Part vampire Part warrior
Carnivore and voyeur
Without Avaneira, he feels lost.

He feels soulless.

Broken.

It made him hungry for many things, and it made him violently impulsive. There was a silent rage burning him from within; a deep and raw suffering that no other soul may heal. Now, he feels like an outcast, alone to his thoughts. He rarely talks anymore, to anyone, and the soldier has forgotten how to smile.

His prayers have been abandoned to the darkness.
His love exists no more.

How can he move on?

Wordlessly, Amaroq approaches the ocean. There was a soothing lull to the ocean's caress, soft and ensnaring in its watery enigma. The water touches his toes, although barely. There is a gaping wound on his face, where one blue eye had once been. It pours out blood now.

Drip, drip, drip.

The pain is intense, but even with one eye missing, Amaroq still feels numb.

@Tinúviel

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

She had forgotten how much she missed the sea.

The crone had kept her fettered from it, secluded in that ancient forest, whose trees reached endlessly into the sky and kept the sun from peaking through its ceaseless canopy. She had lived in its darkness, dwelling betwixt the gnarled roots springing up from the mossy grasses before curling back down into the earth. She had missed the blissful assonance of its waves crashing against the dark shore, the crooning calls of seabirds taking flight against the seafoam-tipped knots. There is nothing that interrupts its constant motions; a stillness exists in its repetition, unending, unyielding.

Except for him.

His fur is so deep a crimson that Tinúviel cannot tell he is bleeding from so far away. Gently, her nimble paws guide her across the star-kissed shores, her path having long begun to converge upon him, determined to find her way back to the Lagoon with the small stash of herbs that hung gingerly from her hips. She hoped at first to approach wordlessly, to pass behind him and leave him to his quiet thoughts. But as she nears, she can see the trails of blood leaving his face, half-lidded by red hair that frames his cheeks, curves beneath his jaw. She sees it from his chin, the rhythmic drop, drop into the sea below.

You're injured, she calls from the shore, her voice rising just enough to be heard above the waves. It is both a statement and a question, an imploration: Would you like help?

@Amaroq

Art by AleTie, table by cala

Part vampire Part warrior
Carnivore and voyeur
His blood pools to the ocean; drip, drip, drip.

Sands stained by his dark crimson, only to be swept off at sea.

Amaroq would silently watch the undulating waves roll in and out, frothing like arctic wolves as they crashed ashore and breathed in a hunger so deep it almost seemed holy.

He is so caught in watching the violent waves, he barely discerns another individual approaching him from behind. The thrashing of the seas made it difficult for him to focus, and he's become reclusive ever since Avaneira's death.

He will then feel the rustling of furs and the delicate voice ushered like petals against flesh. When he turns around to face the source of such tender sound, is it the image of a gentle, earthen maiden who has extended her mercy, her caring hand. She seems almost angelic for the way she moved, breathed.

"I don't know if I can be helped," Amaroq confessed, his whisper soft and dark, almost drowned out by the violent hunger of the sea.

@Tinúviel

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

She can sense a pain deep-rooted, unrelenting. It stretches far past the maiming of his eye, lingers in the ceaseless depths of the remaining icy blue; it feels a sin to look there, to try and discern the emotion sprawled across his wounded face. Her lips curve into a gentle frown, willing her sympathy at bay. She wanted nothing more than to rush toward him to will him from the sea and onto the sands where she could clean his wounds, mend his aches. But this—this, was something she could not heal. The eye cannot, she admits, knowing far too well the signs that it was lost, that no amount of medicines or tricks could bring his sight back. But I can ease your pain, if only for a moment.

She had tried to ease Alexander's, Ronin's. Time and again had the stubborn will of men kept them from the surrender of her gentle hand, her guiding sympathy. Please, she pleaded, taking a step forward, plunging her feet into the swell of the ocean toward him, clenching that distance just a little more. She would not fight him further, for it were a lion's most vulnerable time to be caught so physically and emotionally wounded, and Tinúviel still yet feared the powerful paw of angry men. But bolder was she now that these years had come and gone, the weight of her grief and of her crown willing her to take that first chance, to relinquish that little bit of control.

@Amaroq

Art by AleTie, table by cala

Part vampire Part warrior
Carnivore and voyeur
His obsidian talons sink into the moist, pliant sands; the sand churns and swirls - the frothing waves, scrawling its salted caress against the flesh of his powerful arms.

Swirling, around and around, as the water seemed to heal him. The damp touch of the sea would soothe the fires of his heart, if only temporarily.

But his pain was immense.

Unending.

He feels like he is lost, like he's surrendering his soul to the sea. Apart of him wished to return to the end, and maybe then, and only there - beyond the edge of the horizon - he would find his Avaneira waiting for him; halo-bright and celestial.

He turns his gaze fully towards the earthly angel when she'd whisper please. Oh, how soft her lips, how gently she'd stretch out her nurturing hand; tempering him from his decided fate. Amaroq cannot help but be drawn towards her, to surrender himself into her gentle, near-winged embrace.

Wordlessly, he moves, shifting his masculine physique, turning away from the sea to fully face the maiden. His bright, icy blue eye peers at her, watching, waiting, some part of him hoping to be saved. He brings his face close to her's, inhaling her scent.

Still, he doesn't say anything.

The blood from his wounds continue to drip.

Drip, drip, drip.

Down upon the flesh of her paw, down upon the yeilding sands.

His faded light, his life, ebbed and flowed as one with the sea.

@Tinúviel

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

He is wordless.

He is mystery in corporeal form, something she can and cannot touch. As he nears her, she stiffens, the fear of men still unimpeded deep inside her, encouraged to rear its head by his massive stature, the twist of pain in his face as he ventures forth, as he closes the gap between them. His breath is hot on her face, the smell of his blood overwhelming the salt of the sea and the roguish heartlands of Amaryllis threaded through every unkempt, half-curled hair. She fetters herself to stillness, keeping from that instinctual urge to lean back, to free herself of the overwhelming intensity of his closeness. Her steely façade threatens to break, her girlish empathy giving way to the fear that dwells beneath, gnashing its glinting fangs.

And then he is before her; slumped, defeated. She relinquishes the breath she'd not known she'd been holding, a soft suspire leaving her lips in quiet surprise at his sudden surrender. Swiftly does she abandoned her fears and prejudices, falling to her knees just before him, cursing that she'd not enough herbs, not enough bandages to ease the bleeding of his angry wounds. She'd had just enough to do as she'd said: to give him this brief moment, to comfort him a minute longer. Eat these, she instructed gently, pushing poppy seeds before his lips, suspended in the viscous sap that too came from that same plant. It would numb the cruel pain of his maim, delight him with a hazy comfort, fill his thoughts and dreams with that of comfort, of home.

However reluctant he would be to take the medicines, she would swiftly too seek to run her careful tongue along the fringes of his wounded eye, clearing away the dried and clotted blood that curled around the curve of his jaw, tensed, aching. She cared little for the closeness shared between them now, nor the anticipating surge of the tide licking at their paws. For now, it was only him, and it was only her.

---

+5 Dry or prepare herbs for use (1/2)
+10 Heal a character’s sickness or injury (1/2)

Tinúviel is attempting to heal @Amaroq.

Rolling 1d10: 10

Art by AleTie, table by cala

Part vampire Part warrior
Carnivore and voyeur
She moves with apprehension, first. He can see her hesitation, her reluctance. Every one of her feminine gestures would be laced in a soft gracefulness, an ethereal quality that almost reminded him of Avaneira.

Was she afraid of him?

Did she fear his wrath?

He couldn't entirely tell, he could only note the distinct shyness that diluted her angelic persona, that tempered her bravery for a second as she fumbled beneath his looming shadow.

Eventually, she unfurls, moving towards him; as swift and nimble as a fox, addresssing his wounds before putting poppy seeds in his mouth. Amaroq allows the silence to spill between them, their breathing all but softly laboured against the harshness of the ocean's melodic snarls.

He savours her earthy elixir, tasting the poppy seeds in his mouth, surrendering to her will; surrendering to her and blindly obeying. He had nothing left to lose, and in this moment, this stranger's kindness meant everything to him.

As the cerulean waves drew between their legs, swirling in frothy abandon, Amaroq lowers his head so she may lick the dried blood free of his grisly wound. Amaroq flinches slightly, feeling the sensation of pain ebbing against his flesh.

"Thank you," He whispers under his breath, feeling her inhale and exhale warmly against his skin.

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

He does not fight her in the way Ronin had, or shown reluctance as Alexander. Instead, he relents all at once; mighty and brutal a beast he seemed by comparison. She moves with caution as if he a wolf and she the lamb, as if any wrong or sudden movement may send him afray. There is a tension built beneath his skin, glittering like golden fire threatening to burst through. He recoils from her touch, from the pain, she knows, and yet she cannot help but flinch, falter. The waves crashing all about them provide a strange sort of comfort. How easy it would be for them to swallow her, to wash her away to sea.

They had once before, after all.

And there was no scarred knight to save her this time.

A shuddering breath exhaled from between her lips, before she refocuses her attention back onto his wound. The salty spray of the water burling all about them would not ease his pain, but perhaps would help cleanse the wound, fight away the chances of infection. Thank you, he says, and she barely catches it above the roar of the sea. Her ears twitch softly, pulling away, glancing into the icy blue of his remaining eye. Endless, melancholy, angry. Unrelenting. Do you have a safe place for the night? she asks, knowing well the effects of the pain medicine may leave him weary, hazy, ill-prepared for a fight spent in the Amaryllisan wilds alone.

@Amaroq

Art by AleTie, table by cala

Part vampire Part warrior
Carnivore and voyeur
we all feed on tragedy,
it's like blood to a vampire

The silence lingers between them. It's coupled by the ocean's hum. He's grateful for her help. He's solemn and quiet, watching with a heady gaze, as she moves around him. He lifts his tired eyes to meet her question, and the words that come out of his mouth were hushed and dark. "I do," Says Amaroq, and it's half-truth. He has no where to go really, but the wilderness was his home. He belonged to the forests. Still, Amaroq looks at her with quiet assessment. There is something delicate about her, something soft and fragile that squeezed at his heart. When he finally stands up, he's all grace and feral stillness. He would seek to drop a kiss along her shoulder, another quiet thank you, a soft farewell.

Exit

table by ryuu