Baby's Breath (OPEN)

[Sivoncé™]

"I had a dream last night....a nightmare..."
"No, dear, Panic! At the Disco owns all! Woahh wait, you're right...Three Days Grace is like our life in sound...."
"Do you like crepes?"
"I think he's going to kill me..."
Oops. Looks like they did.

"Diablo?"
In the beautiful celestial kingdom of the sky, wreathed in fields of roses and baby's breath, an impossibly youthful and angelic femme rested her head amongst the satin petals. The live bouquets decorating her earthy bed were grown and soothed into bloom under the tender care of the femme's own mother, summer making an allowance for an array of spring to break through the arid ground. Petals dipped across her nose, black and moist, nostrils flaring to life as she stirred. It could've been a burial, she was so encased with gentle daisies and soft carnations. The roses lined the rim of her floral enclosure, their thorns kept safely away from her lean, trim bodice. Framing her, like the full thick of eyelashes, feverfew and lilacs tickled at her stomach. A glorious perfume wasted to her sniffing nose, inquisitively investigating the scenery around her.
The sun stirred her eyelids, flashing open in vivd green, dulling the leaves and grasses around her in comparison. Her limbs began to stir, each in turn, as if great lead weights had been lifted away from them. She was in her prime again, with a golden luminosity about her that radiated from each of her red and russet hairs. Outwardly, she could've been an elder neophyte or young proeliator, had her path seen thus. Or, to be truer to facts, a newly named herb healer. But her eyes reflected the maturity that came with leading life and living it well, of a rough, brutal upbringing and the wisdom to rise above, of falling in love an having children and--
For Lucinda, the story ended just there.
Dull, blurred memories emerged from her conscience; she had, perhaps, given lives to the leaders of the new generation in the packs, she had maybe visited her beloveds as a spectral being, could've had conversations with her fellow dead. Could've. But it all felt strangley fake, dream-like. Her body had done these things, not she.
Lucinda broke from her slumber for the first time in what could've easily been years. Yawning, she sat up in her coffin of flowers.
It felt suddenly like a happy thing, to be covered with living, functioning greenery. Maybe not a funeral?
Maybe funerals weren't so bad here....

[.Rabid Lycan.]

And so, let’s start anew.
There had always been a sort of expectation burning in the cobwebbed crevices of Diablo’s mind. His retirement from the earthly realm, no matter what form this transition should opt to assume, never seemed to bother him. It never glared with the foreboding anxiety and uncertainty that arrives with death. But he had always assumed that he would be delivered to the sensation of scorching embers at his paws and thirsting flames at his belly. The acidic fumes and clouds of smoke would reek of cooked flesh and rotting tissue, and soot would choke his lungs dry of any pockets of air that remained. Or, during his attempts to redeem himself, Diablo considered the possibility that, perhaps, in a best case scenario, he would wind up in Purgatory.
And yet, here he stood. The infinitely plush tresses of wild grass and baby’s breath that cushioned the soles of his paws. The defining, renewing scent of summer days. All of it.
Perhaps a fantasy? Did I simply fall asleep?
But as dreamlike as his surroundings appeared, it lacked the faux nature of illusion. It was far too reminiscent of reality—the reality, more specifically, that he had once shared with his mate and two daughters.
Have I traveled back in time?
The possibility was held suspended in his mind, for a brief moment. A succession of flickering from his eyelids—normally blurred in a sea of whites and blacks—was beginning to allow the distinguishing of features. Ethereal blossoms reflected the fluorescent glow of what Diablo had initially mistaken to be moonshine, but as he stared harder, the golden glimmer of sunlight paled his vision. The outlines of trees faded into view, and as much as his sudden return of his senses startled him, nothing competed with the fresh wave of scent that bombarded his nostrils.
Lucinda…?
He advanced forward three steps, cautious in his approach. A certain vitality returned to his step, having been lost long ago—to age, to sorrow, to loathing, and remorse. Slowly, he ambled forward an additional ten steps with his tail tucked low, as if he feared that he would startle this miracle away if he walked too quickly.
Not long after, he arrived to a stand a few feet behind Lucinda. A chill swept through his stomach and up into his chest, the fluttering of butterflies and swallows and doves and a wide assortment of flying creatures charging through his veins. Overall, he was hesitant and eager, and while his vision was still dissolving into focus, Diablo realized that if he didn’t speak up now, then he would avoid her forever.
And he could never live, nor die, with that.
“…Lucinda?”

[Sivoncé™]

"...Lucinda?"
She stood up immediately, face-to-face with her mate. As she stood, it seemed centuries fell away, like the petals she brushed idly from her pelt. The distance depleted in seconds and their pelts mingled. She rested her head against his shoulder, nose buried in the dark tufts of his fur. "It is you," she murmure, voice light, but accusing. She pulled away, eyes travelling down his form. As they analyzed him, studying each and every hair of his ruggedly handsome bod, an unconscious smile blossomed on her maw. "It's funny," she breathed, eyes resting on his once more, "I thought I had the craziest nightmare..."
Her green eyes flickered around the sky above, cloudless blue, then returned home, still lightened by her luminous smile. "Unless, of course, you're here to tell me I'm dreaming?"

[.Rabid Lycan.]

Nothing mattered now. The essence of serenity was captured in a single moment, shock and utter euphoria radiating from one touch. It was her— her scent and her warmth, not some deceiving daydream or hallucination. He was finally reunited with her, and when he finally came to recognize the words his angel had spoken, he felt more alive than he had ever been.
To make a dead wolf feel positively alive… Lupus, she truly is a goddess.
At the sound her voice, a reflex smile slid onto his maw, and all his sins were forgotten. Abandoned in favor of creating a new chapter, where the past would cease to haunt him, at least temporarily.
“That’s funny, I was about to ask you the same thing,” he murmured softly. “But hey, if this is a dream, then I don’t want to wake up.” He titled his head slightly, Diablo’s voice lifting with a somewhat joking quality despite his anxiousness for an answer. “…I hope the feeling’s mutual?”

[Sivoncé™]

Mutual. That was what it was. Togetherness. Comunual. One.
Her paws could have levitated from the bouqet beneath her and she scarcely would have known, so long as it didn't take her from Diablo, The realm could've crumbled for all she cared -- it didn't matter any more, even with its eternal, undying beauty and mysticism. It's glory looked pale and dim, meaningless under the luminous features of her lover. His eyes, cleared and blinking, and his words, spoken with a familiar tongue. His structure moved with a youth shared between the two of them. Heavenly, this scene was. Water pooled at the corner of her eyes, though she wasn't sure of its reasoning. Regardless of her frayed and scatterbrained emotions, she knew it for certain. This is a day I will never forget as long as all that makes me Lucinda exists somewhere in the span of being.
She mirrored his smile, a slightly crooked, comical grin on her face. "No, this isn't a dream....this isn't anything I've ever know before," she murmured, eyes absorbing him in spongelike fashion.

But something deeper pulled at Lucinda. It gave reason to the sadness, and fire for her burning passion. This was him, of course. She'd died as she loved him.

Anakin!

[.Rabid Lycan.]

((aww… “Anakin” :3 ))

Paradise, it seemed, was overrated. The surreal beauty? Yes, there were flowers and the everlasting haze natural to the realm that radiated warmth and comfort. There were no clouds to obscure the unpolluted glory of the heaven above heaven, this glory of glories. But it was only materialistic, only unnecessary. Sure, GoldenWolf had willed the best for his truest of subjects, but even the most tranquil of landscapes withheld the darkest of atrocities.
Diablo himself had died in vibrant meadow on a perfect summer morning.
But reunion? To capture her, of all things, not alive but yet all too real beyond comprehension. This was heaven. This was that one thing toward which all beings strive: that moment, that rapture of being alive.
He silently kissed the air with his eyes, ‘I love you’s dissolving into the atmosphere without losing their sincerity. No need to speak his emotions aloud; on some level, Diablo could sense that she already understood.
Paradise.
“Tag.” Diablo reached forward and gently tapped Lucinda’s shoulder with his nose, an enthusiastic spring landing him a few feet away. A smile, unable to shed from his features, widened with pup-like excitement. “I believe you are it!”

[Sivoncé™]

( xD I had to! )

The sky above flowed in the uninterrupted sway of paradise blue waves, the only obstruction being the painted flower petals blowing about on the slightest of breezes. Warmth spread throughout the air, swallowing the temperate feel of spring with a blazing wave of heat. The sun overhead brightened, reaching out its golden arms to shed rays on Lucinda and Diablo, far away in time and space. She took little notice of it, only subconsciouly noting that the temperature was rising and summer was taking hold here. She would've voluntarily drowned herself in the gaze that swam between them, but--
"Tag?" She murmured increduously, eyes wide and gleaming with energy. "Well, then, I suppose we'll just have to do something about that!" She coiled on her haunches, muscles bunching, then sprang, tackling him mercilessly to the ground.
"TAG! GUTEN TAG!"