middaeg | Octeuril Catch All

Who: Kaede and you! And people doing quests.
When: All month where convenient
Where: Within the City, The Slums, Outside the City
What: Another monthly thread container!
Warnings: Goose. Will update as needed.

I. Duck, duck...duck? [River Temese Bridge]

[One of the bridge's occupants doesn't seem interested in an argument, at least for the moment. Nor the lanterns, nor the decorations. No, Kaede's leaned over the rail and staring over the side, her scarlet feathered tail lashing in agitation behind her. She isn't being too mindful of where it's going, and smacking people in the ankles with it is a very real possibility. There's a stiff core to the tail, under all the fluffy feather.

Get close enough—an easier proposition this time, as she's distracted—and one can hear her mildly distressed muttering.]

...those ducks have shells on them.

[What the fuck. How long have they been this way. How long has this been happening.

This is messing her up.]

II. Garden Troubles [Slums]

[Seeing a garden—one that wasn't a mess of weeds, or a vandalized sunflower field—was nostalgic, in a way. As was...seeing parts of it all torn up. At least the pawprints around kept it from reminding her too much of that.

Kaede had split up—the better to flush the wolves out of whatever burrow they were hiding in. She could be quiet when she wished, her senses were sharp despite the rain, and she could get into places someone more human-shaped couldn't.

Something rustled the plants in a row nearby, and Kaede stilled. She couldn't see through to the other side—there was a heavily laden trellis in the way—but she could pinpoint the sound quite easily. The Chimera gathered herself, coiling her legs and back like a cat about to pounce, and sprang up, almost ten feet up, until she could clear the trellis and come back down on the sound.

...and, hopefully, what was rustling on the other side of the trellis was one of the creatures they were after, and not a person. That would just be dreadfully inconvenient, wouldn't it.

At least the Chimera's on the smaller side.]

III. honk [Outside the City]

[Kaede didn't choose this quest. It chose her, with a yank on her tail. And a sharp pain from a few of her feathers coming away, but mostly from the sheer indignity of it. The Chimera roars—a proper one, not a grumbly mumble—and whirls about, but the culprit was already dashing away down the dirt road, a few of her scarlet feathers clutched in a clawed hand.

The goose-feathered Harpy finds this all quite hilarious, shrieking with laughter as he dashes off, the Chimera hot on his heels. He's quite fast, though, even without flying. The Harpy occasionally makes a few fluttering hops when she gets too close, but he doesn't take off.

Occasionally, Kaede's chased the Harpy up onto some building—a barn, a cottage, a stable—and is sitting crouched at the bottom, tail lashing like a frustrated cat. The Harpy looked fairly smug up there.

Sometimes Kaede doesn't make it that far, though. Her knees had been prone to aching lately, sometimes going a bit numb. And this time they crumpled entirely, sending the Chimera toppling facefirst into the road. It wasn't raining today, but the ground was still plenty damp—and mud got on her clothes and once-bright feathers immediately. Kaede tried to get back up, but only pins and needles answered where her legs should have been.

Worst of all, the Harpy was impossibly far away down the road now. His off-white feathers were mockingly bright against the fading summer colors.]

Get back here you little shit—

[Kaede's opinions were intact! She'll probably live. After she gets back up.]

Wildcard

[For prompts or closed threads not seen here! My plotting post is here for ease of use. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He knew now—partly—what Kaede was. Who she was.

Eren didn't care. It didn't bother him, make him throw her away in revulsion or speak to her in hushed, disbelieving, horrified tones.

He must know what it was like, too. To lose something—even if it wasn't everything. They weren't just empty words of comfort, wan reassurance that no, you aren't that bad. There was too much else behind it, too much weight.

The Chimera nestled into the embrace, appreciative but silent. She didn't shy away or resist the touch, even when he squeezed her, holding tight like she would drift away if not. Maybe she would have. But he was here, holding her tight, dragging Kaede out of the miserable pit she kept digging herself into.

Kaede shivered briefly when lips brushed her temple, lifting her head from his shoulder just enough to murmur.]

...I can't promise that. I can't keep them.

[One promise—one small, vital, unfair promise—and she'd broken it immediately and irrevocably, damning herself to rejection and isolation. Isolation that she had also been terrible at sticking to.]

[ that in itself gets eren’s brows to lift, and something deep in his eyes to twist. she thought that-? ]

You don’t have to make promises. [ sadly— he murmurs, in turn: ] Promises break.

[ like the one he once made. i’ll wrap that scarf around you, forever,, he once told mikasa. again and again, as many times as you want. there would not be a forever. there would not be the amount of times she would want. eren obliterated that path more and more until he purposefully snapped it in half. there was no going back from that. ]

Actions don’t.

[ do is what he means to imply. just do. just fight, just live, just do what you were meant to do without the interference of a world that won’t allow it. places and people who deny them what they want and breathe for. eren is here for that. he’s spent more than enough time staring at her— his lips drag down, he hunches over, he presses his forehead clean where his mouth once was. perhaps their noses bump, their breath exchanges, but his hand remains at the back of her head.

he can’t promise her he’ll stay forever, but he could offer her far more than a promise. a token of his pocket of protection for how ever long outward affection would last. ]

[Kaede had been about to lay her head down again when their foreheads touched, his warm breath puffed against her face. She looked at Eren directly, instead of some distant, reminiscent point beyond him.

Words were sound, easily dismissed without actions to remember them by. So, she'd act. Crystallize the words she was hearing out of empty air, make them something real, something she couldn't just forget and leave behind in disbelief.

The Chimera exhaled quietly through her nose, pushing her head up against Eren before closing her eyes. Here, held tight by the twine of his limbs, their chests pressed together, and the poncho draped on her shoulders--it was so warm. So far removed from the cold of abandonment and isolation.

Kaede leaned forwards again, shifting her hands and arms until they could loop around the Dragon's shoulders, and brushed her lips against his.]

[ he’d close his eyes fully, once she did. it help to feel, helped to situate himself elsewhere where only they would find each other. with his beating heart and dragon-half, eren has grown accustomed to feeling each relationship differently. his adoration would mindfully sit on platonic, while expressing that through his monster traits and a fairly deep necessity to bond further with those he’s come to adore. carnal longing. every dragon is either social or solitary, and eren has fallen under social (to his discontent, sometimes). while he hoarded objects with fine points and cutting edges, he’s grown inclined to gather people.

treat them. care for them. break them, when he had to. not just any people. people he’d choose. it could be a bit confusing, how he’s come to separate these things— he can’t distinguish what’s human or monster in him, anymore. he doesn’t see a long life with any of his partners. there’s no wallowing need to date or have a moment of romance with one. live something big and pretend to have some normal life set on building a family. he’s . . . drifted, far from the caste.

a dragon lives free, gives what it desires and takes what it does as well. if he wanted to express himself this way, it was his way, and those be damned if he was looked upon with twisted grimaces. there’s nothing but encouraging softness when her lips come to his, like feathers tickling him. his tongue comes first, to flick for her taste and where she was, the scent she gave off to call him forward. it’s not long before the dragon dips and pushes back, the kiss almost chaste and even lasting as they’re welcomed to adjust. his arms slink around her ribs, underneath his poncho where flesh had kept warm.

the tip of his tail gives off a sluggish rattle, and mesh their lips a second time, after a breath, he does. ]

[Once, Kaede would have been embarrassed letting someone this close. No--frightened. Fear was what it really was.

But now she wasn't afraid. She was tired of being alone. Even if Kaede didn't think she deserved love at all, she could pretend.

Maybe, someday, it'd be true. But while her mind turned Eren's words over and over in her head--no. She wanted to think of something else now, something that wasn't these miserable conscious thoughts.

The Chimera's skin prickled at Eren's bare touch, the mane of soft feathers trailing down her back raising up under his hands. The encouraging kiss--first one, then the second--spurred Kaede onward, the feeling of him pressing back against her a dare. The Chimera's claws settled on the scales of his shoulders, securing her grip before she pushed up into the next kiss. Her tail couldn't wave about, twined with Eren's as it was, but the feathers on it did ruffle up like the feathers on her back. An ear flicked back at the rattle, but after a passing wariness she dismissed the sound. Not a threat. Not here, where it was so warm and safe.]

[ they were so easy to sift through, like air and the fine caressing feathers offer in turn. with both of them pushing, it doesn’t take an ounce more of force for his lips to part wider, coaxing hers, and delving. his tongue slips across teeth, caring less if they knocked together while they’re fumbling, but it’s heat that eren would build up to. it’s difficult for his scales to raise, but they do move beneath her wandering like an animal’s hide, tightening and relaxing wherever she went.

he couldn’t breathe well, but right now he couldn’t care much to. kaede’s taste had both been enough and not enough, the pads of his thumbs rising from her curves, (somewhat lazy, up and down to feel them), her last rib, then to the fine contour of where her breasts began. no sound, not quite, but between the snacks their lips provide, he sighs with weight, inhaling much too shortly before his mouth is sealed, all over again. ]

[Continued here]

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