Suspire billows past his lips. Winter claws his fur, runs tracks of nails down his spine. The icy air escapes his lungs. It seems every breath is laced in ruination - how the anger ran hot in his veins, the suffering, the silence of loss. Yet the soldier's face remained rugged, apathetic, devoid of emotion as he yet struggles to accept his new reality. Warmth, taste, hunger, touch. Love. Love, unlike any other. They were sensations he once knew of his deceased wife, but now nothing reaches for him from the darkness - but darkness, itself. Amaroq turns to the shadows, he turns away from everything he has ever known and travels into the night, not lulled by a siren's cry, but the undertow of a deep, dark abyss. The undertow of a quiet, still nothingness.

don't fret precious i'm here
step away from the window

a taunt, a smirk, shared laughter. a threat, cold shoulder, apathy.

memories as fond as they are perplexing, safeguarded beyond reach of the hands of time that seek to erase. accessible only in moments of rare and very fleetingly, yet impactful enough to dampen her lively spirits with a twinge of resentment. for theirs were a friendship snuffed in bloom: abrupt to blossom in shades of vehemence, and equally abrupt to wither into a quiet oblivion. a warning of separation forgone in favor of a reluctant acceptance of fate: fire and ice, a cursed affair, each destined for complete ruination at the mercy of the other.

and olive has long since understood in his absence.

but it is indisputable: the familiar aroma of red that snakes through the tunnels, seizing her focus and shifting her trajectory entirely. the recognition is instant – intriguing – wrenching her gut with an influx of uncertainty as an uncharacteristic anxiety wracks her mind. and as she encroaches further and further into his proximities, his musk intoxicating and amplified by quickened breath, her trepidation begins to morph to indignation. a fierce ire contained in the clench of her jaw, the burn of her vermillion stare that further ignites as it consumes his brilliant physique. vibrant as ever, serving to deceitfully conceal the gray of a demeanor he wears like a mask.

“hiding away in caves, now?” it is a murmured inquiry that unveils her lurking presence, reverberating off the cavern walls and after his retreating form despite its muted volume. stunting her pursuit as she observes the shadows that coil about his every facet, threatening to swallow him once more from view. as if @amaroq were but a figment of imagination, conjured only from a deep-seated loneliness arising from the perceived neglect from her cherished queen and sister._{BG — ART — CODE}

Shine down upon the severed



He turns his face towards her enchanting voice as @Olive speaks from the shadows, but all he sees is a ghost of himself in the glimmer of her vermillion eyes. His heart feels both heavy and empty and full, mourning the loss of someone he once and still held dear. It shows in his posture, in the lithe darkness of his demeanor. There is grief there, hidden behind the pale surface of his cold, blue eyes; a sonnet of empty dreams and empty shorelines, where not even the winter breeze dared touch, for fear of surfacing emotions even colder than himself.

He didn't have time to mourn the loss, not before his universe came crumbling down before him. Amaroq feels lost for the first time, lost and alone. Afraid to face the world by himself. Perhaps, it is better to be alone, better to seek the company of ghosts and demons, better to be the lone soldier in a battlefield of hunger and misery and suffering.

Olive is neither ghost nor demon, but her sharp remark, where once might have riled him, only curls the darkened edges of his lips into a soft, dismissive sneer. The memory of his wife's skin against his flesh feels as alive and real as the winter air that clung to his fur, as restless as the wailing sea-breeze that claws hungrily for the shore. The soldier is hungry, hungry for some semblance of peace, hungry for answers, hungry to have his wife back, but he knows there is no love amongst the kingdom of ghosts. There is no love to be found in the darkness of his silence and suffering.

Amaroq cannot even find the words to say to Olive, or what he truly feels. How can he ever lay to rest his heartache? Grief eats away at his soul; raw, mourning howls; a deep and ominous tide where he feared his spirit would be lost forever to its bottomless depths. Hunger, madness, want; his frigid aura, now imbued by a frosty despodency, as a sense of emptiness suddenly overcomes him.

"Better the darkness, than you," He finally finds the words to say, he finally speaks after a long-drawn out moment of tense silence, masculine baritones laced in that same apathy as his eyes touched her figure only briefly, before flickering quietly away. There was no malice in his voice, no arrogance, only a cold and bitter truth.
For men like him, were destined to be alone.

the ghost is as a stranger, swathed in layers upon layers of secrecy she’d once endeavored to disrobe. each attempt made futile by abiding apathy, each attempt devolving into chaos and confusion and fractured confidence. recollections of cruel sentiments (both delivered and received) serve to haunt, clinging to the shadows she and @amaroq cast upon the cavern walls. they whisper warnings of undoing, pleading with her to lock the past in their respective memories – where they belong. but olive is a terrible listener, and the hint of a soft smile graces her features as she ignores them, as his sullen tones shatter a prolonged and tense silence.

however icy, the words confirm that he is there.

quiet, motionless. the slackened clench of her jaw a minute expression of the relief that washes over her; but even still, her posture is rigid. pupils trace the contours of his countenance as she considers his intended meaning, noting only a familiar severity. she had missed him, she decides. but some things were best left unspoken. “i will call off the search parties at once,” she manages instead, affirmative with a curt nod. but her words are barely a murmur, barely jest. and for once, her flippant, impulsive humor feels wrong as it slips from her mouth.

against her body’s demands, she pushes onward, intent upon narrowing what distance separates stranger from stranger. and although the behemoth should frighten her, he never had, nor would he; she approaches with little hesitance. the faint tweak of her upper lip conveys her muted contentment as she seeks to draw level with him, neck craned in slight as a byproduct of their drastic height difference. but from their close quarters, his grave aura engulfs her, overwhelms her – foreign even to one so indifferent, as he. “are you… alright?” she queries, concern a rare taste upon her tongue. but however rare, it is real._{BG — ART — CODE}

Shine down upon the severed



Apprehension riddles the atmosphere, overrides the soldier's paranoid, convulsive thoughts, as the girl makes her approach towards him, snaking against the darkened oceans of the cavern. Her voice feels soft yet deliberate, her delicate steps closing the distance between them and her behavior marked by such tentative grace, he cannot even remember if she had ever behaved with such gentle softness before. Amaroq follows her, coldly, tracing her sensously dark bodice as @Olive's lithe, female lines are offered against the shadows like some tender embrace, a hearth, a home, he could fall into.

Cold outside, burning within. The tension brings them closer, every step she takes enough to stir the fur along the back of his neck, lift the electricity from his frozen skin as his lips curl into a silent, unwelcoming sneer. He does not want to be close to anyone, he does not want her near him, he tells himself that he does not need the comfort or affection or warmth, he tells himself that she in intruding upon his space and yet he has no voice to tell her leave.

Lamenting the loss of his wife, bereft of his mate, the soldier suffers quietly, in silence, only allowing himself to be enveloped by its despodency. His eyes feel vague in their lustre, deathly, pale, as gaunt male cheekbones were made ruddy by old blood, old wounds and his features beheld both sorrow and apathy. Every night his shattered dreams would come to fruition, playing through his mind and leaving him feeling more lost, more delusional, more insane. He should crave that touch, that illusive warmth to soothe his despondent nature. He should crave the comfort of what little company he has, and yet the soldier mourns in his own way; leaving his fate tied to the darkness, to solitude. Alone, suffering, eternal.

Apart of him wants to bury his face into the softness of her neck, to breathe in her skin, to feel once more what it is to be alive, to be in love, to have. But he'd only be using her, his heart was Avaneira's.

"I'm fine," His reply is wintry, offering no warmth, no surrender, no entry way to his emotional well-being; his gaze hardening into cold, slits of ice that seek to raze her kingdom. Another part of him wants to push her away, to scare her, and it is that part of him that suddenly reaches for the delicate bones of her wrist, attempting to seize her, as if accusing.

"Why are you here?" He wants to snarl at her, to shout at her, but his voice only snakes from his lips in a dark, hungry and bottomless whisper. What do you want from me?

I have nothing to give.

where once immaculate, now grotesque. beauty torn asunder by the ruthless hand of loss, sparing little and leaving less in its ruinous wake. a hollow shell – haggard, defeated – donning the flesh of a once-formidable, once-unbreakable barbarian. and she: she is witty, but never wise; and even so, the disparity is as palpable as it is jarring. his indifferent facade fractured by an unknown ailment, permitting a vague glimpse into his shattered soul. a sorrow he denies with fingers crossed behind his back, though eyes bereft of life confirm her suspicions. and a contemplative hum filters past her lips, conveying both doubt and acceptance; she were deemed unworthy of his confidence, as she always had been.

how swiftly misery gives way to resentment. misplaced ire branding targets on her spine, and how true a shot his wrath proves to be. her delicate wrist, a casualty, and her brows furrow as @amaroq shackles the fragile bone with unrelenting force. but olive does not flinch, and her stare hardens with indignation, a tacit question wrought in the lines of her scowl: why?

his question mirrors her own, but it is quiet against the drips and creaks of the cavern – as if fearful of the answer. and she recoils with disbelief, scoffing as if insulted. “why wouldn’t i be?” emphatic, an inquiry she reflects upon him. one that offers insight into the manner in which she regards him, and regards him highly. her skull rocks with incredulity, and she attempts to yank her wrist from his grasp with a sudden and violent lurching. “i don’t see you for months, then boom, your trail’s back,” she elaborates, though irritation injects every syllable as she recalls his sudden absence. “so why wouldn’t i?” she reiterates, her volume increasing with budding frustration. this is their routine, after all: stalk, aggravate, and flee the scene. were he not her friend? or were their memories a victim lost to time._{BG — ART — CODE}

Part vampire Part warrior
Carnivore and voyeur
The soldier grips her wrist while she relents in her burning silence. The hot breath leaves his lips, suspire billowing in their diaphonous threads as he breathes her in. His eyes follow the graceful curve of her cheekbone, studying the lines of her face, the slope of her neckline, the soft accentuated flesh veiled in all the mockery of beautiful shadow and moonlight. Inhale. Exhale. Her. She is not porcelain, not silver. She is not the winter storm he knows so well, but the depths and ruins of a vehement sea.

She is soft and furious like the ocean, the lapping of the waves, the steadiness of the sandy shore, while he is that all-consuming darkness, the hunger, the wrath. A devouring ruin. Somewhere in the graveyard of his broken anguish, somewhere in the depths of his malevolent heart, there is supressed desire, there is a thread of hope lingering to be taken from her lips. To steal her breath with the kiss of want and delicious curiosity. To find religion once more in the absolution of her hatred, of her love.

But these blinding thoughts only seek to consume him, to destroy him, to humiliate him. He cannot love again, he cannot lose her, he cannot have another taken from him. He feared it all. He feared to love, he feared to believe.

"It's better that way," The soldier once again breathes within that shrouded wall of empty terror, hiding his pain behind a glassine surface of stoic indifference. Inwardly, the loneliness eats at him, devouring each thread of his otherworldly, spiritual flesh. He feels the unrelenting cold, burning icily within him; his hunger bound in their immortal hunger, consuming him in waves. Bruises clung to his flesh, his spirit, a raw aching forged of ruination and loss and disgrace. What has he ever done, but leave? Escape? Fall to the whim of eternal wanderlust?

Every glance cast upon the girl is shrouded in the veil of unspoken grief and shame. Every exhale leaves his soul feeling more and more sunken. Within his burning, blue eyes memories were buried, passions withheld. Harrowing, dire, each withered vein pulsed icily within him, each vehement and silent cry ached to resound into a violent scream. But on the ghost of him, the lone wolf that is Amaroq, it only came out in a broken, hungry whisper.

"I told you... I'm no good for you." He releases her quietly, pulling away. Ignoring the urge to push her back into the wall, to slam a fist against the boulder, to release all his sorrow, his misery, his frustration. To grieve into her, to embrace her. I'll never be worthy of you.

@Olive

we all feed on tragedy,
it's like blood to a vampire

the caress of moonlight is fleeting as it glints and dances across their features, illuminating shadowed silhouettes with glimpses of silver. and it is a ravenous manner in which her pupils scour the facets of his countenance with each flash, the circumferences of hollow sockets where a familiar cerulean once reigned. now collapsed to black holes beneath the weight of great indifference, and how she resents that practiced, abiding restraint upon his soul. her desperate attempts to unearth the faintest trace of emotion rendered futile, for he had long since buried and fettered feeling to the caskets of unmarked graves – never mournful, never contrite, and never in search of absolution for their untimely demise.

the clasp of fingers do not yet relent from her wrist, permitting close proximities reserved for lover and foe alike as the heat of his breath billows against the delicate flesh of her cheek. so befitting for a pair destined to tightrope the fragile twine between love and hate; and in that moment of mounting frustrations, it is evident as to which direction they teeter. his words, an offer of false chivalry sealed with underlying self-loathing, eliciting a stare narrowed by suspicion and contempt as she considers him. and while there is undoubtedly a degree of truth in his sentiment, olive is too stubborn and too persistent to heed such a warning. rather, she scoffs.

she reclaims her wrist with an abrupt lurching as his grip slackens, though his phantom touch remains in the midst of shrouding tensions. lips pressed taut in a firm line as she stifles the fury burning hot upon her tongue, rejecting protest in favor of contemplative silence. for while @amaroq houses little emotion, olive fosters too many to choose from, so they vie for dominion over her psyche all at once. overwhelming and perplexing as they drown her in uncertainty.

“fine,” she mutters, tones conveying of disgust and defeat as she succumbs to his guarded whims. her breathing shaky as she expels a remorseful sigh, lids drooping in the aftermath of loss. “just–” she starts, uncertain. “next time you visit boring land, take me with you.” her gaze rises to meet his once more, a flicker of life returning to their carmine depths with the semblance of normalcy she offers. one she extends to showcase a relinquished attempt at prying, and one she extends to refute his desire for permanent separation. they were not done with each other – not yet, she fears._{BG — ART — CODE}

Part vampire Part warrior
Carnivore and voyeur
He is drawn to her, like moon to ocean, bewitched by the lulling tide of her soul. She pulls away, her feminine features twisting in shadows, her slender wrist returning by her side; now removed of her warmth - apart of him subconsciously tries to lean into her even closer. The soldier stands in harrowing silence before the swarthy maiden, his lean physique bowing almost; leaning into her as he seeks to lower his jaws against her flesh. His lips near her lips for a moment longer, before his mouth draws against the soft, graceful sculpt of her shoulderblade. She feels soft, inviting, feminine. He feels like holding her, like embracing her -

"Olive..." He breathes at last, his lips close against her skin - learning her, knowing her - as though tasting her name for the very first time. Apart of him wants to say more, to whisper words of confession against her ears. To tell her that he desired her company, that he cared for her - that he had loved her from the very beginning.

"Olive, I..." Another secret, another whisper, another crack in his steely facade that threatened to shatter; his voice both dark and lingering with a marked hesitation.

The scent of her delicate flesh is a welcome distraction, a moment of reprieve - the touch he gives her, as intimate as it is nearly shy. He counts subliminally those long, dark eye-lashes that flutter above her cheekbone; the curving of her lips as they form each tender syllable; the fiery depths of her vermillion gaze, so passionate in her lively endeavour. The close proximity of her lets his mind wander, freely. His gaze traces her neck, her breastbone. Another breath. Inhale. Exhale. And suddenly, he can think of nothing but her.

But he can see how his presence has subdued her, hurt her. Her warmth, ebbing now, feels disarming; threatening to collapse the glacial walls he had built all his life. Uncompromising, resolute, the maiden stands like a sentinel being before him, a valkyrie, a shield; firm in her belief that he could be saved, that he should feel whole once again in the construct of their complex relationship. Truth be told, Amaroq feels broken beyond repair. If there is light yet at the end of the tunnel, he does not see it. But he sees her. She is not the light he aches to follow, but the ocean that threatens to have him overflow with a million emotions.

"...I should leave." His final reply escapes as a soft, startled whisper. He looks away, he pulls back - some silent part of him, still hurting. Still wounded. And wordlessly, Amaroq leaves her, disappearing into the darkness, a void burning hungrily within him as the last of her words echo like a sultry prayer against his mind.

Exit Amaroq

@Olive

we all feed on tragedy,
it's like blood to a vampire

for the first time, she fears him.

the confidence she exudes is innate – impenetrable by veiled threats, spiteful insults, lashing teeth against her throat. but it falters beneath the limelight of his softened gaze, evidenced only by the slight trembling of her lip as his face draws ever-close, and closer still, until all that separates them is the lingering breath they share. it is a moment with the breadth of an eternity, and a moment too fleeting to register. she’d mourn its loss, then, as his lips retract from the space before her own, as the promise of a touch she’d not known she needed goes unfulfilled – broken.

how fear anchors her, now; how it renders her catatonic even in the aftermath of voiced indignation. the passionate flare of her spirit, doused to crackling embers as her rugged outer edge withers at the brush of his lips upon the flesh of her shoulder. confusion is imminent with the affection he offers, and she tenses at the whispered cadence of her name – so foreign when it falls from his tongue, so soft yet sorrowful. to fill her heart and drain it all at once, to give and rip away a semblance of love in the blink of an eye. why?

there is a gleam to the gaze she pins him with as he breaks from her embrace, though it contains no trace of the mischief he knows so well. rather, pain swims in the depths of her vermillion stare, in the gloss that threatens to spill onto her cheeks as he motions to depart and abandon – again. but there is no protest to be had, no plea to stay despite the newfound whims of her heart. there is nothing; nothing but the haunting silence of the cavern, shattered only by the sounds of his retreating footfalls, by the quavering of her breath.

-- exeunt olive

_{BG — ART — CODE}