de sotiri ekess rumaga (From Monsters to Mated)

[Dawn Shadowsbane]

(( Jan 2012. ))

Skid couldn't quite place his finger on it, but at some point watching Dawn sleep had become something of a spectator sport for him. It wasn't as if he had the opportunity to witness it very often, and more than once he had been blinded in his good eye for several hours after a given encounter, rendering the watch less of a watch and more of a lack of ability to leave the area. His suspicions on the subtle planning of those events on Dawn's part, however, were kept largely to himself.

Regardless, it was this kind of interaction that got him into the eventual act of watching her sleep whenever he had the opportunity. And since she tended not to need sleep unless she'd been appropriately tired out, there was only so much he could do. So in this particular case, he sat beneath a tree in the afternoon sun with scorch-marks on his clothes and chips and gashes missing from his scales while she slept with less battle-damage on her part. She was less fun to watch if she was just unconscious. Sleeping was the name of the game for him. Waking up was the interesting part.

She languidly stretched in that sleep, extending her already-long form from the very tips of her perfectly-manicured fingernails to her equally perfect toes. A soft murr drifted from the throat a moment before nostrils flared. Her hand drifted to her side, unconsciously patting the ground without care for the dirt caking beneath her nails. The questing hand drifted to and fro, and a frown creased the brows of her closed eyes. Near enough to smell but out of reach, she slithered along the ground, sweeping the dirt with her body, toward the intoxicating scent known as Skid. He normally wasn't so close in his observations and thus it wasn't common that she sought him in her sleep. Today, however, she might have exercised him enough to stay nearby; or perhaps he chose to do so. Either way, he was within her senses and she wanted more. She always wanted more.

Streaks of dirt traced behind her in evidence of her movement. Finally, she reached her goal, the monster that had become her lover. A soft sigh of completion met the touch of fingertips on scales and barely preceded the nuzzling of nose to thigh. The hand continued its path, curling around the leg in a fond embrace. “Mmmm,” she murmured into the scales, “… love.”

He watched her move, like a snake wrapped in silk, across the ground toward him. His curiosity couldn't, however, be contained and so he remained where he was, even venturing to lean back against the tree he'd perched under while watching her. Leaving her in the area bathed only partially in sunlight had really done wonders for the lines her body created against the dirt and grass backdrop nature had provided. With her approach, the shift in her demeanor was strangely refreshing. Rarely was she so soft and gentle, and it was an amusing state compared to her usual brusque, egotistical twist on "normal". When her coo and murmur reached his ears, he silently withdrew his head from its tilt over her and looked upon her with a truly foreign degree of fear which no usual situation can dare to strike him down with.

His most recent encounters with the word and involvement of "love" were both widely opposite and equally unpleasant. This, however, as confusing a development as it was, didn't seem unnatural. But his aversion seemed even more natural to him. So, to leave her to her own use of the term, he could live with. But to codify it among those other, horrendous experiences, he could not. As such, he created his own little subcategory of affection, called it "love", changed love to "oblong", and felt better about it all. At this point, he felt it once again safe enough to draw a claw along the lines of her ear.

The tickle of sensation sent her part-elven ears twitching slightly; while they were better suited to picking up sounds than human ears, they were also much more reactive to touch, even something so light. She inhaled again, deeper and slower the second time, as eyelids fluttered. Her body curled, an unconscious tail wrapping around its treasure. "Mmm," she repeated, coming aware. "I love your smell," she purred, digging nails into the scales upon his leg. A light bite on his outer thigh was given before she nuzzled the place once more. "You smell as delicious as you taste." Her head lifted to grant him a carnivore's grin.

"Do I?" His lips curled beneath the symbiotic material of the mask, finger continuing to find its trail along the outside line of her ear. "Your ears are my favorite of all ears; I have to admit it." His head tilted, and his other hand ran clawed fingers through her hair. "I like the way they move when I touch them, and taste when I taste them, and how they feel; unique. Very elegant."

She suffered his touch for a moment, then eased to a more seated position. The grin drifted across her face, a shift toward her more usual trademarked smirk. "You almost sound sentimental." The withdrawal was much more emotional than physical; the distance was still palpable, however. "Elegant," she scoffed. Her eyes, though, told a different story - surprise at the delicate compliment. The two had them had been all fire; hot, hard, and deadly. 'Elegant' conjured whispers of emotion, of attachment, and that unnerved her more than she could understand. Her eyes reflected surprise, and a tinge of fear ... fear of how she felt about a presumed attachment. "I do not like you sentimental." Not quite a lie; she just hadn't processed how she felt about this unexpected development in her still-sleep-muddled head.

[Dawn Shadowsbane]

"Who said I was sentimental? Maybe I'm just an artist." He said it with all the nonchalance in the world, but it was still a compliment at the end of the day. As she moved his hand fell, and eventually moved to support her chin as she looked at him. "Besides, I'm sure if I were to become sentimental, you'd be the first to like it." He shuddered in mock-terror at the idea of sentimentality. But in reality, he was fond of it. Well. Fond of his sentimentality for tea, at least. That was his greatest distraction, after all. "As soft-hearted a maiden as you can be, and all." Oh, thank heavens. He's back.

She snorted but did not turn her head from his grasp. Instead, red-gold eyes sought to lock with his single one. "I would kill you if you attempted to shower me with sentiments." Another empty threat; she knew that he knew that she knew she couldn't kill him - both in the sense of being physically able to and in the sense of being emotionally unable to. "We are not friends, nor lovers, nor mates. We merely fuck." Her head turned, finally, teeth seeking to sink into the wrist of his hand connected to her chin as if to prove her point. Simultaneously, her hand extended again, toward his inner thigh and eventually his more ... private parts.

He turned up his wrist for her with only the barest of hisses in rebuttal to the bite, and greedily accepted the advance of her hand wherever it would travel. Indeed, he leaned just the barest bit back in anticipation and couldn't stop grinning. His free hand, however, moved to her cheek. And his words aimed straight at her very core. Or, at least, the part of her that formed coherent words and reactions. "Do you want to see my face?"

That simple question stopped her immediately in her tracks; she jerked back in the shock. "Why would I want to do that?" Oh, but as the wheels turned and the brain spun and made sense of the actual words and meaning that comprised the query, her eyes lit in a healthy dose of curiosity. "Why would you grace me with such a secret?" Her words weren't quite derogatory; only slightly mocking the significance of the offer. Of course, actions belied the words, hand unconsciously turning from his groin up to the mask he offered to remove. Fingers splayed, held aloft inches from the surface.

His smile deepened, and his eye narrowed in the slightest, delighted way. "Perhaps I'm being.. Sentimental." His hands rose up, grasping her wrists and turning her arms down, pulling her body (and face) closer to him. "Now, do you want to see my face?"

"Yesssssssss," she hissed before she could help herself. She didn't pull away. Rather, she leaned in without meaning to. Tongue flicked out to dart over her lips in anticipation of some unexpected treat. Oh, she wanted it, and she wanted it bad. But she couldn't let him see that beyond the fleeting yearning. An intake of breath, a shake of her head, and then she tried to disengage. "What do you want?" Suspicion, not that he would hurt her, but rather a knowledge that there had to be something she'd have to give in payment for such a gift.

He held her there, no letting her move back. Her suspicion was met with a smirk, and the individual strands of fabric began to shudder and twist back, growing sleek and lively as they began to unravel from the center outward. "We aren't just fucking, anymore." It unveiled his face. The difficult to understand beauty, looking almost like a reptilian-influenced subrace of Elf.

His angles were sharper than an Elf's, ears much longer and drawn back; his brow ridges were the only place on his face where his scales were larger than the rest, the plain of his face covered by scales so fine they were almost indiscernible from one another. His left eye was still hidden; encased behind a metal shell, with no seam and an inscription in a far too ancient runic language upon it. His mouth, on either side of the lips, was pierced with a bolted little lock of sorts. His horns were pristine and black, like polished obsidian. And the entire right half of his face was covered in a black runic markings like that of the shell over his eye. "That is what I want."

Beautiful, grotesque, both words could describe the visage before her. Either way, she did not recoil from the sudden sight; the unveiling was performed and the price foisted on her before she could refuse. Eyes widened round and body stiffened, rigid with the shock of penetrating words. "What?" she distractedly muttered, held in place by his grasp and his exposed face. "You are a monster!" Yet she did not turn away, gaze darting in memorization of every feature. Her lips twitched and hands clenched tight in his hold, and she found herself leaning in to attempt a kiss on those lips. Legs parted and breasts perked in an involuntary display of excitement at either the price he wished or the view before her. "How would I pay that?"

Not that it mattered; pay it she would. One way or another.

He smiled at her initial reaction; even at the attempt to insult him. As she drew herself in, and presented her body - in a fashion - he released her hands and pulled her astride himself as he delivered the kiss she seemed to eager to seek. As she drew back and asked her question, his grin widened and he posed a simple enough solution that he was sure would provide her endlessly agonizing thought on the matter. "I'm sure you'll think of something worthwhile."

It was a natural movement once her hands were free, straddling him and simultaneously reaching beneath them to draw him out ... and then inside. As much as he'd let her, anyway. The short kiss was heated, showing she had no revulsion to him despite the lack of mask. Her flesh was heated, pale skin flushed, breathing shallow and raspy. "I will collar you," she suggested almost immediately. Collared, hers, there would be no quarrel with her husband about their relations.

[Dawn Shadowsbane]

He allowed her free reign, and once she'd settled he began to rock almost on a rhythmic scale to coincide with their conversation. His lips turned up, the tiny twist rings at either corner of his lips shaking with the movement. "You'll have to come up with something better than that. It would ruin our little dynamic, wouldn't it?"

The sensations hadn't yet taken over her to the point where she couldn't think. She matched the rhythm, closing her eyes in the enjoyment even as they continued to verbally spar. "We have already ruined that," she pointed out. The choice of phrasing was a clear indication that she was on board, whatever it took. Pale violet wings flounced with the rocking, tips dragging through the dirt in a back-and-forth swing, lifting just for a moment from the ground at the highest point of their movement; a faint jolt as she squeezed around him. "We can't ... be lovers ...." A faint grunt. "What would you ... have us be?"

His tail coiled around her hips and hooked back onto one of his legs, adding a further range of motion to their little back and forth. His eye stayed trained upon her face, straying only as the naturally-intended distracting power of breasts demanded from time to time. "I agree.." The barest hiss. "If you think about it, we were already lovers.. We'll have to take... Further action." His lips parted, and his teeth slowly worked their way to her chest, just below the collar bone. A slow, but sharp enough, bite.

Arms hooked around his neck, nails tracing over the back of his head. The slow bite was matched by an arching of her back, altering the angle only to provide him more easy access to her flesh. Arms closed behind him, to hold his bite to her and perhaps even deepen it. "Yesssssss," she rumbled, inhaling and simultaneously slowing the rhythm somewhat. "Further ...." Moments lost in time as she let herself get lost in him, in them. Suddenly though, jarringly, she stopped. "You wish to be mated?!"

He began to move his bites up and across her chest to her neck, and higher, as he pulled her down more tightly with the drop in rhythm and motion. Although, at her sudden piercing question he recoiled; in fact, every part of him recoiled. She could very likely feel the momentary recoil. "What!?"

Bodies locked but both frozen, she stared at him. His recoil was mirrored in her horrified expression. "You wished further action! What could be further than being lovers?!" Fingers dug in where they could, wings flared behind and above her. At least she made no motion to disengage from him.

"I... Er...." He was, quite strangely locked with her. He pulled her tight and kept locked close with her. "So, you want to be mates?"

"I cannot!" she protested. "I am married!" As denials went, though, it wasn't a particularly violent one. Especially when she didn't really move from his tight hold. Sure, there was an abortive attempt to lift from his lap, but really, it did not go very far. "Let go of me. We should end this, now." She shifted, once more finding a more comfortable set on his lap.

"Marriage is a construct of the lesser races built solely to demand the exclusivity of females." He set his face against her breast, and sighed ancient heat. "You have no desire to end this. That much, I am certain of." He slowly, with the very speed of a continental shift, began to rock her. "The rest lies in your ability to judge and think for yourself."

The sigh was echoed, her head dipping to brush cheek against an obsidian horn. "You are arguing for this as if you would wish it!" The vitriol in that statement was surprisingly light; the sweet rocking and content of conversation smoothed her cold edges and brought a hint of the earlier gentleness she displayed in her sleep. "What good would being mated do for us?"

"I don't know.." He drew in the scent of her from this cradled position, intertwined and interlocked; thought nowhere else in the multiverse. "But you've already said that there's an us. Even if nobody else knows, we do."

She frowned, tilting her torso back and settling more squarely on his lap, on her heels - enough so he did not leave her, but there was enough distance for her to reach between them and seek to turn his face up and once more meet his eye. "Why do you ask that price, that we are more than we have been?"

He allowed his head to be lifted, one scarlet eye clouded by gold and split by black rested upon her face. The uncertainty and worry on his face was more plain and obvious than it ever could have been from behind the mask, and he held that gaze silently for a long while. As it hardened, he simply kissed her. roughly for a moment, then the strength of it died out and by the time it was a gentle thing, he simply pulled back.

The totality of the circumstances left her breathless, gasping oh-so-softly. The red-gold in her eyes shone with a warmth almost never seen within, so taken was she by the purity of his expression. Crystal drops glimmered with the light captured from the sun, and pale violet wings, mottled by light and dark, drooped behind them. "Damn you," she muttered, though there wasn't an ounce of anger. "How dar --" she started, then stopped, then dipped her head once in assent. Yes, even the ice bitch had times where her soul and heart tempered and offered the promise of the phenomenon that was her name.

[Dawn Shadowsbane]

(( Later... ))

The mottled brilliance of daylight through the trees had given way to night, casting a silverish glint over her surroundings. A mere whisper of moonlight peeked through the thick net of bared branches, not enough to turn the dirt from the blackest tint that came with a lack of sunlight to lighten it. Dawn had remained under the tree, long after Skid had left. She remained motionless, still to the shifting fauna about her, cross-legged at the very spot where they had had their discussion. Red-gold eyes were closed to the world, and wings drooped, one-third of the leathery webbing resting against the chilled ground. She never donned clothes after his leave-taking, preferring to allow the shadows to coil and curl about her body in demented living cloth ribbons.

It was, conveniently enough, at about this time that Skid had made an almost full loop from his slow wandering through the forest. He'd walked through streams, up and down hills, killed a bear, eaten most of the bear, left the rest of the bear, realized he wanted a blanket made from bear, made a blanket out of the bear (or at least started on that task), cleaned up, and walked back out into the woods. It was a good time for him to think about things, and he'd gotten his mind off the mortifying situation he'd put himself in.

Regardless of the fact that he'd left everything in Dawn's hands, he was certain it would end in whichever way it saw fit. The situation, that is. In any case, a sweet scent washed over him, and he began to follow it. As the minutes passed, he had had to have recognized whose scent it was, but he kept on going. Finally, he found her. He was downwind, and silent, so he took these few minutes to watch her and wonder if she ever spoke aloud to himself. At that moment, he was glad he'd chosen not to do that tonight.

As it happened, she wasn't one to talk out loud to herself. She was much more prone, rather, to talk to the slaves who couldn't talk back. Deep breathing was about the only sound escaping from her in her thoughtful pose. A distinct lack of blood, either smell or physical remnants, suggested that she had, in fact, not moved since his earlier departure. Her eyes opened slowly, blinking to adjust to the transition from light to dark. Her head tilted lightly, slowly and silently, and she turned her gaze about. A shiver ran down her spine - it was a moment when she had the sense of a voyeur without knowing who, or what, or where. The shadows stilled, morphed, drawing illusory patterns that served as a camouflage in the night.

He continued to watch her, moving on occasion closer through all manner of stealthy implementation. Finally, however, he'd reached the closest point he could safely hope to remain undiscovered in; the point just barely feet from the edges of her shadows. He remained there for some time, watching her breathlessly. Since, you know, breathing would give him away.

Questing slivers of shadows slunk low to the ground from her, seeking the source of her unease. The sense that something was there set her spine tingling, and she was unable to suppress the shiver. They seemed, though, at a stalemate - she would not move while she was being watched and he was not coming forth. Hopefully the stalemate would be broken, either by her searching virtual fingers or by the revelation of the being stalking her. Fingers inched closed, drawing hands into fists in preparation. She may not have had knives or other traditional weaponry, but she wasn't truly helpless.

This standoff was going to last a very, very long time.

Not so long. After all, the shadows were inching along the ground in search of the invader. Soon enough, in fact, they pooled at his ankles; the change in temperature - heat where only death-like cold should be - gave him away. Her shadows did not necessarily think but were extensions of her being when needed. The gathering shadows dissipated slowly, and that was the only tell-tale sign of what was about to happen, that he had been found. Suddenly the dragon elf surged up, wings flaring, and launched herself at the intruder on her "private" space.

He looked down, noticing only too late that the shadows were gathered around him, and felt a pang of confusion as they retreated. Of course, this was followed up with her veritable attack, so he waited for her to get close enough to see him. He had nothing to hide. Though, he was clothed and masked now, so technically she was hiding even less than he was.

Her nostrils flared in recognition mid-leap, now aware of the origin of the scent that he had kept downwind from her. She actually yelped, crashing through the concealing brush. Wings flapped to try and slow her, and they managed ... to a degree. In other words, rather than pounce and slash him apart, she merely flopped into him. "Oooff!"

He caught her, with no great deal of effort, and took the initiative to keep her off the ground and on him for a few moments. "I didn't think you would be that excited to see me so soon again." The grin, had it been visible, would likely have been unbearable.

Held up against him? She didn't seem so loathe to move. She did, however, finally press hands to his chest to push to her feet. "It is more like you could not wait to see me, as you were the one who left earlier. I have not sought you out, this evening, nor spied on you," she drawled. Her tone was deceptively cool, though, there was a subtle thrill of excitement in the air at seeing him again.

"I had a lot of important things to do. I ate a bear and made a blanket. Those are both very productive activities, considering both sprung from the same encounter with the same bear." His tone was playful, vibrant and relaxed. "Besides, you should be glad I was spying on you. You got all shivery and bothered. I was half-expecting a show."

[Dawn Shadowsbane]

She barked a laugh. "A show? I do not provide ... shows." She scoffed, turning to push her way through the brush and head back to her place. A natural consequence of the movement is a show of sorts, a swaying of the hips and wing tips. "At least not to those I would protect myself from." That wasn't exactly true, of course, she'd provided 'shows' to entice him before. "If you are encumbered with accomplishing so many ... productive activities ... I shall no longer keep you from them. I promise there will be no show." Once more she settled in her spot, easing into the lotus position.

"You do realize just walking around naked for you, since you kind of always walk like you're headed to some kind of sex, is sort of a show?" He followed, and sat down in a monkey-like mockery of the lotus position opposite her. "And I've already accomplished my productive activities. So there's really nothing to keep me from. Furthermore, though, I feel I should mention that promising a distinct lack of shows is definitely a poor way to keep me around."

"Perhaps that is the better course of action for one such as you," she observed drily. "Perhaps, too, it is a better course of action for one such as me." She graced him with a smirk, but not the usual mocking variety. In fact, this held more humor and mischief than anything else. Wings hung loose and limp into the dirt, a sure sign of a rare state of relaxation around him. "You are a monster." She echoed the earlier statement with affection, and a warmth she never quite lost. In fact, the only people who had truly had this sort of manner directed at them were Anubis and their children. Skid had joined a very rare and special class of persons after their ... heart-to-heart earlier.

"Ah, yes. A monster I be. But why, pray tell, doth the maiden dare desire the presence of such a monster as me?" His tail had coiled haphazardly in the dirt, and the last foot or so flopped from side to side slow and quiet.

"Because the maiden is a monster, and a match for one such as you," she drawled, the words heavy with import.

"Oh, my." He leaned forward, ever so slightly. "I won't deny that. A beast by any other name.." His eye narrowed in delight. "But still, the question remains; why desire me? Do your softer, squishier feelings have feelings for me? Hmm?" Oh, the little bastard.

"Aye," she said, simply. A brow delicately lifted; the silent query being 'is there a problem with that?'. "Further, you excite me. You thrill me." She spoke of grand feelings with all the inflection of someone relating what they had for dinner. "You are as alike to me as no one else. You are not easily damaged in our play."

"That's all well and good, then." He leaned back, and coiled and repositioned his tail so as to recline against it while they spoke. "You know, I tend to be a terrible person most of the time. But then, I have the good fortune to remember to remind myself that I'm not a person at all." He sighed, dreamily. "All this ego-boosting doesn't hurt, either. By the way, do you always stay naked after I leave?"

The dragon-elf smirked, shaking her head and sending the loose red-gold waves swaying in the background. "Of course not. I usually do not linger at our rendezvous locations and immediately return to my life. Do you always eat bears and make blankets of them after leaving me?" She retorted, leaning forward in unconscious counterpoint to his reclining.

"Hmmmm...." He considered. "Not every time. Usually it's just whatever I'm craving that day. And I usually don't make blankets out of them unless they have lots of fur. And I don't have a blanket made out of them yet." He paused for more thought. "Although, I do oftentimes save a mental image of that," he looked down in response to her leaning, "for possible necessary future reference."

"What would make future reference necessary?" A hand tapped over her own thigh, lightly brushing the bare flesh. A few taps, then an idle rub of the leg, then a repeat of the pattern. Her other hand simply swept over the corresponding leg.

"Oh, you know, when I'm bored and have nothing other than memories to work off of it's nice to have something smooth and shapely to think of, rather than business practices and the best methods by which to vivisect a Human in contrast to a Dwarf." Her movement wasn't lost on him, however. The slightest of smirks began to blossom beneath the mask.

"Future reference will not be necessary," she stated. Or at least she didn't mean for it to be necessary. "We are mated," she informed him as if for clarification. Or they would be if he insisted on some ceremony. For her, at the moment, acknowledgement was enough. In one fluid movement, she rose to her feet and towered over him, wings and hair flowing behind her. A turn, and she began to stroll away.

He sat, somewhat dumbfounded, and then reached out after her. "Wait, that's a terrible combination of images, words, and degree of nudity to combine before leaving me here without any kind of outlet for all of this pent up 'mate' energy I just got!"

She paused, turning just enough to cast a glance over her shoulder. The smirk held warmth, amusement. "Who said I am leaving you here?" There was a gleam of satisfaction glazing the red-gold eyes as they flicked over the outstretched hands. "I merely said future reference would not be necessary. I did not say that I would be offering you 'any kind of outlet for all this pent up mate energy' you might happen to get without making you exert effort for it." She faced forward again, crouched, then dashed away.