[AW] little ghost, so forgotten and small

[Acton]

Acton whatever you feed me I'll feed you right back   He hadn’t thought she’d slip away, but there was still a measure of relief that rose up in him, warm and strange, when he returned to her. Acton took his time about it: for a long moment he lingered, watching the way she hid herself in shadows. She tried her best – she was practiced at it, he could see – but the moonlight loved her too much. It gave her away, beading silver along her horn, glinting on scales as if on waves. Even the juts of her ribs and hips it kissed – even the chains, though they hid best of all. Already his mouth was open to speak when he returned, but he was surprised into silence when she leveled her horn at him. It flashed like a knife; it carried him to other nights, violent delights. He doesn’t know what he would have done had her eyes not been closed. But they were, and her body did not say attack, save for the solemn threat of her horn. So Acton said nothing, only huffed a breath that might have been a laugh, and waited for her to open her eyes again. Her touch on him was payment enough, burning where the moonlight soothed. She was hungry, but so was he. Everything she did made him hungry for knowledge of her. It was an effort not to stare as she ate, thought the night was, as ever, full of delights. Wild as they were, all of them were known, all of them bred through familiarity to background noise. All but one. “Don’t thank me yet,” he said, and the line of his mouth tugged up. “Only the first meal is free around here.” He cast a glance again at the crowds who passed around them; most were strangers, and most made an effort not to meet his gaze. “You know anyone in Denocte, Isra? Where were you headed?” Never mind that she might not want to tell a stranger any more about herself. He ignored the fear in her, and thought instead of the way her horn had not trembled when it was aimed between his eyes.   @Isra