THE MOON IS MY SUN
THE NIGHT IS MY DAY
THE NIGHT IS MY DAY
V
anora. He tucks her name away in the folds of his memory like a coin in a magician’s cloak. As he does with every name — he thinks that they are owed at least that much, to be remembered.
“A pleasure, Vanora,” he says with a tilt of his crown, onyx strands tumbling forwards across his eyes. “Despite the current state of things, I am sure Solterra will welcome you with open arms.” The population has dwindled enough to warrant it, he thinks, not a touch of humor softening the callous gleam of his eyes. Do these affairs warrant more sympathy than he has given? Perhaps, but Caine is not certain what else he should say — his charms and smiles are only ever used as a means to an end.
He does not see an end this time, and it has thrown him for a loop.
With a sweep of raven wings, black feathers pool across the ground like slow-dripping ink as Caine watches Vanora aim biting words at the skeleton-masked man — words that, surprisingly, have not been aimed at him. Ah, if only she knew the irony.
Still, he does not blame her for her caution. The girl is not a fool, and that in itself is an admirable trait.
"It's simply a matter of words - I am not as familiar with your common tongue and the way you use your words, but bolondok háza, your asylum, means house of fools to me.”
The man’s accent intrigues Caine, and his ears flick forwards to catch every rise and fall of his foreign words and lilting tongue. Agenor had taught him many languages, most notably the tongue that the inhabitants of Novus spoke. It was not much different from Vectaeryn’s own, and Caine had picked it up swiftly within a year or two of study. But this man’s words are unlike any of the languages Caine knows — the words slip from his grasp like water, and the boy is at once fascinated by the novelty and vexed by the unfamiliarity.
And yet another novelty. The man’s name, when he gives it at last, is an echo of Caine’s own, the syllables just exotic enough for comfort. Káin, he murmurs, marveling at how different the name glides across his tongue.
“A coincidence indeed,” he grins, though his eyes remain as glinting as polished steel. Vanora, he had been pleasant to (though if she had known it, Caine cannot tell) because she had posed no threat. But this man — this Káin — is as sharp as a knife’s edge, his arrogance oozing from blackened lips with each smirk that dances wraithlike across his muzzle.
“I will show you both to the markets. That, at least, is still bustling with merchants and goods,” he says softly, interrupting before Vanora has a chance to answer Káin’s laughing taunts. He directs a withering smile towards the man, before turning back towards the silver-eyed girl. An onyx wing stretches towards her in a show of sleek manners. “Shall we?”
Perhaps today, he will play at being her black knight. It surely will not hurt, being noble for a change.
@Vanora @Káin | "speech" | notes: a thousand apologies for how late this is ;__; but this trio though <3
