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| − | * - Back to [[GoldenCat/SixthMovement|Sixth Movement]]
| + | #REDIRECT [[ADanceOfAngels]] |
| − | * - Back to [[GoldenCat/DanceOfAngels|A Dance of Angels]]
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| − | == Pure and Pale ==
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| − | '''Alexander: ''' After all the troubles, the Spire stands quiet. And strange.
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| − | New structures jutted from the ground, ice and ivory towers filling the city, the Palace of Timeless Winters - the Spire that names the city itself - became a tree with many branches. A strange, strange world, and right now, a team has gone into the Palace to ascertain how safe it is, and so far, the Windian army has only tentatively entered the city with relief efforts.
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| − | And so, they stay in humble structures, as snow quietly falls...
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| − | As if ignoring the battle raged outside three days past, that had trembled the ground for miles away. As if ignoring the force that made Creation shiver as it tried to rise from Spire. The snow simply falls... calm, quietly.
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| − | As an angel makes his way through it, falling into one of the humbler structures the Windian Army occupied in the decimated city. Simple stables. They were mostly empty now, as Windians did not use horses like those of Whiteshield did, and many of Spire's own horses were lost in its attempted rebellion... but one horse was within, one that made the stable a royal resting place. For she was an empress among her kind, a queen on the battlefield.
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| − | An angel touched down, clad in a white and silver suit, with diamonds shining on his overcoat. Above his glittering silver hair, a halo in full glow marked him as an angel together with his great white wings... and he walked into the stable. A simple, simple place... made regal by its occupant, and her mistress. Ice, and the Pale Angel.
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| − | Alexander Holysword stood at the Stable's doors, looking at his lady tend to her familiar within, with a smile. His entrance was nothing subtle, but something simply made him freeze at the door, unable to take a step into the building...
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| − | The first time he sees his lady in four days, almost...<br>
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| − | The first time he can see that she is alive...<br>
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| − | That the fight that made the ground shake all the way to the Boil had spared her...<br>
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| − | No. That she had ''tamed'' it. That she had ''Won. ''
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| − | "I heard you were at the stables." He says, finally.<br>
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| − | It was hard to find the right words.
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| − | '''Vorpal: ''' Startled by the sudden voice, Vorpal deFay looks sharply up from where she is kneeling next to Ice's great form. The bandages she was struggling with slip free from her fingers. The entire wrapping she has been painstakingly building is ruined, slackening and sliding down the black coat slick with healing ointments and revealing the gaping wound left on Ice's belly by the General's gauntlet.
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| − | Ice, strangely enough, does not even snort a complaint at her treatment. Lounging comfortably on a thick carpet of dry hay, the beast stares at the newcomer silently with her crimson eyes.
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| − | The Pale Angel, on the other hand, hastily scrambles to her feet, her own eyes wide and worried. These past few days have not been good to her - her hair is unkempt, her hands stained with herbal mixtures, her entire demeanor carrying the subdued air of one who has only recently bled the black muck of Resonance out from her soul. "Alex --" she gasps, her voice faltering. "Is that -- you?"
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| − | '''Alexander: ''' "Yes."
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| − | White light shines around the snowflakes, making a display that is like light through water over the Pale Angel... as he watches her... unkempt, worried, but... alive. And well. He had heard of the fight... he had heard they were exausted, Iselsis nearly burnt to death...
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| − | "''Yes! ''" He calls as he runs towards her, picking her hands, staining his sleeves with the mixtures with abandon as he pushes her to him, tightly...
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| − | "You won..."
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| − | "You won."
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| − | '''Vorpal: ''' "No", she sighs, responding to the embrace a little more lightly than how is her custom. "I didn't. The Winlandians did. That's all."
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| − | "It's..." her hands slowly climb up his back, her fingers sliding over the jewel-studded fabric and caressing the softness of his white feathers. She leans down, tentatively, to caress the silken strands of his hair with her cheek. "It's good to see you. Did everything go well in your end?"
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| − | '''Alexander: ''' “That is the opposite of what the Winlandians told me.” As she caresses his hair, she touches his halo, and sweet music of his soul chimes from its in a crystalline tune. He holds her close, his lips touching the hollow of her neck, feeling her pale skin again... it felt like so long, those four days. So long. "The Dead Hand attacked. Obsidian is alive, and was at their forefront. They wanted to kill everything that moved." He says, and his voice breaks a bit. "They nearly killed ''me''..."
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| − | He reaches up, touching her lips with his', needful, wanting, hungry... "Their blades pierced my skin, I was spent of all my power... I had nothing... they nearly killed me, again..."
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| − | ''And I thought I would never see you again.. ''
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| − | '''Vorpal: ''' Her fingers are rubbing the glowing halo wonderingly when he says it. Her hand freezes at his words, her heart going cold.
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| − | ''They tried to kill him. ''
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| − | "Don't worry", she murmurs to his ears, like a mother to her beloved son... no, no, that isn't right. Like a woman to her beloved prince, because that is what he is to her. She allows her hands to drop, to encircle him with her arms and to hold him close, to feel his warmth against her body, to allow him to feel her own presence in return. "You're here now. You survived."
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| − | ''They tried to kill him. ''
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| − | "I'm here now, too. We all survived, so there's nothing to worry about..."
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| − | ''I will flay them alive. I will seek them out and take them apart, slowly, one bone after another. I will crack their joints one by one, I will boil their hides in blood, I will lock their souls in little jars so that they will keep on screaming endlessly for all eternity... ''
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| − | '''Alexander: ''' And he does the same. She feels so... warm. She always did.
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| − | You never knew that until you touched her.
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| − | All those weeks, looking at her, thinking she was like... ice. He could barely think of her, all his thoughts made her a rock, made of ice, unfeeling... and yet... she was warm. So warm.
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| − | He is close, nuzzling, kissing...
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| − | "And you? How did it go...? You feel... look... so..."
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| − | There weren't words for it, and that was the first time he had ever seen her like this...
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| − | '''Vorpal: ''' "Tired. I know." Vorpal does not let him go. If anything, she holds her a slightly tighter, like a lost spirit seeking support from a little pillar of heaven.
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| − | "That battle was almost too much for me. I think something... snapped inside me. For a few moments, I -" She pauses, and something in her stance changes ever so subtly. Her frame straightens, solidfies, like the stalk of a wilted flower when given a drop of fresh water is poured on it. "No. It wasn't just for a few moments, it was for the rest of that hateful day. I still feel it, but not as strongly. It felt... hopeless, Alex. I wanted to leave it, let go, move on by myself and not care what would happen to you all. It wouldn't matter to me, I thought, since you all would only betray me in the end."
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| − | "Yes, Alex", she adds with a wavering voice, and the strength in her embrace seems to melt away like snow in the way of sun. Weak and fragile, lost and lonely like a mirage on snowfield, like the last icicle about to break free from the eaves and shatter against the ground. "Even you. Abyss take me, I've never been so disgusted with myself before..."
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| − | '''Alexander: ''' He feels a snake of liquid ice coiling on his chest as she speaks.
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| − | "You... did..."
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| − | So, that is what it was like to face Abyssals...<br>
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| − | They chill your soul. They freeze your hopes...
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| − | "No, you did not..." He whispers, his lips locking to hers'... "You did not. You thought, but you did not... because you do not believe it... and because..." White light pours from him, and he begins to lift himself, and her, with strength he should not possess, pushing her against a wall, the whole stable shuddering.
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| − | A wood column breaks on her back, and bricks splinter slightly behind it... "... I will not let you. I will not let you go away. I will not let you leave. I will not let cold take you, even if I have to fill you with light and fire myself."
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| − | '''Vorpal: ''' "Mmmoi... Oi!" Vorpal snarls and yanks her mouth free from those sweet lips, only mildly irritated by a crash that crumbles wood and stone and the spine of any mortal subjected to such a blow. Tired and in need of some comfort as she might be, the Pale Angel has never been one to back down from a fight. "Don't you go deciding anything about my life for me!"
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| − | That very instant she lifts him into air like a straw doll, pale flame coursing her veins to make her a match to Alex's gigantic strength. She tosses him away with a whisk of a hand, watches how he spins furiously through the air amidst a flurry of loose feathers and lands in a puff of piled hay. "What is wrong with everyone? A woman has a weak moment and the first thing that comes to your mind is to take over her ''life''? This won't go unpunished, beloved..." Snarling, teeth bared, she leaps after him and crosses the length of the entire stable in a single pound.
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| − | Perhaps the ancient stable floor has been weakened over time. Perhaps Alex's landing had splintered it already. Perhaps Vorpal does weight a bit more than her prince claims she does. Whatever is the reason, there is a loud and magnificent crack and the floor bursts up in thousands of little stone splinters and globs of packed earth as Vorpal lands atop Alex...
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| − | ...funnily enough, even amidst all the mess, with her lips smacking firmly against his once again.
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| − | '''Alexander: ''' "Ooop!" Is the only sound he can make as he is handled like a leaf in the breeze, as he falls on the hay, and then everything goes a little fuzzy. The tiles of the roof are falling, the ground is breaking, and they are falling on the underground together with the pieces of the fall wood pillar.... and kissing. And loving. "Not all of your life... just making ''sure'' you are not leaving ''me'' out of a fit of dismay!"
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| − | His body is aching, but he is loving this, as he kissing her, the world around them vanishing in dirt and debris... "I am not going to betray you!" ''I already did... '' "I am '''not'''!" ''I wish that was true... ''
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| − | ''I want that to be true! ''
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| − | In that wish, the battle-skirt was lifted upward... oh, she was beautiful in black. So, so beautiful... he did not want to think. Just look at her like that. Just admire... "You are so beautiful..." He says, not caring about her hair in disarray, about the chemicals already out of her hands and into her clothes. She was beautiful.
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| − | Her skirt was up, and with a push able to go through the hardest armor, Vorpal's punishment for thinking those thoughts, they were one. And their every movement made the building shudder... and their noise could be heard even far up...
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| − |
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| − | '''Vorpal: ''' Vorpal yelps as she feels him enter her, a white-hot lance of finest orichalcum, harder than any steel, sharper than any sword. The yelp ends into a snarl, however, and she clamps down on him like a vice of soulsteel. The beautiful sun and the white moon colliding high up in the sky, the clash of the celestial bodies sending showers of multi-hued stars streaking across the heavens. She presses down on him with equal power as he pushes back ''up'', their legs spread and trembling, their curled toes digging into earth and stone crumbling to fine powder between their grasping hands. Every thrust sends the ground trembling beneath them, each twist cuts a new crack running across the stony surface. Every sigh sends the air whirling helplessly away from them, every snarl sends it tumbling into a maelstrom that tosses dust and bits of straw across the chamber. The building shifts and shudders around them, its moans like pathetic pleas for mercy in the face of this divine onslaught.
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| − | They give it none.
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| − | '''Ice: ''' Ice takes this all in with surprising serenity. Even though bits of the ceiling rattle to the ground around her, even though the dust tickles her nostrils and the rafters creak their fierce threats of coming crashing down any moment now, the great war horse flops her tail lazily back and forth and tilts her head, watching the latest chapter of this divine comedy unfurl before her crimson eyes.
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| − | The clash of titans, she should call it.
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| − | Hairless, two-legged titans.
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| − | Ah well, the mighty beast decides benevolently and turns her pleasantly blearly gaze - courtesy of a gigantic dose of pain-killing drugs and Charms - to examine her shining soulsteel hooves. No-one is perfect.
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| − | '''Alexander: ''' It had run its course...
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| − | The prince's stamina was as unnatural as his strength, and the Pale Angel's was outstanding... but that was just a quick thing. Just to feel. Just to know the other is there, to pour all that tension from not knowing if the other was alive, or if they would live...
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| − | Now they stood in a nest of rubble, carved by their affections, the prince holding the Pale Angel's body close... his clothes ruined, but both were still fully clothed. Her legs still close to his' under the black skirt... and both of them covered in sweat. All other results of their lovemaking were safely under the skirt...
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| − | Alex pants, breathless, smiling at the Pale Angel, nuzzling her... "That was... wonderful, milady... you were so... eager." He says as he holds her closer, whispering... "And ''now'' you look more like you!" She is still unkempt, but... there is something... ''free'' from her now!
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| − | "Hmmm, clothes on... I have to imagine how great a fantasy for many I have just fulfilled... the great Pale Angel..."
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| − | '''Vorpal: ''' "Not... another word of that... will you?" Vorpal groans amidst deep gasps for breath. "You unchain... the beast... You're the one... to blame when it goes... on a rampage with all its... heart."
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| − | Her milky face stained with dust and her hair loose in the handfuls, her current state can hardly be compared descriptions of the distant and terrible figure her name is associated with. But then again, the Pale Angel of the tales is a fictional character, a two-dimensional picture lacking the qualities of a real-life entity. The breathless woman who languidly sprawls over the beautiful prince feels herself to be ''real'' - a thing of warm and living, weary and stained the way she should be after such a battle, her body filled with little aches and flaws and imperfections... ''real''.
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| − | "I... needed that", the Ghost-Blooded admits with a hoarse chuckle. Clumsily she crawls a few inches up along the prince's body - stone still crumbles unnoticed under her fingers as she clamps one hand against the floor for support. Propping herself with one arm above Alex's face, she leans down to kiss his platinum locks, stone dust clinging to his hair dry and sour in her lips. "I... got it out of my system."
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| − | '''Alexander: ''' "I can see that... you were harder than ever. I am ''aching'' milady."
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| − | "Wonderfully so... it aches but... is good... it is so... I... I never knew you could be such a ''beast''..." He caresses her face, turning his own away to cough a bit. Damned dust! "But I think many did... it is the ''Pale Angel''! She was a temptress, right? That is what I always hear... Dark Angel called you a tease... and those clothes..." His hand ran down her back, generous touches to her backside... "Show such a body..."
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| − | '''Vorpal: ''' "Bhe Bhafe Anfel --" Vorpal pauses, withdraws her mouth from where she was nibbling at the prince's hair and tries again: "The Pale Angel wasn't a temptress. A tempress lures people in, she kicked them away. A temptress - ah" she pauses, then smiles, obviously enjoying the touch of the prince's hand. "A temptress wouldn't mind if someone caressed their buttocks. The Pale Angel would have cut the offending hand off, had anyone actually dared to do such a thing."
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| − | One of her arms is still supporting her weight, so she pulls up her other hand and lets her fingers to slide over the prince's jawline, then down along his throat, pausing to encircle his jugular before continuing on further and further down... "The Pale Angel wouldn't have been touching people like this... or this..."
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| − | ...further down...
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| − | "...or ''this''."
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| − | ...further, ''further'' down...
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| − | '''Alexander: ''' "Hmmm... o... oh... oh!" A moan escapes his lips, his head moving back, his eyes down to slits...
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| − | "Y... yes... I did... not think she would...."
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| − | His face comes up, colored by a blush, a very warm blush...
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| − | "B... but they did say it, did they not?" His hand moved to her face... "About her... pale skin.... cursed... cannot be touched by the sun... visage of death itself... dirty... cursed... dressed so beautifully as death..." His hand moved down just as hers', slowly, touching very much further down... touching her panty, making her feel all he had pumped in her... "... right?"
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| − | He says that without much recrimination, smiling...
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| − | Her touch makes him close his eyes for a moment, and then he could think straight again....
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| − | "Take your clothes off, Milady. ''All of them. ''"
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| − | '''Vorpal: ''' Vorpal almost misses most of what Alex tells her - she clenches her own eyes tightly shut at his touch and shivers, a tiny whimper escaping her lips. How many lovers back in the First Age had known that Charms that charged Exalted musculature with Essence for increased strength enhanced... other parts of the body besides?
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| − | "That's..." she reopens her eyes and suddenly withdraws her hand, the little bliss the two of them are encased in suddenly seeming not so perfect anymore. "Do you know what you're asking? Some things about those stories are true."
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| − | There is a secret weakness she has always suffered from, a weakness she has taken great pains to always hide. How hard it had been at times, to sit stiffly atop her horse for hours at the time, not blinking an eye even when the sun baked her black armor hot enough that one could have used it to fry eggs had one amassed the courage to ask for the Pale Angel's permission for such a task. Only in the shadow of her tent or her personal chambers could she allow herself to give in to the weakness, to rush over to the pitcher of ice water and dab the cooling liquid over her stinging skin and the blisters forming there.
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| − | "Sun doesn't touch me. He beats me. He burns my skin."
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| − | '''Alexander: ''' His hand is still there, but he feels a pang of regret, visible on a near wince in his face...
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| − | His free hand touches her face, his own showing the disappointment, but... "Trust me. I know..."
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| − | "I say this as an ordained priest-king of the sun. I am not going to hurt you."
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| − | His smile again, his hopeful eyes... "Please?"
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| − | '''Vorpal: ''' She is silent for a long moment, her eyes searching his and finding only truth and earnestness there.
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| − | | |
| − | "...promise?"
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| − | '''Alexander: ''' His face lowers a bit, looking up with nice eyes, bangs of shimmering silver falling over his face...
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| − | "Promise."
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| − | '''Vorpal: ''' Vorpal moistens her lips, briefly wondering at the sudden shivering of her heart at his demand.
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| − | Well... It's not as if it wouldn't be the first time Alex sees or even touches her without clothes to cover her. They have spent several nights together already, so why does she feel so hesitant now...?
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| − | She takes a quick glance over her shoulder, to see if Ice is paying any attention. The war horse is not of much help. The beast's head is slowly swaying back and forth, to the rhythm of some comforting little tune that must be playing inside her big skull even now.
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| − | "Very well", she finally responds, and - with a surprising pang of reluctance - pushes herself up from the immediate presence of her prince. She refuses to break contact entirely, however, sitting legs astride on his belly, his abdominal muscles steel-hard against her backside. Smiling with unaccustomed nervousness, her eyes never breaking contact with his, she raises her hands and begins to untie the first knots holding her half-ruined battle dress around her body.
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| − | '''Ice: ''' The Pale Angel is undressing.
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| − | Oh, good. Ice has always found biped fixation on clothing very hypocritical. After all, horses don't wear clothes, but you don't see anyone blushing when a handsome stallion comes cantering past with a flowing mane and the head held high. Nooo, bipeds have no qualms about ogling to their hearts' content when it comes to the immortal magnificence that is the horse, but as soon as you ask them to take off their clothes, they go all red and shy and miffed... And they aren't even expected to take a gallop around the field while showing everything they have!
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| − | Ice's cotton-wrapped mind spends a few moments wondering if she should take some minor offense from this. Horses, at least, are honest.
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| − | '''Alexander: ''' As she sits on her belly, he lifts his chest a little, half-sat, but still low enough that she can sit there comfortable. And watches... watches her undress, her pale body bare to him. Her pale curves... and muscles... her bosom... her navel... the curled white hair at her thighs.... he watched her up and down for a long time... "They are all wrong, you know. Our first time..."
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| − | She had him ready... but she did not do it. She asked him to... because she could not... rip her own purity.
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| − | "You were pure. You are pure. So pure the searing light of the sun, just as it is, will harm you. Pure of body, pure of soul... not even all I did could ever defy that purity... not even what I made you bleed..." His palm moved up... falling over her breast, over her heart. Listening for its beats. "There is no sin, there is no evil. White... that skin, that body, makes you pure as driven snow, milady..."
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| − | The prince smiles. His hand does not move...
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| − | '''Ice: ''' ...and what is all this attention they give to the spots where the foals are fed? Hmph. If it's the round shape they like, even young stallions have more impressive globes.
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| − | And they aren't even girls.
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| − | '''Vorpal: ''' "It's the whiteness of bone, Alex, not snow", the Pale Angel responds quietly, covering the prince's hand with her own. Yet even though her words seek to contradict what he is saying, she does not push his hand away. There is a pleading, hopeless tone to her voice, as if she'd imploring the young man to prove her wrong. "It's the whiteness of death, of silence, of absence of all colors. It is the mark of a violation of the natural order of the world. I was born in the world of the dead, Alex. Had I been born alive, would I be as white?"
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| − | '''Alexander: ''' "I think so, yes...." And he knew it. The taint of death in her... he could always feel it. Always.
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| − | But...
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| − | "Nothing dead could be so pure and beautiful. No violation could be so right. So tender."
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| − | His caste mark appears. Faint light of his anima touches her... and does not burn. It warms.
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| − | "You are white in spite of it. Your purity transcends your nature."
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| − | '''Vorpal: ''' "That's..." There is a trembling in her throat, an awful, horrible, squeezing sensation of something choking her windpipe shut. It is a sharp contrast against the wonderful, tingling, blissful warmth that rises from somewhere deep within her belly and begins to spread across her torso.
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| − | "That's...", she chokes again, her voice faltering, her face twisting on its own accord, responding to the sensation of happiness so strong that it hurts.
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| − | "That's..."
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| − | '''Ice: ''' ...so utterly unbecoming.
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| − | The Pale Angel, crying like a schoolgirl.
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| − | Honestly, what is the world coming to.
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| − | '''Vorpal: ''' They glimmer in her blood red eyes, the very same eyes that are capable of producing a gaze so cold that it can freeze blood into the veins. Her heart is wracked by a feeling she had always thought she could never truly experience, not even after she had discovered herself falling in love with this beautiful, pure, naiive, ''innocent'' boy. The boy of such a well-meaning heart, the boy whose soul is so pure that his eyes can see something salvageable even in a woman who has been dead since her birth.
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| − | ''Finally... ''
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| − | "That's..."
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| − | Yes. She is crying. She indeed is crying. They trickle down her cheeks like shimmering drops of crystal, catching the light streaming in from the thousand cracks in the walls and shining with all the colors of rainbows. Pure, clear, salty tears of painful joy.
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| − | A dream come true. Her secret hope, the idle little fantasies, the fragile little things that could never be real in her cruel and harsh world.
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| − | She gives up attempting to speak. Instead, with a suffocating gasp, she falls back down over him, encircling his head with her arms, touching his cheek with her own.
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| − | '''Ice: ''' ...Good grief.
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| − | Ice turns her head away and rolls her eyes. The movement sends the world spinning in a fuzzy way all around her.
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| − | ----
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| − | * - Back to [[GoldenCat/SixthMovement|Sixth Movement]]
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| − | * - Back to [[GoldenCat/DanceOfAngels|A Dance of Angels]]
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