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+--- Thread: Porcupine Ridge ❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ (wdg.) (/showthread.php?tid=38791)
❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ (wdg.) - Andraste - January 13, 2020
“Melitse.”
Beneath the world, starlit returned from valespires and reached now to bid her stygian to wake with rabbitsoft kisses to lashes, to nose. She smelled of wildwood and stonybrooks, of wintersun and loamdust, of @Kukutux's botanicals; let him see through greylight of Cuivénen the berrysmudge and mud-blemish crouched amongst the cicatrix of her features, her figure. Let him gather her close, and closer still regardless; tucked now into those tendered, hidden places of him, mouthing gentle about his chin, the line of hammer-heavy jaw. Hours and hours had she spent before the drowned sun and beneath the steady tick of stars. But now, now —
the third one is the love we never see coming: the one that usually looks all wrong for us and destroys any lingering ideals we cling to about what love is supposed to be. this is the love that comes so easy it doesn't seem possible.
The stars have relinquished their hold on her, leaving her dazed and a smidgen mooney. But, perhaps it is only him;
him, and all else that belies each breath of hers. She speaks not of it, however, and instead whispers to him this plot of the hunt she has — for surely the supplying of venison to their Court would be most appealing?
it shows us that love doesn’t have to be how we thought in order to be true. this is the love that keeps knocking on our door regardless of how long it takes us to answer. it's the love that just feels right.
awaits any giveaway of the greenlord that she has sworn to the hateful, in-between dark of constellations the relieving the flesh from bone and blood of.
RE: ❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ - RIP Dasher - January 13, 2020
venison supply is not far, now. heavy hooves meet rocky slope. he is torn and weary- winter and war has ripped him apart. and though he tries his best to survive, the land is overflowing with wolves, and unlike the land he was used to. his patience is worn thinner and thinner with each interaction.
now he will reach the end of his patience- here, upon this rocky mountain. the scent of wolves floats down to him from above, and leathery black nostrils flare. a wolf pack, maybe? he would not dare to approach, not in this state- but would stay alert for those wolves who may attempt to approach him.
RE: ❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ - RIP Wintersbane - January 13, 2020
after the challenge, three days of slumber ( on andraste's part anyway ) and uttered 'i love you's in the sacred space of their shared stonebed melkor is roused from his slumber. dutifully, the tundrian follows after his fey queen, ears attentive even if his lids are still heavy with the unshaken vestiges of slumber as she whispers of her plan. venison.
as they follow the path andraste has lain out at some point prior the grogginess thankfully fades. he can't afford to be sleepy in the middle of a hunt especially given the impression that it is just to be them.
soon enough a glimpse of the stag is caught from the corner of melkor's glacial eye; a shadowed and proud outline against the rise of the sun as it painted golden brushstrokes against the rocky slopes of the sunspire's womb walls. ❝there.❞ melkor rumbles, gesturing with a rough jut of his chin in the direction to point him out upon the unlikely circumstance that andraste missed the stag.
RE: ❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ - Andraste - January 13, 2020
Her rook gestures —
“Yes,” voice drawled low with unfathomable intrigue; halfsights cowling now with some misted design. “I am small enough to reach between its tines. I will blind it from above,” uplifting her scarification to the protrusions of rises and ridges of ravine that loomed o’er the bull’s clawfoot’d crown. “You must rush for ze great vein, wherein ze river of blood lies.” Was not learned in the naming of such anatomy that sequestered away vitality – did not need to. He was warlord, and so surely he would know; must know that they would not fail.
And she would see her love again.
So she does not reach for Melkor as she parts, neverminding her soul's urgings; the dark fever has come to crowd 'round the edges of argent eyes;
creature creature impling ghoulthing seelie that crept among wosemen, clambering softstep up and up the montane clutches and crags;
several stifling heartbeats since then, now she had arrow'd herself from up on high; falling streaking through duskair and mornlight, tucking holding herself close as she promptly dropped upon the elkthing's very shoulders and set to beginning its end.
Pinching leonine the base of the skull; wringing so that the kingprime might undulate and bare oakthroat to the tundrian within winterbrush; fangs scything into the jelly of the greenlord's eye, tongue tasting the egg of it, claret – cleaves unto the other, perhaps, perhaps not — molding the rest of herself against thrashing neck and roiling shoulders all beneath the thundercrack tines.
RE: ❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ - RIP Dasher - January 13, 2020
the gentle voices of little beasts go unheard by the wandering man. unlucky for him, because suddenly-
thunk.
a heavy- well, not too heavy- something is on his back. and he can feel dull pearl claws between his shoulder blades. and he's swinging thick neck from side to side, shaking his whole body, trying to detach that fucking pest. those little beasts were always after him. sharpened antlers do little now when he can't see his target.
and never again would he see his target, or anything else for that matter- because before he can even process it, a white face like an angel of death greets him, sharp teeth pulling at beady black eyes. a searing pain, a blood-curdling scream, and pop! out came the eye, and the other one, and his swear "fuck!" from dark lips. blood leaking onto his cheek and an ache like nothing he's ever known. and a separation from the knowledge of the world around him. "what the fuck did you do to me, you little asshole?" he screams with madness as his thrashing increases, all the while pain slicing him apart like a knife.
RE: ❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ - RIP Wintersbane - January 14, 2020
andraste lays out the plan in hushed lilt, explaining what she will do and what he is then to do. for the briefest of moments the ghost of a frown tugs at the corners of his lips — she will be in danger; of thrashing antlers and bucking stag. be careful, is what melkor desires to utter to her but before he has the chance she is gone; ascending. melkor doesn't stay to watch her climb — there is no time. he must get into his own position; has his own duty in this battle.
from the foliage of the brush and stone cast shadows of his own path directly below the beast melkor stalks; waiting. the angry, pained bleating ( words that melkor, unfortunately can't understand ) of their quarry is his cue and without further ado he lopes up the short stone path to appear before the trashing, bleeding beast. a second; a second is all he spares to glimpse at andraste clinging atop it's back. a breath is taken and he is rushing at the ungulate; glacial gaze locked upon the strong column of throat with jaws parted and teeth aiming to sink into the supple and yielding flesh in an effort to end it's suffering.
RE: ❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ - Andraste - January 14, 2020
The stricken is deafened to the braying; the ululating tongue bloated with what anguish she has first wreaked upon their behemothic quarry – shrieking that ripples into bleating screams as she relieves the socket of its eye and she does not have to be left to wrest this beast for long — Melkor is there, billowing forth and it is not long 'til greenlord's end for a wellspring of red fountains by the touch of Valitúrë's fangs scything through hide and flesh; further;
the bull is staggering, cyclop'd and side-trotting, stumbling and she is doused in the lifeblood of it, clawing and clinging and she is shaken from its heaving spine; her own meets but she scrambles and scrapes to evade being smote beneath the elk's impending and inevitable plummet.
Eventually – when the gleam has left the halfsight of the beast and its flanks flutter no more – Andraste haltingly gathers her bearing once more. Stilted, shivering limbs; the fée does not bother to cleanse herself of spilt redwine, not as she picks her way towards their fallen find; looks to the warlord to see and know he has not come out of this too scathed;
quiet and pensive, for now. Breathless, dazed; winded.
RE: ❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ - RIP Dasher - January 14, 2020
thrashing, and thrashing, and another little beast finds its way to him. sharpened fangs meeting treetrunk throat, digging right into his flesh.
"fuck you, little devils!"
it's the last thing he ever screams as a ribbon of blood is ripped from his throat, spraying the air with crimson and staining his fur the same. finally he thinks of how he's put up with those little beasts all these years. and now he was dying to just a pair of then- the age must have dulled his senses, he thinks. and what a pathetic way to go down, blinded and thrashing and choking on his own blood. at least all he once knew were far, far away. none of his own would ever have to see him like this- defeated and fallen. he can feel the pain rip through him, and the blood filling his throat and he coughs, coughs, and falls to the ground with a heavy thud. his heart slows and stops, flank stills, and blood pours from empty eye sockets as the wolves do whatever they may with his torn corpse.
RE: ❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ - RIP Wintersbane - January 15, 2020
the stag doesn't die well; there is no dignity in it's death as it thrashes from the warlord's grasp with throat torn asunder; a last angry noise choking in its throat as it chokes upon its own blood. it doesn't die as easily as melkor would've liked it to; but it does die as it's thrashing stills and body crumbles to the blood soaked stone underfoot. face covered in bloodspray, teeth coated in the crimson liquid, melkor wonders how gruesome he looks as andraste draws near; appearing as winded as he feels.
❝are you alright?❞ eventually, melkor asks as his own breath catches within his lungs and the draw of breath stops being so greedy. salmon pink tongue draws across his teeth in an attempt to clean them but he still looks the part of butcher despite the small and half-hearted attempt to clean up. gaze, then, moves from the fey queen to the body of their hunt — amazed that they'd managed to take it down just the two of them — before it strays back again.
it'll need divided into sections for their caches — for currently, melkor is unaware of her intent to share it with their nearby ally — but for the moment he is content to rest for a bit longer before the second half of the work is done.
RE: ❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ - Andraste - January 15, 2020
Dethroned alderking;
Andraste quivered now beneath bloom’d gooseflesh; stinking of bull’s blood, varnished in the flankfroth of it.
Would he kiss her still?
She understood, early: her initial endeavor of stalling what was to come with the mornrise had met its end; thus, she blanches. Fawnheart; a delicacy came to garner the embellished, bashful bones; biting her ruined lips out of habit, suddenly so affrighted that her Valitúrë would come to think the dawnlight shone through her figure (ever so thin, so pale.) A playwright come from the heatherland quills his fascination by the gleam of her;
of how the tremendous tininess of fairies may only hold such singular, given feeling at a time, and hangs his head at how unfortunate it is. Anarórë; the choral music of songbirds is bright, restive. The fée is faint, feels faint, and makes a deep, distracted study of the fallen king before them.
“We,” – it garbles in her cold wax throat; a tiny flicker of flame that trembles down her chords —
“we should ... we should use ze hide, and ... tan it into a ... a matting, for ze denmothers and their cubs, come ze whelping days.” Her step is a gentled, perhaps hesitant way; treading ‘round their ebbed elk somewhat falteringly. “I wish for as much of this find to be as preserved as is possible,” canting her scarred muzzle at the bull’s backside, considering how the loins and tail might be cured. “All innards, all bones. For rations, for marrow. Even ze hooves, I wonder ...”
Catches lower, torn lip between fangs; a she-wolf never without some musing nor drawn brow. Dark lashes unfurl to take an errant glimpse of him—
and she is so, so featherlight that she might wisp away into the reaches of vaulted sky; but it is only Melkor’s hold on her body that is potent enough to keep her grounded in this world. It is why, too, she is drawn to him as a marred moon; orbits ‘round majestic death to be near, always nearer (and despairs when-ever she is not.) But!
honeybees again burr and fuss and bumble ‘bout the combwelt within a breast pockmarked with fidgets. There will be no going forward without her warden and, yet ...
It's a fragile kind of luck that she has come to finally stand so near to him. Here, where her pearlmade claws kneaded through thaw and frost and loam in trademark fashion of bashfulness. Would that she could speak, her voice might have taken on some demure airiness; but the halls of it had been lined with tundrian cotton, and her tongue had gone heavy and quailing in shyness. Eyes agleam, fleeting every which way and wimpled with panicked modesty;
their elk, inconsequential; Melkor, imposing. To look everywhere is too much! To look nowhere is too un-enough—!
It has felt forever and a day that she has spent so much time dreaming up what to say, but never quite saying them; so much time wondering how she might utter the fated wish, eased and effortless. But saltglint limns dark lashes from the too much that it has become, that she shivers in the eternal and unending moment of. Finally, finally, then, with a hasty scarfing of air (of sense!)—
“W-...” lending her blind, cloudthick eye to crescent up at him with the rich, blushing cheek she turned aside—
“Wed me, m-melitse.”
RE: ❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ - RIP Wintersbane - January 15, 2020
melkor listens attentively as she sets out explaining all they will salvage from their kill. it makes sense to use everything they possibly can — to not let any of it go to waste. with it being the winter months and with whelping season upon them in just shy two months they will need to make use of it all. ❝the hooves?❞ he inquires in a quiet rumble, eyes darting to the hooves before falling back upon andraste once more. ❝i don't recommend using them as chew toys but ...maybe our healers can use them to crush up herbs or something.❞ he says the last bit of the sentence with hesitance ...because he wasn't really sure.
his gaze trails back to their quarry, assuming that unless they summons the pack here he'd be dragging it at least back down to the floor of the vale because saving everything they could was a job for more than just the two of them. so wrapped up in those thoughts, melkor doesn't even notice her stumble of the beginning 'w' — isn't even aware she begun to speak at all. at least; not until the question comes out and hangs in the air between them.
only then does glacial gaze slide back to her, brow rising as the words sink in. wed me. ❝...kinda thought we already were,❞ melkor admits; though he supposes there's nothing wrong with making it 'official', with having solid ground to stand on together and a clear description of what they were ( even if everyone already knew they were together ). ❝if you don't mind us both being covered in blood then, yes, i'll marry you.❞
RE: ❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ - Andraste - January 15, 2020
tiny tiny pp of mel! lmk if it ain't chill ♡
Their hunted could be minded later, for now.
He has all rhyme and reason to decline her, of course — a thought that near leaps to tongue and yet does not even get the chance to, for he admits now that it had been his belief that wedded they already were. Though the fée understands as much (he had given her his name, she supposes), a softened anxiety remains writ upon the desecrated features, limned with some bewilderment at his own admission. Shorn lips part, intending to speak for such things – but then his I'll marry you hums forth from the woad mouth and the stricken is left to blink helplessly; to blush hopelessly. Forgetting, perhaps, that he had given her the truth of his love for her only two morns hence; forgetting, perhaps, how it brimmed within heavied arms whenever he held her close to that wardrum heart. “Oh—” A fool still, she was!
“Oh– w-well, we do not sing sonnets unto another,” cobwebbed and cottony mouth; halting, hushed, “nor do we have gods to hear our unions, nor priests to bless them. Our marriages are those of blood,” delicate acknowledgment of said elk; of their own selves, garbed in terrible red, “and of soulmeld. We do not kiss, but mark another, and ... and fair consummate to seal such an oath. I will show you– z-ze marking. I mean– ah–!” Feathery, flustery; applered, “My people ... I, I remember ze valerian vows, if ... you would allow me to guide you through them?”
He did;
and so the fairylight is a smidgen more starstruck than oft as she drew nearer, nearer; not at all minding that they both reeked of venison and the stench of its sweat; mussed with mudthaw. A heavy pause as she sat herself before him; situated herself, praying that her own heart would not dismantle itself of the ghostbone chamber of her ribs; that the smothering warmth within every reach of her would ebb ebb ebb.
Then, slow, sonorous – beginning before she fell true from herself:
“Nalyë axovíse va ninya,”
all patience and pausing,
“antávaldë i ye vertanya.”
RE: ❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ (wdg.) - RIP Wintersbane - January 18, 2020
melkor is quiet as andraste begins to explain the traditions of her people when it comes to becoming official mates. if there were traditions that the gangster and nightingale had practiced melkor wasn't aware — and his brief time in enok tundra did not unravel any for him either. ❝marking —?❞ he breathes the word and then stupidly, realization sinks in mere moments later. ❝you mean scarring?❞ he was already covered in scars ...what was a few more? a blasphemy of a thought that a younger melkor would've whole heartedly balked at.
she begins to recite the vows and melkor thinks that today was the day his pronunciation of valerian would surely be put to the test; few words he does actually know. ❝nalyë axovíse va ninya,❞ melkor parrots back, raspy tenor like whisky steeped in smoke. ❝antávaldë i ye vertanya.❞
RE: ❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ (wdg.) - Andraste - January 18, 2020
“Quiquië koslmë,” continued lilt, “aiano avanyárima siqilma:
hireccoiamallë estatina uo.”
Though the words may be woven as silk from the soft strumming of her own throat—
“Quiquië márlondë entullmë,
me-tulil enno asië nyando kiluva,”
—but they were halting, nevermind how honeyed, and the ruminating breaths taken at intervals were as much for her own sake as they were for her betrothed’s. It was easier to forgive him, rather than herself, for stumbling and slowing over words so steeped in twilit past. Still: each made their valiant effort, respectively.
“Antalë indómë ar órenya.
Nai amanya hilyainyë ier i Anar;
nai elen atta siluvat aurenna veryanwesto.”
With the last, winded word wisped, the sidereal wills herself to remember what the beat of her own heart feels like – if it evens remains to beat – but, she supposes, perhaps she never might again know. Not after this hour. So Andraste murmurs some deserved You did well praise for her tundrian, and, in the moments before they must mark, savors the quiet interlude by studying the sculpture of the wildhunt warlord before her;
beautiful, in that way that touches one's spirit, and yet, there was a prevelant sternness that was there to steady it. Stirrings, some achings; but there would be time, later, ever later for her to lapse into idiocy and girlish infatuation for the features and figure he so bore. Now, however:
“You were correct, earlier. Oftentimes, it is placed upon ze throat. For those such as yourself, though,” a frore-fox dimpling of ruined cheek, “there is ze alternative of marking ze second of either ribs. As I have made ze proposal, howe’er, I must initiate this by beginning. I ... I promise to be gentle.” Rising, reserved; requesting: “May I please mark you, melitse?”
Not that he was not able to withstand a bit of pain; and the fée flushes beneath her hide the eleventhtieth time for reassuring a warrior of such ... but only by his express leave would she begin.
RE: ❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ (wdg.) - RIP Wintersbane - January 26, 2020
❝quiquië koslmë, aiano avanyárima siqilma: hireccoiamallë estatina uo.❞
❝quiquië márlondë entullmë, me-tulil enno asië nyando kiluva,❞
❝antalë indómë ar órenya. nai amanya hilyainyë ier i anar; nai elen atta siluvat aurenna veryanwesto.❞ though andraste recites them slow for his sake, melkor parrots them slower still; stumbling over them a few times. he hopes, feverently, that this is one of those cases where 'it's the effort that counts'. quietly, raptly, melkor listens to her explanation of the marking, agreeing to it with a sage nod of his head.
❝even if you weren't gentle i can take it.❞ melkor promises with a soft chuckle stirring in his chest, unable to help but feel that any marking that requires slicing flesh is not going to be as gentle as one hopes. obediently, the tundrian keeps himself still but loose as she approaches, standing at the ready for her to begin the marking process.
RE: ❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ (wdg.) - Andraste - January 26, 2020
Assurances, retrieved and reciprocated;
but no remedies have been brought, for she had not believed he would have ever said yes.
Still – the fairylight cannot resist nudging soft at her (phantomless!) paramour's shoulder as she nears, nibbling at the dark fur there in some I will still try gesture; foolish of her as ever, perhaps, for he was a master of his craft and such guarantees as her own should not need minding, nor even repeating. Nevertheless, Andraste cannot help but touch upin him as her godless self might if presented with something sacred; to worship him as she so oft did in the sweeter moments after she awakened, or those that ached before he took her with the wanting;
from the crease of underarm and to the aforementioned second rib did she lave a path; much sooner rather than later, the fée was combing through the heavy, ashen hide with a patience that was almost reverential. She sectioned each cowlicked tuft, setting it as apart from the deigned skin beneath it as much as she could muster; boney hip frequently bumping against his breast with her workings.
Eventually, with exposure came gooseflesh, and so too came the mark itself—
she begins, letting her lower fangs catch upon the skin, and using the steady resistance of his figure against her as pressure. She is gentle, of course, though this needling at him might be likened to the blushing irritability from kitten-scratches. Etching the trendiling, tattooing strokes into the living canvas of him dies not take as terribly long as she had been brought up to believe;
tonttu is soothing the welts her tongue, murmuring foreign nothings against breathwarm skin.
Finished;
in time, she returned to address Melkor; to express (with what she could remember, of course) how her own bridesmark was supposed to look. And when she could not: “I do not think my folk would damn you, if some deviation from its original design were to be had,” a shy simper;
but upswept her skull, and gave her eyes to the stars ticking slow in the sky; kneading claws into thaw, bracing. Must quell her tremblings.
He would have to begin at the delicate hollow of fluted collarbone.