brave_kreyu | OOM: All Skate Skellig Dream Magic Weirdness?

(OOC: Warning for explicit adult content, mention of noncon/rape, slavery)

Is it a dream? A glimpse of a universe that might have been? A story untold?

Something called Skellig out here, to a road scratched in the earth between the desert and the land irrigated by the river. The sun overhead is like a hammer, the heat murderous. His coat...he can't remember WHAT happened to his coat. In this heat the coat would be as strange as his wings to human eyes in any case.

There are two small mud-brick houses up ahead, then more road, and a mud-brick wall encircling a small village of mud-brick houses.

He needs a drink, desperately.

He hears footsteps coming toward him, the heat haze breaks to reveal a woman. (Except she can't be a woman, no one human has that much Light inside them, that much power.)

"Even one touched by the gods should not be walking about this time of day," her voice is all concern, all worry. She's wearing a white linen kilt around her waist, and nothing at all above it except a necklace of blue clay beads. She's lovely. (And she feels familiar? Why?)

She offers a hand to him, seemingly not concerned in the slightest about his wings.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

brave_kreyu

"Not everything. It might help if you weren't having to picture clothing as well."

She stands, slowly, walks over to a chest and fishes out a length of linen. "I can show you how to wrap this around yourself to make what I am wearing."

From:

27_53

"That may help."

Skellig watches her form as she walks away from him, studying her body movements as she moves to the chest. His eyes drift over her dark hair, her skin, her wings (they are not like his, they are like an eagle, predator, hunter) as she bends to gather the linen.

She is so very frustratingly familiar and yet...the connection is missing, a hazy gap in his mind.

He's still staring when she walks back to him.

From:

brave_kreyu

Her heart-beat picks up when she sees him still staring at her. It's not from fear. She's had men stare at her before, overheard words she wasn't meant to hear. Young men boasting, saying that it would be a fine night if her breasts were in their hands and they were filling her with their cocks. That they would lay with her, but laying with a witch makes a man impotent. His stare doesn't feel like those looks.

"I would demonstrate on myself, but that would make what you were looking at backward. I, is it alright if I touch you?"

From:

27_53

His stare is most definitely not like those looks.

"I...yes." Skellig nods, breaking his gaze and his attention from her form to that of his own. He flushes, slightly, with his next words, and the heat in his skin is not from the sunburn he got earlier while under the glaring light in the sky.

"I would undress, if that is acceptable?"

From:

brave_kreyu

"Of course, if you are comfortable doing so." Kreyu flushes. "Do you want me to turn around, or...?"

He's so vulnerable, right now. It would be wrong to even WANT anything from him while he's like this, wouldn't it? Even though she has the strangest certainty that he would make this aching WANT inside of her go away.

From:

27_53

"You will have to look, to touch me...it is not..." he stammers a bit, then laughs nervously and shakes his head. "I just did not wish to be improper. You do not have to turn around."

Skellig does divert his gaze to the floor, before he works to shed his jeans free of his body. His habit of going 'commando' on occasion (such as this one, though he is still unsure if this is a dream, reality, or the afterlife) leaves him feeling incredibly vulnerable in this moment, as he strips in front of her.

From:

brave_kreyu

She flushes, echoes his nervous laughter. "No, no you won't be."

She's just, going to keep her eyes on his face. And not ogle him like a creep. If she believed that gods existed, she would swear right now that Skellig had been sent to torment her with what she can not have.

"I know you must feel very vulnerable right now," she says. "It's not RIGHT, that this happened to you. That you wound up here like this." She's clearly outraged on his behalf. "But you can claim the empty house across the way, and I would be glad to teach you anything I can."

From:

27_53

"If I am to be here for any considerable length of time...it would be wise to take up your offer."

He briefly bows his head in a silent show of gratitude (can't bow here people will see) and then glances up at her, now that she has closed the distance, linen in her hands.

Now she is going to have to touch him.
Right.

Skellig soundlessly works his throat, then nods a little quicker.

"The shifting -- that will be more readily accomplished, once I am clothed." That's where they were. Getting him redressed.

From:

brave_kreyu

"You don't owe me anything, Skellig," she assures him. "You never will." (Why are those words familiar.)

"I hope so, yes." "I want you to be safe, to be comfortable."

She wraps the linen around him, once, nothing kilt like yet. "It would be easier for me to walk your hands through it if I were behind you, I think. Is that okay?"

From:

27_53

"That would be fine."

Plus, if she is behind him, he will not have to meet her gaze, or lay eyes on her body - so close to him. He nods, placing his hands at the edge of the linen at his waist, holding it as she moves.

His wings shift carefully as she settles in behind him, trying to get them out of the way as best as possible, but it is inevitable that her fingers brush his feathers.

Edited Date: 2024-03-21 02:49 am (UTC)

From:

brave_kreyu

Her fingers do brush his feathers, though she tries to be careful. And if her heart is beating jack rabbit fast, it's not from fear. She touches his hands very gently with her own. "Now, we start with a fold like this.." she explains, her voice low, calm.

She walks his hands through the steps, slow and careful. "And then tuck that there and it should stay put."

She lets go of his hands, comes back around. She's smiling at him, still.

From:

27_53

Between the two of them, the folds are managed and once they finish he is at least clothed in something entirely more suitable for not only the climate, but the time period. (He is sensing that this is...either much further 'back' than he can ever recall being, or that he has drifted very, very far off course.) It is unsettling, but no longer standing bare in front of her helps slightly.

Keeping his gaze on her face, he nods.

"Thank you."

A strand of her hair falls into her face; automatically, he moves a hand to reach for her hair to brush it back, tuck it behind one ear (it is a motion that his muscle memory feels as if he has done dozens of times before, which he does not understand) but he pauses before his fingers actually make contact.

Why is that so familiar?

"Sorry, I--" he shakes his head, confusion painting his features. "My mind feels as if it is playing me for a fool."

From:

brave_kreyu

He's VERY far back in time, before the last Ice Age, in fact.

"It's alright. I, I wouldn't have minded." She flushes. "I kept having to fight the urge to, to preen your wings, the whole time I was behind you. Like a bird preens its mate."

"I should REMEMBER, if we'd met before, even if I had died between then and now. It's the nature of my kind."

From:

27_53

"It is just strange," he says. "But perhaps it is because we are similar, and there are not any others like me that I have found."

He's still not fully sure of what is going on, but he knows he has to adapt to survive it, even if it is perhaps simply madness, or a hallucination...

"We should try again, the shifting?"

From:

brave_kreyu

"None?" Her expression turns slightly sad. "It's lonely, being the only one of your kind somewhere." For all her beauty, for all that the village respects her power, they FEAR her too. She's been so very lonely.

"Yes," Kreyu replies. "If that doesn't work, I'll need to get you to somewhere you won't bake to death with something covering your wings."

From:

27_53

"It was very close, earlier."

Settling with the amulet in his hand, he looks over her body once more (a flush briefly colors the tips of his ears and his cheeks) before closing his eyes.

Hair, first. Then his complexion, skin darkening, an added tan from the sun kissing the way over his flesh. Then the wings flickering briefly before they are concealed from view.

When he thinks he has it, he does need her help, however, to knot the cord for the amulet. His hands ache. And it is tricky, with his fingers.

From:

brave_kreyu

She moves close to knot the cord around his neck. She has to stand on tiptoe a little bit, spread her wings for balance. (She's close enough that he can feel her body heat.)

"There," she says, satisfied. The amulet was plain, before, now it bears the image of an owl. "It looks good to me, but you might want to check your reflection in something."

She bends down to rummage in the chest again, brings out a hand sized polished bronze disk. What passes for a mirror around these parts.

From:

27_53

It will suffice.

He catches the glimpse of himself in the reflection and works to study it. This is unlike anything he has ever imagined himself looking like. But it will work to conceal him from harm or any other issues that may arise.

The lack of wings is unsettling, but it is not what bothers him the most.

Skellig looks to her.

"If I have died...I have come back without some of my abilities," he offers. "Things are just...off."

From:

brave_kreyu

"Off how?" she asks, concerned. And the back of her mind is already turning over the issues with his hands, how she might help.

From:

27_53

"Typically when I fly, I can sense directions...north, south, the winds...everything has a way point. I can just...feel it."

He shakes his head, hands her back the 'mirror'.

"I cannot. I don't know why."

From:

brave_kreyu

"I wonder.." She huffs. "I know a technique that might help."

She pulls a fabric hanging off of the wall, tosses it on the floor.

She settles herself on the fabric she put down, which should at least show him how to sit with the kilt on without flashing anyone.

"Would you sit with me, for a while?"

From:

27_53

As she moves to sit on the floor, Skellig carefully watches her (how can he take his eyes off of her, with the way she moves with such ease and fluidity) settle on the fabric.

And then he follows.

And while the ache in his knees and the rest of his body is not the worst it has ever been - it is not with ease that he lowers himself to the ground, mimics her position as he takes his place across from her. It is obvious that his body is tired, and it is not merely from the heat of the day having done a number on him.

From:

brave_kreyu

There is concern in her eyes at his movements, but that is a problem for later.

"It helps, to be seated on the Earth." An explanation and an unspoken apology for his pain being necessary.

She offers both wrists to him. "Being what I am, I am tied into Karma, into the fabric of the world. I'm hoping you can use my pulse to find that fabric, or find the one you knew before."

"Please put a finger on each of my wrists, press enough to feel the pulse there, if you can." There ARE other places where the pulse can be readily detected, but they are more intimate. "Then just relax, focus on what you feel beneath your fingers."

Karma flows through the world, through Kreyu, through him, through everything. Ley lines like veins in the body. Warmth, Life, Emotion, the sound of her heart is the world's heart.

Edited Date: 2024-03-22 12:41 am (UTC)

From:

27_53

Sitting with her, he takes hold of her wrists and allows his fingertips to press as instructed. The first thing that he notices is her heartbeat, and she will be able to feel the way that his surges as the rhythm becomes easily sensed by his mind.

Karma and Light colliding between their bodies, in this space where it pools around them.

It is nearly a palpable crackle of electricity that runs over his skin as he reaches, allows his mind to sense her, fall into line.

(It takes much less effort that he expects - as if he's done this before...)

Skellig visibly relaxes - substantially - with his hands remaining on her wrists, as things slide, waver, and start to fall into some semblance of order in his confused and jumbled mind. He still does not know where he is, how he came to be here, or why he is here.

"Kreyu."

It is the second time he has spoken her name, and it is different off his tongue. Fond, almost.

From:

brave_kreyu

Her breath catches and her pulse races when he says her name like that. She WANTS that, so much. The almost fondness a craved balm for a lonely heart and a body aching with want. If he looks at the right time he'll see it in her eyes, naked and plain as day.

It's harder to shove those wants back down than it has ever been before. "Skellig." He might notice her tongue giving his name the lightest touch of those feelings, despite herself.