[m] we have seen the fields aflame

WARNING: This thread contains material exceeding the general board rating of PG-13. It may contain very strong language, drug usage, graphic violence, or graphic sexual content. Reader discretion is advised.

Word Count → ??? :: (m for drug use) hey boy you comin to ruin my zen yoga sesh or what

The dusk air held a lingering drift of smoke. Elphaba's black lips parted and she tasted it on her tongue - slightly acrid, heady in summer's humidity, it clung to the moist parts of the nose and the throat. Someone a yard or more over was lighting their hearth for supper. This single golden glow was followed swiftly by another, and another; Soon the Ruins would be scattered with them like a handful of lost meteors, wan yellow light spilling around the cracks in stone structures and leaking out of narrow windows to bleed into the blushing hues of night.

Breathing deeply, the young queen tilted her head and listened. Beyond the threshold of the tower's fields the steady droning of insects pulsed like a heartbeat, lazy and low. Her skin felt close, her long river of hair lank with the heat. Lucid and tranquil, she arched her spine in an exaggerated stretch, throwing her clawed hands up into the air until it seemed like they might reach all the way up into the cloudless heavens above.

Elphaba held this pose until her muscles began to burn before moving, fluid as a dancer, into the next. The steps were the staff forms, each pose a fighter's friend, but bare of the weapon and drifting on a thick fog of spiked cider the young woman looked less menacing than she ought to. It was relatively private in the front courtyard of the tower; She could not bear to be indoors where the air was thicker still.

Every now and again she paused her ministrations to take a small, portioned sip from an unmarked green bottle by her side. Its contents had been marinating for weeks, and it was potent enough to make her whiskers curl and her eyes shut tightly every time the brew hit the back of her throat. Careful, she would set the bottle back beside her on the ground, and stretch out her body into another stance.

The next time Elphaba lifted the drink to her lips, she paused. At the head of the path the fox materialized; Its triangular face and round yellow eyes a silent warning. Curious, the Boss lowered her hand. The red familiar's ears twitched. It looked over its shoulder once, and then with a single bound disappeared back into the thicker hedgerow that grew alongside the way.

Elphaba sniffed the air again, and pressed her lips together.

When he had dismissed Etoile, what remained with him in the silence was a lingering sense of unrest.

For hours he roamed the mountains, picking his way across rocky trails. In some places he lingered, sprawled like a lion overseeing its domain, but the summer-green forest and fields beyond hid their secrets well. This suited Salsola, as it suited O'Riley, but the discovery of the secret cache and the disturbing rumor about his cousin were pieces of a grander puzzle he had yet to recognize.

Eventually, when the sun began to sink towards the west, he went to find Elphaba. This task was easy enough, for like a ghost she haunted familiar places – her home and the dark wood came to mind. He abandoned his four legs for two when he came to Grievous' home, considered his course, and walked to the ruins with purpose in his step. Unbothered, his path was direct and soon had him coming to the open place where she was found.

Unattended (but looking for all the world like she expected company) the young Queen was touched by the warm hues of the falling sun. She looked different to him now, somehow. He folded his arms over his chest.

We need to talk.

Word Count → ??? :: uhoh trouble in proubledise

He walked, and moved, with the easy comfort of a creature best suited to its skin. Her cousin's size bordered on some of the largest men Elphaba had ever seen - She thought of Grievous and his father as behemoths, though Basilaris had been long retired. Height was growing harder to gauge as people lowered their heads deferentially whenever she entered a room.

In this way, status had a similar effect as physical bulk. Unseen but felt, her own greatness - immense and swollen with potential, with authority - rose to meet the height of the broad-shouldered Erilaz; And surpassed him.

There were many ways to be big.

She let him stand there a moment too long, arms crossed over his chest in a defensive manner that O'Riley rarely betrayed himself to. This should have been her first warning, but the warm dying light and the thick spiked cider convinced Elphaba of the playfulness of the hour. Here - with just the two of them - they were golden gods, infallible, conquerors of fate.

Wiggling her toes at the end of the stretch, Elphaba finished this final motion by rolling her shoulders to sooth them of lingering tension. Hair spilled down her bare back like ink, glossy and dark. "That didn't sound like hello, Elphaba; How are you, Elphaba; How lovely you look this evening," Springing to her feet with the light agility that her vigorous year and more of training allowed, the young queen ran her slanted eyes over O'Riley curiously.

"Try again?" She suggested, and tilted her head to offer him one pale cheek.

Old, long dead ancestors gave him size. His mother's grandmother, a living giant whose death would have come soon enough had it not been so untimely, and the man to whom Bogdan and Igor drew heritage from. The more recent ones built upon this and provided the guides for the behavior which aimed his actions now. Whatever else happened, Salsola and its Law needed to survive. This unformed threat in his mind was a painful disruption.

Everything had been going so well.

It was just one voice, and it was a jealous woman, but what reason did she have to lie? What idiocy could compel someone to spread rumors about the Queen, least of all to her right hand? Stupid as she was, Etoile did not seem like the sort of person to throw their life away for hearsay. O'Riley needed to know the truth from Elphaba herself – he had a right to know.

He looked down at her, and as she spoke registered the merriment in her voice. His nose told him more, for her sweet-sour drink tainted the humid air between them. Her movements were fluid, lax, and ignorant to the danger she had put them in. O'Riley unfolded himself and moved forward, but when he bent to brush cheeks he lingered in this position with obvious tension in his body.

I heard you fucked Brocade, he hissed in her ear.

Word Count → ??? :: do you kiss your momma w that mouth (also any stalkers please note that most of this post is Elphaba's inherited bias talking, not mine yo)

There comes a time when every woman makes a decision that will change the course of all her future interactions with men. For some, it might be a little thing, and easily made; Falling in love or falling in lust might help, but rarely leads to a place of safety or strength. For Elphaba Revlis, her decision had been built on the pavements laid by hundreds of small interactions she had witnessed in her viable youth - How Osrath had smiled at her husband in a way that had both warmed him and chilled him, the loveliness never reaching her vitriolic eyes; How many simpler men had grown drunk on her beautiful mother's attention alone; How Salvia had allowed Stannis to stand at her side throughout the arduous trials of her rule, but always slightly behind. Never even. Never equal.

When incited, men were dangerous, stupid creatures. Lokr had impressed this lesson on her more thoroughly than time allowed. Cornered, they became animals - baseless, relying on instincts that stretched back to their ancestors, in a time when conscious thought belonged only to those who had come Before.

O'Riley's breath was warm against her ear, but his words were very, very cold.

Her first instinct was to slap him. The claws of her left hand slid free of the fingerbed in preparation for the strike - The brew was nothing as compared to the heady, intoxicating rush of fury as it slid like magma through her veins. In her mind's eye, Elphaba could see her grandmother as the woman had been last - the grey of her muzzle silver against the gold of her teeth, the low words, the warning.

So she did not strike O'Riley, but instead embraced him. Slowly, her hands moved over the muscles of his chest, fingers parting the thicker fur above his shoulders; She leaned into the warmth of his stiff, unrelenting frame, letting her claws smoothly brush through his choppy hair, forcing him by pressure to remain hunched and close.

Possessive - Everything about her touch was possessive. One hand reached his cheek and lingered there gently, docilely, tracing a line along his clenched jaw, wrapping about the soft tuft of his ear.

When she pulled it, she pulled it hard, enough to abruptly turn his head to save from her claws shredding through the thinner, sensitive flesh. It was the kind of dominant motion she might have pushed on him when they were younger, when the boy was a bare scrap of wolf - a lesson she had repeated often over the years of their childhood. But they were different creatures now, and instead of letting him pull back into his own space the young queen stayed close, her body moving to remain in contact, to press against him as much as possible.

It was a viciously jarring, uncomfortable experience. All the while her expression did not change - if anything the black lipped smile grew, heavily lidded eyes alight in a way that inspired a feeling of abject dread. "Oh, I see - have I been naughty?" Elphaba laughed, the dry sound sharp as a thunderclap, "Who has been telling these ears such colorful stories?"

The fury churned oily and slick in her gut. It was difficult to keep it from spewing out from between her jaws, from dripping down her chin; Her good mood soured as rapidly as fermented goat milk.

Men - they couldn't be allowed an inch of rope, or they'd hang themselves with it.

He looked like he expected her to hit him, and so when she did not, the tension still lingered in his body. When she pinched his ear he did not yelp, but instead snarled with all his teeth exposed – had it been anyone else, the rippling shudder in his form might have turned kinetic and bloodied the perpetrator.

Then she was there, small and warm and too close.

Growling, O'Riley bristled all over.

She was the Boss, and she had been the one among the two of them who alone might rule, but everything that had happened was his doing too. That was why he was the one standing here. Everyone else was weak, and stupid, and the two of them were the only ones who could possibly take on the great responsibility of leading the kingdom.

Between them, though, there was more than the unified front that Salsola had seen so clearly the night they became rulers.

Let go, he demanded with slow, measured coldness, though did not raise his hand against her.

Word Count → ??? :: ---

In physical strength alone he might have torn her to shreds - As much was evident in the large daggers of his teeth, each one wet with saliva and some as long as her pinky finger. If brutal force had ruled them, without the cultural manifest of Salvia's successful matriarchal rule, it might have been his head on which the crown sat.

But the mind was a space for games, and Elphaba had been playing them as a child.

She could not let go. To relent at once was to blood the water, was weak. The threat of it made her hands feel like they were thrust into a fire; The burning that ran up to her elbows, irresistible. His bristling hair prickled against her like spines.

"Why should I?" Sinuous, the young queen wrapped the question around her tongue and planted it with a gentle kiss upon the livid angry muscle clenched in his cheek. It was a sick parody of their formal greeting. His jaws, if they opened, were wide enough to surround her whole head. "You made it clear that you don't intend to be civil - so neither do I," Perhaps the spiked drink made her nasty. Perhaps the elation; Air was always thinnest at the top. The provocation, the rush, made her head feel light.

A sound blossomed in her throat not unlike a purr. "Answer my question," Her hold on him loosened, and she bartered with her slanted eyes, the lids low and heavy, "And then I'll let you ask yours."

Etoile, he answered with venom.

True to her word, the witch freed him. The places where she had touched him burned like fire. O'Riley stared at her until his senses returned – freed from that black hole of thought which sought to consume his conscious – and then growled once more.

What you're doing is dangerous, O'Riley warned her. Oma was absent, their parents gone, and now no one remained to rein in their unchecked urges. Despite this, he could not shake their presence – not when he cared for their animals, and walked in their home, and did everything like he had been taught – She saw you, Elphaba. There are eyes all around us. We can't let them see anything, you understand? Of course I'm not being civil – you're asking for trouble.

Little by little, as he talked, as he regained power over himself, O'Riley's fur began to slowly settle. He looked as if he sorely wanted to hit her.

You have to be careful. You can't get caught, he added, scowling.

Word Count → ??? :: ---

It was shock that had her release the Erilaz so abruptly - She could have teased him a while longer, pushed the tension till it carved against them like taught wire. But, Etoile? In spite of the bloated summer humidity, a chill ran down Elphaba's spine, the kiss of a premonition that would leave her questioning in the times to come.

Her gaze faraway, it seemed as though the young queen was hardly listening when O'Riley spoke. Something about her stillness was alive with unkempt violence, a snake coiled in the long grasses, its scales reflecting the wane light in warning. Beside O'Riley's supermassive fury, her anger seemed small and quiet. But as his settled, hers grew.

And grew.

And grew.

Her eyes cut toward him so swiftly that it seemed her whole face jumped. "She spied on me?" Elphaba's confidence had grown satiated and fat on the larder of providence. She and O'Riley had both expected greater whiplash from the open wound they had slashed into Salsola, that night by the bluff when she'd held a dagger to Salvia's heart. They'd expected dissent. But it had never come.

And Elphaba had absorbed this as a righteous sign.

At her sides, her fingers curled. The claws slid free of her nailbeds and curved blackly, like a butcher's meathooks.

"I didn't fuck him," Her stare dared him to challenge her, dared him to disagree. "Salsola is my lover, my husband, my wife. I didn't fuck anyone."

A part of her sorely wished she had.

A part of him registered there had been a failure on his behalf. Killing Etoile had been an option he had considered and decided against – this was the way the Law, as he had been brought up to understand, required.

That they were now capable of deciding their own Law was an idea that had been planted in him early. All those scars on his body, all the times he had tasted his own blood in his mouth, that was part of the spell they were casting. It was magic, in some way, to be set free of rules. No one could tell them no.

Yet still, he clung to the conscious (a curious thing in a person like O'Riley) which warned him against breaking from things like tradition and the proper way to see things.

Soon enough, none of this would matter.

I believe you, Elphaba, he said, meeting her gaze for as long as he dared. When he did drop his eyes, he sought out other places to look – the dark shadows in the room, the places where her fresh-blood colored eyes could not find his own.

What do you want me to do? O'Riley asked her, all too conscious of the ire radiating from the Queen.