The night spread out before him and he lifted his crimson eyes to the heavens as a chilly breeze raked fingers across his coat. It was cold here at night, it always was in Solterra when darkness settled over the land. It was as if Caligo envied her brother and forced her shadows upon the nation with an icy vengeance but, Solis would return and banish her from his lands once more..
Ramses walked easily over the sands as he approached the Oasis, his body ached with the many miles he’d travelled over the last several days. He’d migrated from the capitol but the poverty he’d witnessed had driven him back into the desert, where he expected such things.
Ramses had little sympathy for those citizens as they allowed his tribe to be slaughtered but it made it no easier to see. His longing for the kill didn’t apply to starving orphans and widows, he couldn’t forget their somber faces. He mulled all these thoughts over as his hooves met the dark waters of the Oasis. The stallion stared out across the water with those blood-red eyes, they were unyielding and reflected the primal nature within him.
Ears flicked about as the wind rustled the greenery around him and Ramses listened for any movement with his nose lifted in the air. He tasted it all on his tongue, the aroma of flowers and the freshness of the lake, it was all familiar. The crisp night seemed eternal as it continued to block Solis’ reign for a few more hours. A huff escaped him as he entered the water and he sighed with relief as the cold moved over his sore muscles, the sensation drew tension from him. It had been some time since his body felt this way and he knew it was because he no longer travelled with the Davke, they rarely rested and their bodies were hardened from the harshness of the dunes. The coyote had accepted that he was no longer one of them, even if his blood ran thick with their beliefs and traditions.
With nightfall comes the relief of a cool breeze upon sweat-shone skin, its gentle caress a gift that looses hair from a sticky brow and even sends a refreshing chill down the spine. It is a sensation that Avdotya relishes in as she sweeps across the slope of a large dune with Solterra’s oasis waiting on the other side. Feliks has long since galloped ahead, leaving behind only his paw-prints to follow - as is always the case when they make their trips to Vitae’s quiet shores. She can already picture the hound standing there waiting for her with his fur a sopping mess, ready to run at her when he knew full well Avdotya did not partake in his play.
And yet, as the woman reaches the sand dune’s crest, she sees Feliks standing stock-still at the water’s edge, his eyes fixed intently upon a man basking in the Oasis’ blissful touch. She doesn’t recognize him as Davke, nor does she recognize him as anyone else worth her time in this particular moment (truly, there are few); however, her body thirsts for water and his presence surely wasn’t going to stop her.
The Khan descends to the shore without acknowledgment, to which Feliks responds by promptly planting his rump to the sand with a simple puff dust rising around the skirts of his fur. Not for a single moment did the Borzoi break his gaze with the sorry bloke - it was unfortunate timing, really, for Feliks bore no consideration for others’ privacy. It was something Avdotya felt little need to ever correct him on, though she was quick to spare the dog a judgmental stare when she finally lifted her head from the water. Her own eyes then fell upon their company, unapologetic and dull. ”Lovely night for a swim.”
Ah, one could almost taste the lack of sincerity in her voice.
Crimson eyes lifted to the horizon, he’d allowed himself to find solace and comfort in the coming dawn. It was as if his hopes and dreams rose with the sun, carried on Solis’s shoulders. He’d never admit it, of course, his desire to be something he wasn’t, that lust for elegance and class. Ramses wanted nothing more than to slip into the easy deception and luxury of politics, where his longing for influence could be satiated. His jaw tightened as he released a frustrated breath. What would he do to have those things? What was he willing to do?
A sly smile sprawled across his face at the thought, he knew the answer. He would do anything, there was no restraint or mercy in his blood and he understood what that meant. Now he simply needed to weed his way into the capitol; easy.
Those hungry ideas almost distracted him from the strangers that appeared behind him. The stallion’s sorrel ears swiveled and his lips curled as the sand shifted behind him. Their scents wafted through the air as he slowly turned and found himself face to face with a legend.
The coyote raised a mask of cold indifference as he analyzed Avdotya. He’d known exactly who she was the moment he’d laid his eyes upon her. The chill that raced down his spine couldn’t be stopped as her bright eyes illuminated the gloom of morning.
The words that poured from her seasoned maw were less than enthusiastic and he instantly recognized the trait, it was Davke. The tribe didn’t allow such feelings as joy - no, there was simply no place for such things in the Mors. What was there to be jovial about under the sweltering sun where you were expected to survive or die, by Solis’s will?
Scarlet eyes moved to her companion for just a moment before he returned that emotionless expression to the warrior.
"I suppose," the man muttered with little feeling.
The beast simply stared at her, the silence reverberated around him as the sun finally lifted its face above the horizon behind him. Solis’s light painted the sky a beautiful gold as it washed over the Oasis, greedily devouring the night.
Ramses trudged through the clear water towards the shore and made sure to leave some distance between himself and the viper. There was no way he’d show any sort of weakness, she could easily throw that spear clear through him if she so desired but he couldn’t help but fixate on it. The man had failed to earn that privilege, to gain that respect from the tribe and he couldn’t help the envy that clawed at him.
"All yours," Ramses said as he returned his feral gaze to her hardened face. Did he dare start a conversation with her?
"Any news from the capitol?" he asked, a dullness laced his tone as water dripped from his skin onto the parched sand.
Perhaps Solis had sent her for a reason.
An inkling, a slight sense of familiarity creeps up through the nape of her neck and she begins to wonder about this man. She does not know him, but she knows a Davke’s voice; that sharpness of tongue - distinctly feral and by no means that of a capitol-dweller - and a tone that did not bear pleasantries. Avdotya suspects, but she does not ask. Not yet. Instead, she waits, watching while he slinks from the water and stands at the shore, his wet skin gleaming in the newborn light of day.
”Raum is dead.” Her response is blunt, but it is laced with a minute sense of irritation. The bastard had gone and died before she was able get to him... not to end him herself (even she knew that pleasure was for Seraphina), but to make sure that he knew going into his death that she sought to take anything he may have ever loved. The viper wanted him to know that she would find it- find them and snuff their life out the way his own excessive laws had stolen her sister from her. She wanted him to know and she wanted him to suffer in the fact that there would be nothing he could do about it as he lay dying.
But Avdotya did not have that chance and she feels the ire that it has caused brewing in her chest. ”Let the squabbles over their sparkly crown begin.” The corner of her lip curls only slightly, her eyes slipping away from him and now onto the oasis water. She pitches her spear to the sand, shrugs her bearskin beside it and finally glides gluttonously into the cool liquid. Her muscles, taut with the strain of the desert, relax.
Feliks, too, has finally broken his stare with the stallion and bounds into the water with reckless abandon. Avdotya scowls, but she looks over her shoulder away from the borzoi and towards Ramses. ”Your blood is Davke, yes?” Enough talk of the capitol.
Perhaps it was simply her presence or the fact that she was one of those who had suffered most under Zolin, but Ramses can’t help but analyze her with that predatory narrowing of his eyes. The coyote doesn’t dare turn his back on the viper before him, for she was a coiled, powerful thing that could strike at any moment. It was simply instinct to stay very aware of her movements and actions.
”Raum is dead.”
The words pour from her maw dripping in an unknown malice and he finds himself pondering them for a moment. Of course, Ramses had heard the rumors but he had yet to hear it from a true source. Avdotya would know. Ramses could practically hear the hatred in her voice, his lip curling upward for just a moment in a silent snarl, allowing himself to speak once again in her presence.
“Good,” was all the man said, his voice filled with nothing but brutal honesty.
”Let the squabbles over their sparkly crown begin.”
Stiffening for a moment at her words, a sly smile appears on his mottled lips. Avdotya would never know the desires of his heart and he’d never reveal them, but he finds her words incredibly ironic. Now, the red coated creature knows exactly what he can do, the throne sits empty.
Crimson eyes following her movement, she sheds her skin and waltzes confidently into the water. The beast within him roaring as it moves so gently over her skin, the soft caress of a careful and obedient lover. The oasis itself seems to react to the viper’s presence as the dawn casts golden light over the pool of water.
The scene before him traps him in stunned silence as he peers at the scarred warrior, his heart beating violently in his chest, his blood boiling and lust clawing at his insides. However, the coyote never moves, he simply observes as her companion joins her in the pool of beautiful turquoise water, one of the many secrets of the desert.
”Your blood is Davke, yes?”
The man’s attention returns to her face as he pulls himself from the depths of his own mind. Her words are more of a statement than a question but Ramses knows he must answer, regardless.
Yes,” he mutters, his voice still dull and unfeeling even though his body heats with her stare.
”What now?” Ramses asks quietly.
He doesn’t exactly mean the question for her personally but for her opinion of the future of all Solterra.
Did she have plans? Where would they go now? What was their place? Would the davke rise or would they simply remain whispers upon a dry desert breeze?
"Speaking."
Tag: @Avdotya
OOC: Sorry, I struggled with this one for some reason?
”Yes.” An ear flutters back to the shore and traces of a paper-thin smile begin to pull the corners of her lips. With Raum dead and the throne suddenly vacant, Avdotya can smell opportunity as it wafts from the devastated capitol - it awaits its great saviour, some strong soul to replenish what was lost in the old tyrant’s wake. She anticipates all of the caravans, the parade of goods meant to rejuvenate a society crippled by misfortune... she knows they are coming and she sees prosperity for her horde of Davke as they begin to regroup.
And here it starts, a spark to the kindling that would ignite the flame, with a piece of the Davke so conveniently falling into her lap despite her lack of trying. It is as if Solis himself is asking her, urging her to restore his mighty horde to its former glory in the desert - and she is happy to oblige. The Mors has been missing a vital piece for far too long, graced only by a brief reprise when the capitol was reduced to ash on the wind. This, she knows, will be their true return, not a mere fleck in time.
”What next?”
His question pulls the viper from her thoughts and she finally tips her head just enough to look at him. First there is silence, a pause to allow her to submerge most of her body under the crystal water until she slowly crawls out from the depths to meet the man chest-to-chest. With her skin still dripping, Avdotya reaches her maw to his waiting ear and murmurs softly, ”We take what is not ours.”As we always have. Her eyes linger on him, seeking his gaze for but a fleeting moment; it crumbles quickly, that moment, giving way for her to peel past him and saunter closer to Feliks where he sits further down the shoreline.
She stops just before the borzoi (who welcomes her back with his typical tail-wag), breathes a long and sharp sigh, then turns back to the stallion. ”Your name?”
How he’d found himself here in the oasis staring at a viper was beyond him but he can't take his eyes off her. Ramses watches her closely, every movement, every droplet of water upon her dark skin that rolls across her back and down her sides. Avdotya, the queen herself, a legend among their people. The coyote can't help but admire her in all of her savage beauty, those intense scars and the fierceness in her eye.
As she moves from the water, his eyes widen slightly and he forces himself to hold his ground. She is a woman he’d been told stories of as a child, and it was a great and terrible thing to have her here in front of him. As she grows closer, he stiffens slightly, his nostrils flaring as he inhales her scent. ”We take what is not ours.”
The viper’s words send shivers down his spine as her warm breath lingers in his ear, even when she moves away. What would she be taking? The throne?
Ramses’ narrows his eyes again as he contemplates her words for a moment. Should he help her? Would he return to the davke for her plans?
”Your name?”
The question rolls from her lips and he tilts his head and looks at her once more.
“Ramses,” he replies, his mind still wandering.
“Tell me what you will do?” Ramses asked, his voice filled with a malicious curiosity.
“Will you take back Solterra? Will you rain the davke down upon the heads of the capitol?” the coyote questions, a wicked smile sprawling across his lips.
“I would make myself present for that.”
"Speaking." Tag: @Avdotya OOC: Sorry this is so short!
