Sunbeam Lair iii: relentless

@Cassiopeia

since slaughtering her father, her whole life had been wandering. place to place, aimlessly, hoping that none of her past failed attempts at destruction surfaced to cut her throat while she slept. every slumber was catlike: one eye constantly open, even if only a slit. make one mistake, fail to cover tracks adequately--

death would come. it came to all. but the angel of death would not fall to carelessness. she would choose. she would die on her own terms.

the woman strolls through the caverns, eyes glittering like emeralds in the moonlight. these lands have not been good to her; she thinks she must leave, soon. but for now, she will rest here. the cave is warm, and smells of green things. most importantly, it does not smell inhabited, and that is good.

Kaali is tired. she struggles with her life's mission. perhaps it would be better to go with the status quo. but each time this traitorous thought surfaces, she thinks of her mother, and grows angry once more.

in her death, her mother keeps her alive.

what would she have thought?

she was weak--Kumaari. weak and submissive. she had gone along with everything, taken every blow. if she had simply acted, like Kaali had, she would be alive. she would be whole. it makes her furious to think of it, but Kaali knows, deep down, that that was not her way.

her mother was the soothing peace of a mountain spring.

Kaali was the sun in midsummer, on a cloudless day.

hot. omnipresent. vengeful.

relentless.

her meeting with vaati had been [??] and the svartel had not since returned to the mountain. icy slogged thickly through her veins, and she wondered what it would be like to tear into his lifeblood as she had dakarai's. would his life atone for that which she could have had? she would have been her mother's daughter, surely, and not some failed experiment of the woods. 

paws lead her steadily down the rock. the cave she finds after almost bypassing a smaller section of the entrance; once discovered it seems obvious. she does not think before padding inside, unknowingly on the heels of another woman. this is discovered quickly, however, and she stills before her voices grates coarsely against her throat in a chuff. perhaps she seeks solitude here, and the star-kissed is in no mood to contest it if she wishes.

step--step--step--then stop, and Kaali is not alarmed, for she recognizes the gentle footfalls of a woman, close behind her. the witch turns, slowly, eyes landing upon a night-sky of a girl, deep black pelt flecked with silver. it is a magical sight, and her gaze lingers upon this magnificent specimen before returning to her face.

she smiles, feeling at once entirely at ease, for the first time in days.

"hello, sister," she murmurs, giving the other a familiar, kind greeting she reserves only for her gender. "have i intruded upon your home? if so, i do apologize." Kaali had smelled nothing, walking in, but perhaps she is newly settled here.

but, oh! what a girl--

her eyes were green, like Kaali's. and glowed with a certain light. . .and she was intensely beautiful. Kaali felt a stir in her belly, to look at her. to gaze upon such wonder.

she is still as the woman's gaze rakes over her, glad for her apparent neutrality. gaze meets the strangers and they are a shade remarkably similar to her own. at this alone a small smile curves her lips, encouraged by the woman's own. "no," she replies, quick to counter with the assurance that, "I thought the same." in the light of the cave, the dimness, the girl's pelt appears almost greyscale, yet a longer glance reveals murky brown, highlighted for a moment. 

her tail moves slowly behind her, once, and she offers with a note of softness her voice is usually absent of; "I am Cassiopeia." head lifts to regard her as the light shifts in the heavens, casting shade into the cavern briefly as the sun is obscured by roaming cloud. knotting scar winds its way around the base of her throat, and should her thick mantle not obscure the rest, one would find a ring of them around her nape.

the light of the moon throws the girl's scars into sharp silvery relief. they knot her throat, and her eyes linger there, impassive, unconcerned. she's a warrior; that much is clear from the way she is built, from how she walks. she has looked death in the face and won.

this intrigues Kaali more than she'll ever let on, and she continues to blink softly, lips murmuring the name offered her. "Cassiopeia. i am Kaali."

she never gives a man her name, not until they are sucking in their dying breaths. sticky with their blood, she will lean down, bring her muzzle close to their ear as if in a caress, and whisper it. it will be the last thing they hear; their souls in the underworld will scream Kaali--

Kaali!

Kaali!

"i am unfamiliar with these lands," she admits, letting her guard down. no sense in keeping up a pretense of invisibility, not when fresh wounds mar your body and the wear of travel shows in your bones, the way you walk.

especially not with this girl, this beautiful girl of starlight.

Cassiopeia. queen of the night.

she echoes the girl as she repeats her name, the syllables rolling off her tongue easily. "Kaali." as hers is long and filled with whispered consonants, the woman's is quick and fierce. whisper of a smile curves her muzzle, and her gaze traces the woman and wonders how she would look in the burnished light of the sun. 

she takes a careful step near when the woman speaks, curious. she is slight, small, and yet her voice belongs to a warrior. she is as intriguing as the true colour of her pelt which even now is everchanging, and the star-touched is unable to pin down a concrete image of the woman before her to attach her name too. "I know them," she offers, taking in then the fresh-delivered wounds (she thinks), the way she holds herself. "are you looking for somewhere - someone?" an offer to take her where she wants to go, made easily and with the hopes, somehow, that the answer is the former.

"do you," she whispers, the words no question at all. she is as sure of the girl as she is in anything else, be it gods or demons. those glittering emerald eyes held the answers to questions unasked; these are not questions rattling against Kaali's skull, however.

she has no queries. she has no plans.

her only wish is to see the plains and hills, peaks and valleys, red with blood--

and above it all, Kaali. this woman, as well. and all women who

wish to join her

"no," Kaali answers, shaking her head and clearing the thoughts from her racing mind. she smiles, maybe even a little shyly. "not somewhere, not someone. i am just traveling through. looking for somewhere to stay, perhaps. and for someone to keep me company, too." her gaze rests on Cassiopeia, quietly expectant.

oh, the sapphic saccharine reveries in her head! she imagines stretching out with the star-kissed woman in a field of clover, and her toes curl against the stone. a quiet laugh gurgles from her maw without her intention, and she glances sheepishly at Cassiopeia--

don't think me a fool, love. i am just a fool in love.

so many cocks she's taken
and yet women are her undoing.

there is a period of silence between the girl's first reply and her next in which the star-touched wonders. they appear different at first glance and then much the same. they were both touched with daintiness, femininity, and yet too wounds both old and fresh. scars that spoke their stories freely, if for a moment you studied them. 

and then she is left with a choice. offer her clipped assistance and take her leave, or offer something more - and at the moment, the former seems especially dull, especially in light of the woman's lilting laugh. her head cants a fraction, and she shifts near gracefully, as if in a quiet dance. "perhaps I could help with the latter." the sheepishness has her own muzzle twist in slight grin. something awoken and experienced upon her meeting with Fire, but never acted upon, never investigated. 

not yet.

an understanding passes between them, suddenly, and Kaali's lips stretch wider still in a grin. "perhaps you can," she murmurs. she stretches an infinitesimal amount, lean muscles rippling, then walks closer to the star-kissed woman, passing by her until their pelts brush, ebony against slate.

each and every hair, intertwined for the briefest of instants. it sends a fine shiver down Kaali's spine.

she circles round to come up next to Cassiopeia's other side, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the woman. she is built trim but well, a clear warrior. there is an aura of quiet ferocity surrounding her; the things she has done, the blood she has shed--Kaali has no notion of the extent, but she can hazard a guess that

the girl is a killer, a total knock-out.

arousal pools hot and molten in her stomach. she brings her muzzle up to trace a delicate pattern along the dark cheek, resting near the inside base of her ear. "have you ever had a woman, lass?" Kaali breathes, coming on bolder than she would with a man.

she simply
can't
help it

they touch and she is still, something hot smoldering in her chest and burning a slow path up her neck, down her spine. she is quiet, still, taking this feeling and examining it carefully. the woman comes to stand beside her, and suddenly the star-kissed has no reservations, only expectation growing steadily warmer. 

"no." she is silent a beat before she moves, nipping lightly at the woman's muzzle. "not yet." the word is a purr. a low sound she did not know she could make. the heat in her chest condenses and grows tight like a viper, low and waiting, a different kind of ferocity in her gaze, now.

oh, there is no reluctance, no fear. so many women she's courted have been so molded by this world to serve men and men only that they shrink from her advances, terrified to discover what could come from that unholy union. Kaali drinks in the star-kissed woman's crisp scent, running her lips down her cheek,

along her jaw,

down into the hollow of her throat, where her tongue teases.

"good," Kaali says coquettishly, eyes fluttering open and closed in quick intervals, like a hummingbird's wings. ecstacy. she can feel it in her stomach, her thighs. a quiver. it is different from the bloodlust she feels with men; she wants to possess Cassiopeia, not destroy her.

she does not want to consume.

she wants to be consumed. she wants to die in the dark fire that is this woman.

Kaali lays down on the cool stone, stretching her body to its full length. "touch me," she says, more a request than a command. "touch me in any way you want." she extends a leg, pressing her paw gently against the girl's chest. "i'll touch you, too," she whispers, bringing the paw slowly down again. "tell me how you want to be touched."

touch me, her body screams. but her voice is no louder than a breath, barely echoing even as they are surrounded by cavernous walls.

she is carved from marble as the woman weaves her way through her fur. her cheek. her jaw. her throat. the woman quivers beside her, something beats beneath her pelt. her warmth withdraws from beside her and her muzzle follows the woman down as she stretches out on the stone. she is absolutely, perfectly motionless as the woman raises a paw to her chest, breath collecting in her chest. she is still a moment longer and then slides onto her stomach, stone cooling a fire she had not been aware of. 

she obeys easily, moving her muzzle feather-light over the woman's throat. she is careful. when she touched Vaati, it was not with the intent to provide pleasure but to taunt and to tug at their evershifting balance of power. it is different, now, and she pauses. she is vividly aware that in this she does not want to err, to fail. she moves her muzzle to the soft fur behind the woman's ear, preening there carefully. the meekness falters, however, at her fangs dart out to nip at the soft lobe of the woman's ear. growl, soft and careful, slips from her throat, and her preening becomes bolder as she moves her way down the woman's throat, testing.[/align][/narrow]

a rumble, much like a purr, escapes her throat as the girl caresses her ear--a purr that morphs into a growl as Cassiopeia nips. "don't," she warns, her voice quiet but firm. "save your teeth for the men who use you. give me your tongue, your heat."

her pleasure returns as the star-kissed lover moves down her throat, and her toes curl in ecstasy; she resists the urge to writhe about on the stone like a worm on a hook.

and hooked she is. oh!--

tongue, pink and soft, slides along her lips, then she moves to nuzzle Cassiopeia along the underside of her ebony throat, gently, with great precision. travels each and every inch, relishing the feeling of the blood pumping underneath her maw.

"you taste so sweet, habibi," she whispers, breath stirring the plush, dark fur. "i want to taste all of you tonight."