Mature Content Warning
This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so. The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: This thread begins with a nightmare but it can be skipped by forwarding to ━
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Suggestion later on in the thread
Machiavelli looked around the vast landscape. The surrounding trees seemed to tower over him unnaturally, their branches twisted and contorted just enough to be unrecognizable.
A distant rumble heralded the advance of an impending storm, rolling over the hills to rustle the branches overhead. The rust-coated man inhaled deeply, expecting the familiar embrace of the rain's impending arrival—its soothing touch to quell the storm within him. Instead, the air was invaded by an unexpected fragrance—a flower—light, sweet, and bubbly. He spun on his heels, trying desperately to find the source of the smell, peering under bushes and around gnarled roots for the familiar pouch that might contain it.
The approaching storm tore through the hills with alarming speed, a voracious devourer of all in its path. Simultaneously, the atmosphere metamorphosed, growing hot and humid, as the scent in the air transformed into something equally alarming and recognizable: the iron tang of blood.
It was dripping from the heart of the storm.
Survival became paramount. Discarding all thoughts of the pouch, Machiavelli spun away from the approaching terror and bolted, each stride a frenzied attempt to outpace the encroaching tempest. The storm grew closer, its roars evolving into chilling screams and moans of pain that echoed through the air.
His breath came in ragged gasps, a harsh rhythm punctuated by the relentless pursuit of the storm. Every muscle strained as he pushed his limits, his senses overwhelmed by the suffocating weight of the atmosphere. The air grew thick with impending doom, a suffocating embrace that sapped his strength and dulled his reflexes.
Machiavelli risked a glance backward, only to be met with the sight of the advancing behemoth, a monstrous manifestation. Panic surged as his paw collided with a hidden root in the underbrush, ensnaring him. A gasp tore through the heavy air as he tumbled, screams ringing in his ears like a relentless barrage, threatening to shatter his sanity. Desperation fueled futile attempts to free his paw, the relentless screaming marking the encroaching doom surrounding him.
He looked back at the storm, morphing and shifting before his very eyes and taking the form of writhing heads, feminine, young, pretty, rotting. The massive cedars fell before their screeching maws, lost in the frenzy of teeth. The ones he did not save came to collect their pound of flesh.
The man yanked his paw free with a gut-wrenching snap, an involuntary cry of pain escaping his lips. It was a futile struggle; he knew he couldn't outrun the impending doom that loomed over him like a malevolent specter. Hot blood trickled from his ears, stinging his eyes, and the metallic taste of fear lingered on his tongue. Bracing for the inevitable, he awaited the wailing jaws of his tormentors to snap shut around him, their hot breath overwhelming him and threatening to whisk him away into the abyss.
But nothing happened.
Machiavelli cautiously opened his eyes, finding himself suspended in a void, a realm neither dead nor alive. The disorientation enveloped him as he questioned the very direction he faced. Through the impenetrable darkness, he propelled himself forward, swimming against the currents of the unknown.
Time lost its grip on him. Was it a minute, an hour, or an eternity that passed? There was no way to discern. Eventually, he emerged, coughing violently as he expelled the thick black ichor. Rising above the pool, he beheld a crimson sky devoid of stars.
He was not alone. A grotesque head floated before him, swarming with flies and dripping with tar but still recognizable beneath the decay. Its eyeless sockets bore into him, seeming to regard him before letting its mouth fall open and a guttural question spill out.
"Why?"
━━
Machiavelli shot up suddenly, a threatening snarl twisting his maw. Opal eyes glossed over in a daze of confusion and the sudden awakening. There was someone in his room again; he could feel it. He blinked a few times, willing his eyes to focus, before narrowing upon the out-of-place figure. He should have known.
A wicked night and dancing stars.
The song of cries beckoned her through the halls. Legend traveled frequently between Muat-riya and Akashingo. Night-owl. There hadn't been a time where she wasn't.
The desert was cooler at night. Cold.
She was used to this.
Now her cold cheek was against the bedfurs of Machiavelli's room, also, was chilled. She watched him sleep with half-closed lids and a relaxed lip. Contemplative. Watchful. Just close enough where she could see his throat tense, before it tried just enough to calm itself. Where his face looked just a little less regal. She watched him, just carefully. She watched him, just enough to wonder a bit.
There was no true intention here. Just simply to be.
She didn't have the energy anymore.
Pale cheeks. The bridge of his nose, tanned over. Each corner of his lashes, twitching against his dusted lids. His darkened ears, beginning to seep into the shadows of the room. Where they stopped and began, she often lost track of.
But she was there, the side of her muzzle resting down. However long Legend had been in here, it was long enough that she too had grown tired. Yet, even still, even then, her eyes stayed upon him.
Machiavelli burst awake. Frenzied. Irate. Scolding, perhaps. Yes, she'd known. If he bit, she would still lie in place. Legends head had not moved from its rested state, which had not been far.
"You sleep strange."
Rubbing my hands together like an evil little fly
What was it about these women barging into his room in the dead of night?
Ah, Legend, I should have guessed it was you,
his posture relaxed, and expression lost its sharp edge.
So, what brings you here? Hoping for a cuddle before you bite my head off, little mantis?
he teased, a playful lilt in his voice.
For the discerning observer, those who peered beyond his banter, they might notice the rebellious stands of the hair standing along his spine, the dilation of his pupils, and the rapid hitching of his flank as he struggled for breath.
Enflamed. Spiked. Constricted.
He asked a good question. Of why, and of touch, and of violence. All of which, she supposed she should have considered. Perhaps it would have brought her a response she found even more fascination in.
She didn't.
"If I wanted to, maybe." The tip of her tail tapped once upon the ground, rough.
But she knew. "Would you have preferred such? Ma-chi?"
She still played.
It was a rather dangerous game of chicken he was engaging in with the jackdaw, but one that might be useful to pursue. He understood her intention and knew the answer immediately, but there was a pause before he replied, a thoughtful hmm reverberating in his throat as he looked down to meet moon-glass eyes.
The fair head fell to rest languidly upon dove-white paws, his nose mere inches from her own. Preferred that you bit off my head?
A breath of her scent, spiced and warm. I'm afraid I've grown rather attached to it,
he responded with a sigh. If she would play along, then he would not be the first to bow out.
A big breath of air in, and a big breath of air out to puff back right into his nostrils. The fur upon his face blew stupidly.
"She can remove it for him."
Shuyet crept up into her speech. Legend corrected it. Twirling her wrist lackluster, she thought next with her top lip pushing down into her bottom. "You don't need it," and though an unintended crude humor, "with all that jerking around you did, looks like you don't want it."
Oh?
Machi's eyes widened, seemingly surprised, before covering up the expression with a wicked smile, How do you know I wasn't dreaming of something extremely pleasant?
he asked with a suggestive quirk of his brow.
"Well." Those eyes went up, once to touch hus, and next to the wall beyond his head.
Stars, dark stars, from how the memory of light stayed just enough in her pupils to flitter.
Then, as she looked back down to Machi to meet his declaration, she smiled with the soft demure gaze of Hades' child. Funny! "I don't."
Mature Content Warning
This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so. The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: suggestive
Is that why you came here, Legend?
The man asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.
For pleasure?
His opal eyes flicked over her delicate face, studying the soft shifting hues that played on her fur in the dim light.
He did not move, only held her gaze as he awaited a response, an unreadable expression on his face.
Machiavelli chose to snare her. Instantly.
Raven of Shuyet pulled her head back to the corners of her chest fur. With the eyes of a prism god, she was watched and she had felt that no more intensely than she had now. Doe eyes, blinded.
Messenger of Shuyet. Mutt of Shuyet.
She neared him next with a nose that closed in to his own. The quirk of her jaw, and relaxed lids that stayed on him then dangerously. A smile that demanded attention and a devilish closeness. The choking scent of burning saffron, and wittled amber chipping away. If there was emptiness there before, she forced it not to be if that was what he wanted.
A presence made. "Is that what you want me to come for? What does Machi think?" He whispered to her before, and suddenly she mimicked it. "What does Machi want?"
Machiavelli, a coward.
The spider had laid his honeyed web, and into it, she had waltzed, perhaps willingly, perhaps knowingly. She closed the distance between them.
I want the same thing we all do,
he murmured, leaning up to rest on his elbow. Slowly, a hand took the thin black wrist to roll Legend onto her back, to hold her arm gently above her head. Fluidly, practiced, Machiavelli moved to lay above the woman, his chest pressed to hers, feeling the heartbeat beneath.
He held his weight on his other arm, hovering above the woman who had suggested making him
fellahin.
Have you ever done anything like this, Legend?
Her chest, weighed. Skin to skin. A dance played again with a different rhythm, a different beat, a different soul. His breath ever near, and the beat of his heart alive. Flesh and blood. Machiavelli could feel then, couldn't he? How hers could have matched his, and yet instead it was violent. A rattling storm of skips and thunder. Rapids tearing at a chipped raft, and it betrayed the calm eyes of the dweller.
A liar.
"Never,"
she tells him in a hush.
Her tongue pushed to the roof of her mouth; the tip of it then lapping at the corners of her mouth. Dry throat. Tail now tapping against the bedding, the stone, sweeping it out of place. The man of gemstones suddenly a tower larger than the temples. A man she had wronged. The immortal felt now mortal. Like she could bleed. Small.
The man found himself ensnared in the woman's quicksand gaze, the drumming of her heart against his own—the calm to her storm. Drawn into her depths like a moth to flame, he allowed himself to be held captive for as long as his resolve could endure. He allowed himself to think of what should happen if they continued their game, of what might come of it.
Never.
She whispered, her voice a seductive melody of clove and adrenaline. Despite the cautionary whispers echoing in his mind, he chose to place his trust in her; if she vowed never, then never it would be.
A soft exhale escaped him as tension melted away, leaving a gentle smile on his lips.
Then,
Machiavelli began, lowering himself to plant a tender kiss on the spot between her brows,
your first time should not be with me.
He stole a final gaze at her, his expression ineligible. Was it disappointment that flickered in his eyes? Or something else entirely?
He left her, reassuming the position she had found him in upon her arrival, reclined on the soft bedfur in the corner of his room.
It is late, my love. Perhaps... sleep would be for the best.
He lifted a foreleg, holding it in invitation, beckoning her to draw close once more.
There is a tale my mother told me when I was a pup that I believe you would enjoy, should you care to hear it.
A stuttering heart. Veins, and sunlight eyes in a chamber shadowed in empty. Where two bodies met in a falling spiral. His wrist, strangling her own. A man she had wronged. His scent was rich with iron, and when he spoke she could see no color. Only waves she could not decipher. Breath, thicker by second as she inhaled his own and tasted the sound of his tongue.
A twitching tail, a chest beating itself out, and her pads would not stop insistently sweating. A man she had wronged.
A warm body, wrapped now in a scattered bed.
A man she had wronged.
Her muzzle turned to the heat of his, with neared lips. A rough swallow, falling down her throat.
Then your first time should not be with me.
Her pupils flickered over as if a curtain had been ripped from them. Stuck in a slow limbo, as if she could not move once he had. Not her head, but her eyes, they darted to him and his motions. He moved away. Left. And there left her, too. Stuck.
The foreleg of the prism man extended. Shifting upon her belly, low to the ground in near bow, a stalled crawl, she waited. Watching, silent, Machiavelli pinned into her vision, and her tail sweeping the floor in a pit of nerves. Yet he did nothing.
Nothing at all.
Quickly crawling forward, she snuck herself under the offer his arm. "Yes," a whisper. Tired. So, so very tired. "Tell." Again. "Tell." Tired. Pressed into warmth. Into—a safety.
He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close and placing his head atop hers. For a fleeting moment, he surrendered to the quietude, attuned to the cadence of her breath and the gradual ebb of her heartbeat.
In that quiet interlude, thoughts swirled, memories resurfaced. Recollections of times when he had occupied her current position— in the arms of another. A bitter taste surfaced at the back of his throat, an inexplicable pang of discomfort.
When he spoke again, the timbre of his voice shifted, the usual charm and flirtation replaced by a hushed and earnest tone,
Did I frighten you?
Something tugged at the edges of his words, an undertone of something akin to guilt but closer to disgust.
I'm sorry.
An apology, dreadfully quiet.
For when we met as well. I know I apologized,
he continued after a pause,
before, when we met Hebsut, yet I... I...
His words trailed off, fading into silence as an unspoken weight lingered in the air.
Too tired. The weight of her eyes became too much to bear. When her mind did not want to move, and the flow of words streaming were nothing but a voice. All of them, she heard. All of them, entering both ears and settling down upon her skull. For each one said, she felt heavier, heavier, trying to decipher and unlock them. Her mind tried to keep up, and when it couldn't, she silenced him.
"Sh."
In little movements, her head pushed itself farther into the deep of his neck. A softness that she leaned into endlessly, weightless. Closed eyes, and she took that moment to breathe. Every breath taken, each with little noise. Each only softly pulling at her chest, as if they were hardly there at all.
"Ma-chi," in that breath, she pulled her head out.
The imp looked at him with squinted eyes, with the heaviness of sleep upon her. So fast. So sudden. As everything came crashing back down into a much needed rest. There was only one thing she wished to hear, and it was no apology. Legend wasn't sure if she knew what an apology meant. She also was not sure why he gave one. She didn't see a need. No running fear, and no running mind. It would not move anymore. Machi only spoke too much.
But she knew other things, and she knew--
"Tell me a story," she finished.
And that was all she needed.
She regarded him with half-lidded eyes, soon to surrender to the embrace of sleep, and the discomfort returned. Memories of similar nights moons ago. Memories of similar nights and similar expressions moons ago churned his stomach as he pulled Legend into his chest once again.
Yes, the story,
he began, his voice smooth despite the tightening in his throat. Alice had begun to grow very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank with nothing to do, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her...
Sleep, twisting into her blood.
Sleep, calling her into its arms. She offered herself to it when her head could no longer battle, and her heart could no longer beat itself away. It cooed everything into a dark quiet, as her eyes closed, and the desert dwellers pads curled to press into her own pads: they were soft. Soft in the sense that she knew them, even if they were coarse. They lulled her quiet.
Games didn't want to be played.
Games no longer.
When Ra child slept.
With a little white rabbit muffling into her ears in a haze.