(closed)

[usurpers]

Who: eren + people
When: february
Where: aefenglom, dorchacht, respective wildes
What: a catch-all for closed starters! hmu on discord @owlie#3609, liberos or eren’s plotting comment if you’re interest in doing something!
Warnings: n/a, will updated where needed.

“eren let me see what you have” “a knife” “no!!!!!!!!!!”

Comments

[mirshikar]

[ More and more, the Wilde feels like home. In turns, it reminds the King of Arcadia's primeval forests, and in others, it seems no different from the thorny trods of the Hedge, where the pull and pulse of Faerie filled briar-marked pathways with maddening hobgoblin grotesqueries and the beauty of natural wonderments both. What they search for, now, in Dorchacht's Wilde where Summer still writes its name in the spill of sunlight between the slats of the trees, is certainly akin to one such wonderment: a pool reflecting the heart's desire (strange, that humans could never discern such things for themselves; irreverent, that the Coven would seek to weaponize its power), its waters lost to the Wilders who had discovered it.

And as they stride the forest, black loam and vegetation underfoot, they walk as witch and monster, primordial and human, friend and confidant— friend, the reason why the question which Eren poses to him is greeted with a simple crow of laughter rather than the rankling of Asura's temperament. Eren, he does not know what he asks, not truly, and Asura can hold no grudge against him for it, though it does not stop the King from cautioning with the rolling thunder of his voice: ]

A day will come when you ask of me the wrong question, and I will see you buried for it. [ In some tomb which Eren would have to work to tunnel his damn way out of. Regarding the ebon dragon (whose ability to shift could be something Asura were envious of, if only he allowed himself to be) with a side-long glance, the King's kajal-lined eyes are foreboding and s h a r p, until...! The moment when they are not, and he eases with a huff: ] But it is not this day.

[ Instead, it is a day when Asura will choose to speak words to Eren which he has only ever divulged to a handful of others, both in Aefenglom and in the worlds (realms) where he is the Iron Spear and Crimson King: ]

Dragons and fae, they are often considered as being one in the same. [ Being creatures of the Wyrd, able to freely traverse worlds and dreams. ] True Dragons, True Fae, [ how sibilant his voice becomes, when he speaks of them, the Gentry ] both are native to the world of Arcadia, a place ruled by the forces of time and fate.

[ Arcadia, his home (though only one of them). Inexorably, it would always remain a part of him, demanding that he return to its grasp and shed his human skin. Fate would have this be so (and Asura would refuse its call time and time again). ]

However, the True Dragons have diminished, retreating into the realms of the Forgotten Days, and in their place, the True Fae created... [ With a resounding thud!, Asura beats a closed fist against his chest, denoting none other than himself. Proud as he is, fathomless as he is, he never allows himself to forget: ] ...beings in draconic image, bound to True Fae will and service.

[ Once, Eren had heard the intonations of such a Fae in a memory ("so you have returned to Svarga, my great golden dragon."), and at that time, Asura hadn't known what choice was— not until an Ogre of a man woke him up, breaking the chains which held Asura suspended in the thrall of his Keeper. ]

When I said to you before that Changelings could come in any size and shape, dragons were not excluded.

[usurpers]

[ eren, for the most part, only snorts at the cordial threat with nostrils flared. it was funny, and rather ironic, that eren was the type of dragon meant for the earth, where he sought shelter from the weather and kept his hoard of precious knives, blades and even sharp slips of paper in intricate tunnels underneath the main city’s (aefenglom’s) domain. working day and night at times to make them perfect had even become a past time to think less of his troubles.

a tomb could be so bad, if not therapeutic to burn his energy in. it’s why he has the nerve, to reply to such keen eyes on him: ]

I’ll just crawl out again. [ he muses this with a bit of friendly-toned audacity that possibly either comes from his own confidence of never dying when he has to, or from the scales and wings that build part of who he is today.

a long stretch of silence follows even after asura has elucidated the analogy the two beings would have with each other, stillness that’s only filled with the whispers and chips of the wilde canopy hugging them from above, and summer leaves that rattle against each other when a breeze weaves between them. it’s long and thoughtful— he figured, that asura’s case had been similar to persephone and finds grand gratification in the golden dragon belonging to that profound voice of the castle in the skies no more.

he does, though, concern himself with his own affair, and vocalizes it in a hiss that doesn’t bring him much comfort. amazing, how karma hits you (though eren was no where close to believing or even being aware of the concept)— when he had once spewed lies to his loved one of being bound to him by blood, and the anguish that came with the slimmest possibility of eren having enslaved mikasa, if the conception was ever true (and there is far more evidence that this is untrue); here was eren, bound to beings he doesn’t understand how or why and needs to know. ]

I’ve been attracted to them. [ the fae. all kinds of fae, anything that has touched fae or tastes like fae— even asura, where he could taste the witch’s fizz at the back of his throat like he’d smell mikasa across blocks. it worries him, and his voice is somehow sounding more grave than a guttural, draconic voice could further sound. ] Before I realize what I’m doing, I smell them. Taste them— and I’m on top of them.

[ in a sense, but not in the literal one— yet. ]

It feels like being drawn to them out of, [ his says this with words literally spat, wet and clattering against too many teeth, ] compulsion.

[ the one thing he hated and, at times, felt like he was becoming. ]

[mirshikar]

[ Venom, in Eren's voice, spewed from his draconic's maw as easily as sibilant tones had come to the King when speaking of the True Fae and their kind. Between them, the amity of anger threads easily (astonishingly, given that Eren is no Summer courtier), uniting heart with beating heart as both gold and ebon dragon push ever-forward into the deep of the forest. Uncharted and remote, this stretch of Dorchacht's Wilde, the tangles of its dense underbrush falling in intervals to the singe and sear of Asura's evocation spells as he weighs Eren's words, discerns, and concludes: ] Sounds like a frailty to me.

[ A 'frailty', is it? The way Asura invokes the word, open and bereft of anything like judgement or pity, suggests that there's more to it than drawing a dotted line between compulsion and weakness, linking the two together. What that something more is, Asura speaks plain and clear: ]

Call them what you will, growing pains or quirks of the realm, but frailties always crop up when humans are imbued with more power than their bodies are equipped to handle.

[ In the case of Changelings, Monsters, and Witches all— Asura has known none to be spared from it. ]

If there's one universal truth you're going to place your stock in, let it be this: all things must have balance. And you, Eren? [ Eren, who Asura reaches out to touch if he is so allowed, the flat of his taloned hand resting briefly against the ridges and spines marking the other Mirrorbound's draconic brow in a gesture meant to allay and to soothe as that rhythmic, storyteller's drawl of his continues on: ] You were left unbalanced and out of synch in the instant you were granted draconic power and form by your arrival in Talam.

Always, the forces that surround us seek to put us back into balance again, and they do this with the imposition of their stranger rules and limitations. [ And what fickle things they were, the natural forces present in all worlds. Surely, Asura can no longer hear the call of Fate, the bellicose clamor of Summer, or the insidious whispers of Autumn as it plots to soon sow its ashen rot through the lush greenery of the Wilde, but that does not mean they are at all stricken from Talam. No, it is only that Asura himself is no longer attuned to them (and how quiet it is without their voices; how dull, the Fae in him thinks). ] Though we call them frailties, they can be categorized further as taboos and banes. Taboos are compulsions— impulses and prohibitions both. Banes, weaknesses to such things as iron and silver.

[ No different from weaknesses of turnskins, puca, and fae. ]

But you're keeping it together, yeah? Controlling it? [ Carding a taloned hand back, through the cascading curls of his hair, Asura is reminded of the Changelings who were ruled by them, their frailties, and so too became dangers to both themselves and others. And while they weren't the Mad, they had to be put down all the same, and it had always been Asura's hands (he is Imperator, after all, responsible for laying waste to all who would threaten his kin) which delivered them unto the grave (and to freedom from their frailties), in the end. ] If you can't, that's when we've got a problem.

[ But perhaps, more importantly: ] ...and I sure as hell reserve the right to deck you in the face if you're about to tell me that this field trip of ours was only arranged because of your damn fae attraction.

[usurpers]

[ there’s far more relief in listening than asura could begin to identify— but maybe he could, in tense eyes that begin to relax the same way his hide had once strained and was now releasing beneath the summer king’s palm against his scales.

it all being a balance makes enough sense that he believes it sounds more true, and healthy, than whatever it was that he first thought. not that he would believe in karma, but if he did, it would be in the works. it’s something he’ll have to keep in line more than he did the rest of him and his banes, and the whimsicality of it still pushed a worry into his thoughts. but he would not become feral is he maintained his bonds, wasn’t that so? so he chooses to snort, thick and smokey, and reassure’s his companion with a jest: ]

You smell good, but not that good. [ a roll like a deep base drum begins to sound in the dragon’s burly chest, like a motor being forced to turn on— even with something that worries him, asura manages to get eren to chuckle, as low and subtle as it was. would he get punched for that too, maybe? it was better than the latter. so, no, it hadn’t been so out of control, to the point that it pulled the strings even with who he wanted to see (. . . to an exent). being with this witch hadn’t been one of them, though he does have to wonder to which limit he should take the fae he’s met until now. scent and frailty, as asura called it, drew him to them. the rest developed on its own, a protective instinct aside. ]

I’d hope you won’t hold it against me, now that you know.

[ IN ANY. WAY. SIR. including the marvelous black-haired pixie-cut girl that’s walking about these days. asura does have a magnetic pull that attracts him so, the slight fizz of fae that swings through his tongue and to the roof of his mouth that he finds pleasant— but this being also had qualities that eren personally honors. and it is why, with uncertainty still trickling from his air in what he wants and what his weaknesses reign, it seems they have happened upon the little thing they were looking for, a glistening pool as crystalline as eren’s horns and talons. ]

[mirshikar]

Were I to hold anything against you, friend, it'd be how easily you revealed this secret of yours. [ And while their passions are the same, their cause often coinciding... ] Have we grown so close that you would cease to protect your interests around me?

[ And that? It's both reassurance and riposte ("you smell good, but not that good," and Eren, how dare you) delivered with the gleaming edge of a draconic's teeth. It needn't be said that Asura wholeheartedly enjoys this, the easy rhythms of repartee and the challenge posed by the Wilde and its terrain; the way the mane of his ravendark hair curls into oblivion beneath the Summer swelter and humidity, and how very cool Eren's ebon scales feel beneath the palm of his hand. All of it, Asura takes pleasure in, and unabashedly, it shows on his face. ]

My kind, we make it a habit to keep the nature of our frailties under lock and key. [ Lest the taboos and banes be employed against them, by either friend or enemy. Yet... Asura would guard this knowledge as though the taboo were his own, because what is human is worth protecting, and Eren is comrade and human both. Funny, how Asura has become a reliquary for the ebon dragon's memories (as Eren had so too become warden of the King's own), but in the end, perhaps this too is balance. That one universal truth he'd spoken of. ] And you...?

You went and spilled everything, no different from how this pool— [ The one Eren has unearthed the location of by the sensory dart and flick of his tongue, tasting moisture and who the hell knows what else. ] —is rumored to hide nothing and reveal all.

[ Like the human heart isn't more complicated and profound than anything in the realms. Reflecting its true desires is something Asura will have to see to believe, judging for himself if the pool with its mirror-sheen surface is a wonder no different from the Hedge's Soul's Skein Museum or the Bone Vein of the Grim Graves. ]

Guess I won't be needing to exercise my divination magic today, huh? [ Footfalls slowing to a measured stop, Asura makes short work of unfastening the canteens from Eren's back, setting them one by one upon the grassy earth below which shows no outward sign of infection. And no different from an oasis, the clearing which they've stumbled upon is starkly absent of any of the Wilde's treacherous overgrowth— it is pristine, protected by a dense thicket of trees, and in seemingly being bereft of threats, it makes... Asura rather disinclined to trust. ] Didn't think it'd be possible to find without a locator spell.

[usurpers]

[ maybe that had been some sort of trust eren deeply sought from somewhere, with someone. he’s only come to trust himself, and how much damage that has caused is somewhat measurable. how much would it have saved if he hadn’t had faith only in himself, since the beginning? the mental scarring of mangled bodies flattened onto forest earth, bitten in half and a neck snapped back into tree bark had stuck with him to this very day. even of a more recent tragedy, of a bullet bursting through sasha’s gut— in all circumstances, if he had acted on his own, things wouldn’t have happened the way they did.

distance between his loved ones had grown, his heart an icy block to catapult them even farther, and leave space for him to work. years of silence, oppressive weight on his shoulders and even depression cracked open when the king of summer was present. he could be himself after spending so long without the right. by choice, but. it was something he’d always gravitate to to remain sane. ]

At this rate, [ he merrs; his neck lifting but his body still against asura’s mighty palm as they found the pool. it didn’t even seem like the wilde, and the dragon’s hide still remains naturally tense as he tastes the surrounds for any other visitors, close or far. it was too lovely to be simply lovely, eren has learned, especially after falling for hallucinogenic sap from a carnivorous rose bush. ] you’ll know more about me than my own family.

[ he fail to see him for who he is, or maybe eren himself had failed to read who they were. perhaps not, if he struck every single one of their weaknesses with eerie precision. after a beat, as the dragon stares up at one of the protective trees in thought— he turns his neck and hooks the curve of his horn into one of the carrying straps of his opposite side. ]

Or my bonds. [ he’s— actually thankful for that. at most points he’d prefer to be less involved in his bonds than he could be. a problem that he’s still attempting to find balance for, with some work and a little patience. ] Don’t think that’ll stop me from my own interest, though.

[ eren was destructive. eren had tunnel vision. even if he’s come to befriend many here, and begins to hold them dear— they’d all come in second place to him, and he’d shatter them the same way he’s shattered the people he loves if he thought he had to.

he does wait for asura before making the extra steps toward the pool’s edge, a web of canteens being dangled over the witch’s head and between eren’s fangs, and somehow . . . he becomes a momentary menace until forcibly taken from him. ]

[mirshikar]

Even if I should be the appointed warden of your memories...

[ A choice which Asura does and does not understand, though he largely suspects it is for the same reason he has entrusted so much to Eren: they are not Bonded and they are not family, nor will they ever be, and that stark lack of connection leaves no room for frivolous things like pity. Like the barrier of judgement and the hindrance of doubt.

And when the King had spoken the root of his sordid origins aloud, it had been as though a Changeling had received the words rather than the human which Eren is (and will always continue to be, despite his wyvern's form). Instead of idle consolation and apologies, he'd been met with solidarity and the taste of Eren's unabashed satisfaction (gratification, which Asura had felt before, something reserved only for those stories and expressions ending in freedom) lingering like the ripe flesh of fruit upon the back of the tongue.

Similarly, regardless of how destructive Eren is, the one companion he is incapable of shattering is Asura. Asura, who is removed and held aloft by what he suspects he will glimpse in the pool, should he only cast his eyes directly upon it.

But that is for later. Now is for bold proclamations. ]

The day you cease to pursue your own passions— [ Here, Asura's hum is mulling and deep, a thrumming oscillation of sound which reads like a drumroll leading into a peak: ] —is the day you become no Eren I know.

[ And Asura would weep for the loss. ]

Now... [ Let it be known that Asura is a man of many faces. As easily as he is righteous and warfaring, he can be downright draconic and mephistophelean. As readily as he can be grandiloquent and espouse Summer's rhetoric, he can so too be positively (shockingly???) informal and uncouth, laughing and boisterous when he asks: ] What the ever loving fuck are you doing?

[ That head-bobbing thing, which causes the web of canteens to swing, their leather straps becoming impossibly intertwined as their empty canisters clang! against one another in discordant rhythm. And while it should be notice that Asura's grinning something fierce in his amusement, he still shifts to wrest the canteen's free of Eren's fangs. The how of it? Well, that's easy. Reaching up, he seizes the canteens, uses his body weight to pull down and see their straps severed against the grate of carnivorous teeth.

The canteens? Fallen into the bassinet of Asura's arms. And Eren? Well... the state of the King's companion has yet to be determined. ]

Don't tell me that the pool has got you spooked.

[usurpers]

[ eren would be no more, indeed. the same way asura’s fiery presence would vanish if something as cold as melancholy were to rest on his shoulders and ask him to cease. the dragon’s bobbing stops, for the most part, the instant those dangling canteens are snapped out of his teeth and leave behind rope getting chewed out of his maw in remainders. ]

I’m fucking with you. [ ay?? ay??? that’s a reasonable amount of stalling, isn’t it!

the pool manifests, and once more, a familiar face appears amongst the easeful ripples that seem placed by a breeze— eren’s reflection is horned no more, scaleless and the picture of how he would truly look. human, as he was. still growing and ever tall, he has his back set against a tree and his knee propped to his chest, hair long with age but tied back into a bun. asura’s reflection is not the one that bounds next to him, but if a blond boy reading a book, occasionally looking at him with a smile, probably blabbering about whatever it was that was written on pages— eren’s eyes and heartfelt smile are focused elsewhere: on a woman with black pixie cut hair, a red scarf around her neck even in such pleasant weather, and a gaze so soft, too soft, smiling back. it’s mikasa, of course.

the scene manifests in full form, and will do so for a few moments, with eren, the dragon one, wordlessly hovering his skull over it to inspect his heart’s wishes. seems legit, but it saddens him. he’s given this up long ago, as unremorseful as he was. his mouth moves, his teeth clatter, as if he was going to say something— but nothing comes. not immediately, anyway. ]

And I’m not afraid of it, either.

[mirshikar]

Y'know— [ —Asura starts, stops, heaves one hell of a sigh as he does a juggler's dance of popping canteen caps open one after another, thoroughly unwilling to forego his hold on the lot of them. Why? An easy thing, to see rivulets of water risen from the pool, the air surrounding suddenly thick with the pull and pulse of evocation magic as the King weaves a wordless spell to hurry along the process of seeing the empty canisters in his arms filled.

If any after-image or hint of a heart's desire lingered upon the mirror-sheen surface of the pool, it is disrupted now, when water snakes through the air, refracting light as it's directed by Asura's power and will. To say that Asura holds no reverence for the scene which he and Eren had glimpsed (idyllic, more so than any day which the King himself has known) would be inaccurate: the interruption had been orchestrated on the account of the ebon dragon's dispirited reception of the vision, borne of a want to dispel Eren's sadness (something which tasted like ash and stale rations upon the tongue) before it might be able to enshroud him (and kill Asura's tastebuds) because: ]

Just when I think I understand humans, there are people like you who go and put me back at square one. [ Water streaming into the canteens at his direction, Asura does not turn his eyes back to the pool again; it has proved itself a wonderment, and he sees no further need to test its magic. What he'll wrest with instead is this: ] Mikasa has been drawn through the mirrors, and this is a desire easily fulfilled.

[ And as such, it should not have been reflected in the pool at all. Yet, Eren is all clattering teeth and stilted silence in the place of the sunset exuberance marking his scales, leaving only one possible explanation: ] ...you have not gone to her yet, have you, Eren?

[ So yeah. Asura, he doesn't get humans (or is it just this human?) at all. Can't begin to fathom any cold rationale which might prevent a mortal from pursuing one of the most powerful emotions (love), second only to wrath itself. ]

[usurpers]

[ if only it were so simple to accomplish such feats. the dragon remains still-quiet as canteens fill. still quiet. uncomfortably so when his eyes tell all: sadness. ]

I have. [ twice, directly. a few times afar. except eren hides behind his monstrous appearance to see her, and has long since stopped when her blood smeared onto some of his scales. drove him absolutely mad. ] She doesn’t know it’s me.

[ and, he much preferred it this way. things just weren’t so simple— muscle moves uncomfortably beneath his hide, as he rises to take the canteens to carry once more. ]

We’re not on good terms— and that was my choice. Sometimes the safest thing you can do for someone is create distance.