[C] STAY, DON'T GO. I'LL EAT YOU UP, I LOVE YOU SO.

[WHIPSTER.]

WE ARE JUST KIDS IN LOVE

He has chosen a land in which he wants to acquire. It had been mere days since he'd arrived, but Lucien was determined to start as quick as he could. To not surpass the chance he had here once time was on his side. At this second, he's numb from all the thoughts that cloud his mind. The future is upon him and it's almost like he's a boy again and not a self proclaimed man; dancing across lands and talking to pretty women. Running off and having nobody to answer to. But what he needed most was rest and food, as well as some sort of company. It was lonely in the shadows — Luci is a social creature. He's pretty and wants to be seen, wants to explore someone with his eyes.

Few thoughts pass behind his eyes as he walked the riverside, head bobbing light with the motions of sinking in damp sand. His back arched and legs moved out in longer stride than usual with his body upward. Luci is confident, and now that his hormones had calmed from the days previous encounter with a woman, he could exercise his muscles and show off the body graced by his draft mutt father and gypsy curved mama. The sun that splotched and heating his bone also added sheen to his pale golden coat, freshly clean from that mornings bath. He is about himself, he knows how to be appealing. Luci is lost in thought, hardly paying attention to his surroundings and absently chewing his lips when hoof steps jus gently press his ear.

He is suddenly standing there grinning, chest lifted and a haughty swag lining up with his spine. His ears swivel just slight to try and catch more sound, a possible voice or detection. Nothing more comes. Luci's curiosity is peeked, enough that he collects himself and starts forward again. This time, he is elegant and pretty with his neck arching and legs moving as if he was stepping on glass. The silver eyed man walks right up on the stranger and, at first — he does not realize. It's just the shift of her hip and the sleekness of the curves in her sides that make his heart thrum heavy. It does remind him of someone, but it couldn't be. Luci doesn't realize.

“Good afternoon, little dove. Come here often?” Lucien snakes his neck to push his face closer to catch her eye, and what could be an alarming move is simply a shy display of greeting. My, he might even be blushing save his black skin. “I can't say I have, myself.”

kota || this is trash but hungover and cheesin

[kota]

She can tell even from this distance that it is him, never in all her life had she met another boy made of precious metal, Lucien had been the first. With a body chiseled from the purest gold, and striking eyes of sterling silver, always, always filled with ambition.  He was raw and beautiful in such a way that no other creature real or fantastical could compare to him. It might have been the hormones talking, but even looking at him made her permanently rosy cheeks heat up in an inevitable blush. Or it might have been the surge of memories that flooded her mind making her pulse race and her blood rush white hot through indigo veins. This was how she should react, right? She wasn't overreacting? Wouldn't most people react to seeing their first everything in the same unnerved fashion. 

Still, she remains poised on the outside, she wouldn't let him have the satisfaction of knowing he ruffled her feathers without even the slightest physical contact. She wasn't that naive, not anymore. She could play his games, so she smirks. His words fill her ears and for a split second she is angry, furious even. He doesn't even recognize her. The emotion is fleeting, replaced by a coy sense of optimism. "I'm as new to these parts as you are, Lucien." She laughs but it is an empty, hollow sound. He is so close now, and all she can hear is her own blood rushing in her ears. She doesn't even know how to handle herself, let alone the boy in front of her. 

She plays her next card. She smiles, a catlike expression that pulls across angular features. Her eyebrows raise, and suddenly she becomes very amused by the situation she's gotten into. She traipses past him toward the waterfront. "I must have really made an impression on you." If she knew anything at all, she knew that he'd follow.

WHIPSTER. | sorry it's shit. but they're cute <3

[WHIPSTER.]

WE ARE JUST KIDS IN LOVE

Believe you me, seconds before she spoke he knew. The sudden click, coherently looking around the world instead of seeing through hazy eyes. Lucien's joints lock up. This girl — this woman is important. He tries to steady his breath. It takes a lot. One... Two... Three... It keeps him sane for what is to come and what is unfolding. Invidia is his sun, his moon, and the horizons as they are constantly changing. But he never admitted this to himself because it was bad. What she did to him was bad and he tried so hard to be a good man. A powerful man. Charlie and Iscariot were the figures in which he learned from, and he had learned to love the fire hearted Rhoswen, enough so that losing her had crushed his interior walls and made blood leak into his lungs. He thought he was free of the thoughts, of the painful writhing in his heart. But instead he was facing just a small part of the problem.

Luci has loved her since that first night when alcohol clouded his vision and they loved, so powerfully. She was the first thing in his life, aside from his parents, that made him want to be someone. And he swallows hard, and exhales a laugh because Lucien is a man. He is composed, even though his mind is whirling. “Wouldn't it be that the Gods have played us again?” They always do. But both of them are far too wild to ever obey them. His silver eyes follow and his breath catches when she is close by. But she does not touch him, she simply passes by and comes near the water to where he twists his long bodice. Luci faces her. Invidia is intelligent, and she is the only one that knows how he works. She expects him to follow, and he does. His pace is slightly faster than hers and the tip of his lips brush the base of her tail and it sends sparks through his body and causes his lungs to vibrate within him.

“You have,” Lucien replies. His voice is low and serious, eyes stricken with darkness. He lets cream tresses fall and cover his face. “somewhat. I suppose that it does not matter though, I haven't followed you here.” Luci does not play games; she will not find pleasure where his heart bleeds the loss of his mama or Rhoswen — because he would have died a thousand deaths for Vidi. But she was here, alive and well, while he knew nothing of his family. The man stops and let's her get ahead of him, and he stops chewing the corners of his mouth because he can taste the salty crimson blood as it pools over his tongue.

“Why here?” Lucien asks softly, almost shyly, like a little school boy whose been followed by his crush. “Are you real, Vidi? Is it you?” He can't control the emotions for a few minutes, it causes him to shake slight. “I've lost everyone else.” He's never missed someone so much before.

kota | fuck i love this

[kota]

Invidia was thrumming with suppressed vitality, simply being in the same vicinity as Lucien was doing strange things to her emotions. Still, she remains composed, but there is no doubt in her mind now, Lucien is magnetic. She refuses to face him, to drag the silence after the first words hit her ears. She snorts, in such a way that it could only be conveyed as amused. "This wouldn't be the first time that the Gods have played me for a fool and it surely won't be the last." Vidia can feel his gaze on her and she strains against the bound of her own frame, she dare not move. His lips just barely brush the base of her tail and her entire body becomes electric, she is buzzing all over. She whips her tail across her flanks in a feign attempt to shake the feeling. She turns halfway to face him, she is not afraid to look into the face of another demigod. No matter how much he makes her tremble.

You have. The words are burned into the foremost part of her conscience and her heart does somersaults within the confines of her steely ribcage. But they still when the rest of his words flow through her ears. Harks flick back as dark brows raise. "I would have never asked you to." She had run when things became more complicated, she always had. She'd left her mother when she'd found a new boyfriend. She left her father when the pressure of being a ward had gotten to be too much, and she had left Lucien when Rhoswen had become a bigger part of his life. She ran then and she'd wanted him to go away with her. She'd known better than to ask. Lucien was an honorable man, there was no doubt in her mind that he would have stayed. Vidia couldn't bear the thought of such a rejection.

She looks away from him, her eyes looking out over the waterfront. She's finding it hard to come back to the present when there is so much to dwell on in the past. She is afraid to be happy, she always has been. Happiness is the calm before the storm and she waits for the blow that inevitable comes after. 

She almost doesn't hear him through her daze, Lucien is anything but apprehensive. Her gaze snaps back to him. "If not here, then where?" She is always questioning, nothing is set in stone and she is always being rocked off balance by the uncertainty in her life. She makes eye contact, a movement that starts out almost hesitantly. Luci is so close to her now, so vulnerable. She's never seen him like that and it is making her skin crawl. She takes a few small steps forward, just close enough to reach out and touch him. 

She stays quite for a moment, such a short span of time that feels like an eternity. She is studying him intensely, biting the inside of her cheek. Another small step, she stretches out her neck slowly. Her velvet muzzle drawing dangerously close to his right ear. "This isn't a dream, Lucien." She places a feather light kiss below his ear. "I'm here, I'm real."

WHIPSTER. | i love them so much <3

[WHIPSTER.]

WE ARE JUST KIDS IN LOVE

“Neither I. Our ancestors laugh while we writhe in pain below.” He laughs, cruelly, attention turning to the water and staring absently into its depths; water clear and fading into black. It's deeper than he might have first thought. He does not speak because he has a God complex. This is religion. This is his youth where he was told his blood flowed from the finest. Invidia, too. He's always believed this of her for whatever reason. Luci knew her blood ran thick, oozing of greatness but her parents were the nameless lessers of his own. That's what he was told. Father had scolded him often when he'd find the two together. She is a harlot, my son. She will eat your heart. And she did. But she always kept it alive. Albeit anxiety, he matches her gaze with his silver pools as they burn from intensity and the sight of her electric blue ones. Luci has never paid this much attention to another before, he's sometimes too selfish. Had he never really seen that flash of color before?

His heart cleches in his chest as he listens carefully. “I would have never asked you to.” Luci knows this is true. And her stare is breaking his heart all over again, making him suffer a second time, making his silver eyes melt. Lucien stands composed, though. He does not falter in this way. The golden boy tries to speak but her eyes tear away and he's stunned. Every moment that passes is another loud beat of his heart in his ears, to where he misses everything around him and his body is uncomfortable. “You're stronger than I am, then, little dove,” Luci mutters with a grave chuckle to follow. It is hollow, for a moment he is void of all emotion. “I would've asked them to come.” Lucien snaps back to reality in time for their eyes to meet once more. His heart cracks more by what she says, because Luci had imagined many horrible deaths in his mind when Vidi left. Nobody had seen it coming, she had just disappeared.

“Back to the stars. I've chased a million shooting stars these past months in hope to find you there.” Lucien flinches at the sound of her hoof steps lurking closer to him. His teeth clutch soft, already bleeding skin of his cheek and reopen the cut, it's a nervous habit he has yet to break. Then again, it might've been his inability to break bad habits that left him blank faced and looking out into the trees behind the water. Her lips touch his temple, it's the gentlest of kisses.

Luci remembers what it's like to run alongside this woman also born of fire. And the smooth skin that glided over fluid muscle, her curves as she bended into his touch all those nights that they watched the stars. Lucien remembers Invidia as sanity, and how she gave up on herself to let him love someone else because it was his sworn duty as Charlie's heir. “You remind me of my mother, Vidi.” Luci's voice is strangled by emotions but he keeps it deep and lyrical. It's the sorrow song: his darkest thoughts pressing on the innards of his brain. “She watched my father love everyone before herself. I think she would have left if he hadn't come to his senses...” The mutt's crania turned into her. “I wish I had that chance before you left.”

kota | woah

[kota]

There is a short exhalation, electric eyes shoot a fleeting glance toward the ground at her feet, absently letting her toes dig into the soft soil. His laugh is a harsh sound in her ears, and she sights quietly to herself as he turns his silver eyes to the water.An impregnable silence envelopes them and for a brief moment Invidia is torn from the present. She is a child again, overlooked by Ida and suffocated by Isardis. She had been a secretive child, her parents barely got a glimpse of what lay beneath their child's sullen exterior. Only Lucien, the golden boy, had seen the glow within the shadows, the light she would have otherwise kept selfishly clutched to her breast. Such an ungrateful child she had been. Born into such a brilliant legacy, choosing no ignore her birthrights. Countless times she had to beg her father to reconsider marrying her off, purposely sabotaging every arrangement she'd been thrust into.

Invidia had known from the start that she and Luci had been doomed to fail, yet still she persisted. Even under Charlie's scrutinizing gaze she had dared not back down. But there was a fine line between she'd established between rebellion and respect, one she walked each time they two had been caught together. She knew what they thought of her and there was no real reason for her to try to sway it. He was already betrothed to another, how much worse could their situation have gotten...

Lucien's molten eyes are magnetic and looking into them she's stuck reliving the days she'd held his heart in her hands. She had been utterly terrified, looking at him now she saw that same boy, with the same perfectly tan skin, the same sharp jawline. Everything that she used to fall asleep thinking about. Invidia knew he'd grown into his sorrow, it had manifested in his loneliness, while hers had always been skin deep, always waiting dormant beneath the surface of her faded red skin.

Invidia is static, bristling, she is unsure how to react to Luci's words. Her teeth clench, then the words start tumbling out. "Had the desert girl escaped with you here I might have stayed where I was already." She is raw in her bitterness, there is no stopping the words from pouring from her larynx with increasing intensity. "Every time I saw you with her I took another bullet to the heart." She laughs, she is empty again. "I was so pumped full of lead when I left, I was poison to everyone I knew." Then she whispers. "I couldn't stay."

She smiles, though this time it's not strained. "Where you following the right star this time?" The tension is rolling off of him in waves, and she finds pleasure in this somewhere deep down in the darkest part of herself. Vidia knows not of how the universe works, but if the stars could show Lucien the way to this very moment she assumed that everything else must be controlled by nature as well. Would this last as long as the moon's phases or would the tides play a key role?

She hasn't moved an inch, she is almost close enough to breath him in and the idea is slowly tearing at her sanity. She sees no reason to hold back now, Rhoswen is no where to be found in this new country, this could be the making of a dream come true. She is skeptical of this, everything comes with a price and Vidia is ready to be kicked in the ass for just being in the same vicinity as this boy. Nothing good could ever come of this, happiness always ends, always. She had to keep telling herself that or she'd be disappointed when this ended. He's comparing her to his mother and normally she wouldn't want to ever be compared to someone's mom in any way shape or form, but this is Luci, and for Luci to compare anyone to his mother is quite an honor. Her lips quirk at the sides and she shakes her head. "You always honored your duties, Lucien. It would have been such a scandal to even been seen with me given our history. I couldn't give you that option. You were meant to love her. Not me." She shakes her head again, this time more violently. "Gods, everything is so fucked." All of a sudden is laughing, the sound bubbling from within her rib cage. She kisses him roughly on the cheek, spinning swiftly on her heel and trudging knee deep into the lake, just before the drop off. She turns her gaze to look back at him. "What kind of sick game do you think the gods are playing this time? Surely they don't mean to make us happy."

WHIPSTER. | laughing cos of vid's hysteria

[WHIPSTER.]

WE ARE JUST KIDS IN LOVE

Luci leans back on his heals and stares out into the lake, trying to find the right words and yet nothing come out of it. Instead he is dumbfounded, silver eyes swelling and crystallizing from the tears that he will not let go. He is a king, he does not cry. But his heart is also swelling from the comfort that is Invidia, even with her bitterness, even though he suffered the loss of his desert princes and mother. It makes him realize something as she mentions finding the right star. His heart sinks deeper into his ribcage, his head hangs. “I did not follow one last night,” he murmurs. “I watched it fly in your direction. Last night I no longer believed.” it hurts him to say this. The stars are where his father lived, guided him, and he had always had the suspicion that Charlie would never allow him to see her. “My mother liked you, Invidia. I bet she was taking control last night.” The golden skin of his shoulder tenses, his gaze finds her face and he sees the smile, listens to her words and is angry for a second.

Everything is fucked up. She's right. But this was their chance, wasn't it? She questions their gods. Normally he'd be angry about that, but he isn't for some reason. He believes her. The gods were cruel to them growing up, kept them as far apart as possible. Lucien is touched with some kind of urgency, moving his body to face Invidia fully. His eyes are brimming with emotion, months of pain, starving of love.

“Why not us for once, Vidi?” He asks this seriously. His mood changes because he suddenly believes that this is what was meant to happen. “If I think about it now, I wonder if I was really so lost that first month I couldn't make it back. I will always hate myself for leaving them.” He doesn't shift his gaze away because even through his words he is babbling. His mind whirls, it's uncontrollable now, he doesn't feel so shut out. His heart is exposed to Vidi, and only her.

He had imagined many horrible deaths.

The first was simple. Invidia died just like his father: at the hands of a wild cat who needed it's next meal. She was alone (her bright blue eyes screaming for his attention) and she did not look. The cat lurk overhead. She didn't feel a thing. The second was more gruesome. Her body was mangled and beaten, defiled, left for him to find at his doorstep. The gods had taken her away from him because marriage was sacred. Many, many more came after that. Some just as beautiful as her, some as ugly as him. Luci makes the impulsive decision to leap forward. His chest presses into her neck, his latches over her nape and he squeezes. Luci doesn't care about the consequences now, his father could strike him down with the fiercest of lightning. He would be unmoved by her side. For a long moment a silence is instilled inside of him. His body rests for the first time in weeks. “I want this chance with you.”

His voice is barely a whisper in her ear.

kota | ok