wave lapping the sand, when her lips touch him, he looks back to the stranger with less malice or jealousy. What shame, his gaze says, even as he denies himself from touching her in return.
Oh, but when she speaks of love he can do nothing but listen. In his heart he ticks off all she names and still he comes up wanting. True love, she says, and he thinks not for me, never for me. His love always ends in ash or cold dead coals. His love ends in salt and sorrow.
And that is why he is here. Not to feel - to avoid feeling.
Asterion wants to murmur to her, I did not know you were so wise. Instead he only brushes his lips behind her ear, a ghost’s caress. He barely hears the other male; once again an ear flicks back, until Euryale laughs and the sound of it turns his blood to wine and his skin to silk.
His heart a Charybdis of loss and want, hidden away from the stars and the sea, the once-king feels a black wave lap at his feet. It is cold and gently urging and he follows it, crossing the cavern’s chamber to the rose-gold man until those golden eyes are close enough to sear him.
“Yes,” he says, low. “Show us something impressive.”
@Euryale @
RE: the world is a vampire - Euryale - 10-09-2020
Between the amaranthine folds of darkness, I watch him. Beneath a veil of sable lashes, I savor him. Sometimes, between the shadows of moonlight and ocean-dreaming, I feel that we are not meant for eachother. I feel that he could never belong to me, nor I him. Who could tame my lust? Who could surrender my heartbeat? Who could sleep in my fire, and make ashes, of my restless spirit? Maybe him, with all his gentleness. Maybe him, with all his tenderness and beauty and graceful mercy. But how could I afford to lose a heart, I claim to not have? How could I learn to love. (Why do the forbidden things, always taste the sweetest?)
Drink her in, like drinking absinthe. Euryale is deliciously feline. Her breath falls, like blue smoke. It mists the elegant bridge of her delicate nose. The curve of her lips and soft, feminine jawline all traced in svelte, azuline silk. She could live in his darkness, forever. But her darkness is sensual. Her darkness is carnal. Cloying, sweet jasmine and blood-kissed ambrosia. The kind of darkness that kisses your eyes, closed. Steals a prayer from your lips, with every fervent kiss whispering, forevermore; 'You're mine, I want you, I need you'. Her darkness is a siren. Unholy scripture. It swims against her silken bodice, like black oil swims in water. Thick, silky, heavy darkness.
The kind of darkness you can never come out from, as it swallows your heart with a single, whispering kiss of lust, of love - of eternal damnation. The cave seems to echo with the coo of the witch's heartbeat. Silence, like a spell; drips of fevered blackness, against her lithe, serpent physique. She feels hungry. She feels cold. It's only his body, next to hers, that keeps her warm. Its the sticky sensation, that suddenly feels like wanting; as it grasps for her curves and smoothes slowly down her sides, with all the ardent sweetness of barely-warm honey. Euryale feels herself curling lazily around Asterion, like a dragon curls golden-sweet, around luxury. She moves, slowly. She dances, subtly. Her long, lupine tail sweeping low, for all the way it slides against him within the shadows of their hidden caress.
Her vanity wants her to pull away. Her narcissism, to peel from his side like a new disease. To ignore the urge she feels - an urge to be close to him. An urge to surrender within his embrace. Yet there is a hidden longing to press up against him, even closer. If only to feel the beat of his heart, next to her own. If only to taste the rhythmic pulse of his veins, as she imagines each of her kisses - sharp with love, hot with need - draw down his jawline, and throat, with a dark, forbidden passion. She wonders, how she wonders; are you as dark as the ocean, beneath a full moon? Would you taste as deep and mysterious? She wonders if his heart is dark like hers'. She wonders if it is love she feels, or if it's purely lust. But if it's lust, why hasn't she kissed him yet.
Why hasn't she touched him, the way she touches others; in ways only dreams, would allow. Why do I come close to him, if only to shy away, again. A wolf who has learnt the world is no gentle place, yet he makes the promise that he could be gentle with my heart, if I only let him in. Not with a flash of fangs, but a tender kiss, a soft howl. Asterion is different to Thana, to Erasmus, to Amaroq. Euryale feels heat rise to her cheekbones. Apart of her does not want to feel this way; to feel this heat - this wanting - rise like ruination. Rise like flames, from below the abyss of her soul. Euryale does not want the weakness of a mortal's heart. To feel this weak is frightening. And so, she sheds these thoughts, these feelings, gracefully aside.
She rends these emotions with a flash of blood-tinged fangs. When the stranger does not reply to Asterion's words, Euryale makes her leave. Her voice becomes cold. Her lips, whisper with a thin, icy smile, even as Asterion brushes the back of her ear with a faint caress. Distract me from wanting, her body seems to say. Distract me from wanting you. With military smoothness, she brushes past him. She puts a light shoulder into his own, but this time her voice is not laughing, even as her blues trail hungrily over his skin. Ghostly blues, that slither cooly, over his masculine frame. "I guess you will have to explore these caves on your own," Euryale is cold, militant, with a sharp kind of reptillian grace. The last of her words, echoes with taunting provocation; "Don't get lost."
@Asterion @
Exit Euryale.