And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great, starry
void

By day he wishes he were stalks of wheat because then the world would pass through him and he could kiss their legs and kiss their eyes and tell them it is okay to rest their head upon him. By night he knows he is a wolf and hungers for the taste of blood like he yearns for cobwebs to be brushed from his sister's grave and her hair of gold to be plaited in ribbons and spun in pearls once more.

Alecto is an enigma full of blight, full of wonder. He hides as much as he shows and there is a galaxy of him to unravel. Words are paintings from his lips, made into great feats of art posted up in galleries around the globe, they never are quite truthful and oh - you'll ache to believe him the way that you know the sun will rise each morning - it is a terrible thing to love someone that doesn't quite know how to love you. Such is a topic he won't broach, he won't whisper, he won't kiss. He'll tell you that he loves Tienar about as much as he can love anything; that is, he loves Tienar both completely and not at all. After all, he wonders, how can you love something you've never known?

It's like marrying a storm without ever tasting its rain. Improbable. Impossible.

So he slides around the topic in favor of the color of your eyes, in favor of a topic other than himself. It's so rare to find the storyteller telling you of his story. Then again, everything he says sounds like honey in your morning coffee and melts just as quickly in your ears. It's easy to get lost in the way he pulls you near, in the way he winds a new necklace over your throat like a lover's hand or a vice to strangle you with. Either way, you wouldn't mind because it's him putting it there. It's Alecto, with his silver tongue and sharp eyes that twinkle and make you laugh.

When he's near, anything seems possible - everything seems possible. He'll tell you the world is yours, all you've got to do is take it. He'll tell you the first step is the hardest and he knows - oh gods he knows because he's taken it, too. And this world, he won't tell you, is his. By night, when his fangs are bared in that roguish grin, he dangles it on a string and watches it spin; by night, when his eyes are brightest and he looks most like a god, he sits back and watches as all their feet stomp to the chiming of his flute.

As much a monster as he is your prince, he loves to stay, but oh, he loves so, so, so much more to go. And he will. And he does.

He's forgotten home, he lost it too long ago to remember what it feels like anymore.

Alecto Vermillio Raptis is as much an enigma as a woman's mind. It is hard to read him, to pin him down, or predict exactly what it is he'll do next. His future, much like his past, is veiled in intrigue, mystery, and shadow. Creep closer now, lean in, listen close, for once in a great, great while he'll open up, he'll whisper sweetly between the sheets of his home, of the way he chased fire through the skies and found himself here, and of the gossip, the mystery that still begs his lips to be still, that still is found at the corner of his mouth when he pulls it into that smile again.

Some, before, would call him a grinning fool, and perhaps he still looks the part. A salesman must always wear a smile, but he'd much prefer you wear the cloth from his stall. After all, he's worked hard to bring it so far, he's toiled and troubled and fretted for mile after mile, galaxy after galaxy, island after island, just to settle down among the stalls of Denocte and spin stories great and small of his adventures, of the joy and beauty your new scarf or hat or blanket should bring. Perhaps, he'd ask, you're looking for something to catch the eye of a pretty girl or boy? (Of course, of course, you've already caught his, and he'll remind you with a wink, with a peck on the cheek as you walk away with more than you really ought to have purchased.)

His home, he'll say between puffs of clouds floating over the sun, was beautiful - still is beautiful, he'll assure you. It is full of kirins, of those beautiful and strong, of people of all castes, talents. His home, he'll never tell you, held his heart so firmly, so fondly, that he's not sure if he'll ever know to love again.


There's a sigh, a puff of breath when the chill sets in, and Alecto looks far off into the distance, into another time. Oh, he won't tell you of his father - a noble of Varan with a chip of their shoulder. His father always told him he wasn't quite up to snuff, to stop dicking around, to get back in the house to learn the family business. What he really meant was that he wasn't quite snobbish enough, wasn't quite enough of a prick to fit in and survive in a world of sharks.

What he'll tell you is that he was his family's greatest disappointment.

Alecto always went out later than he should have, into the bowels of Varan where things that a boy should never see were seen, where he learned how to take care of himself and conduct business in a manner that most certainly was not fitting for his family. In a way, it became his home, and then he outgrew it, too. His father, utterly disappointed, eventually refused to even acknowledge Alecto's existence.

Of course, he can't tell you this. He won't. He'll tell you he was the apple of his mother's eye, obviously, and that his sisters were all darlings. You'd love to meet them someday, you'd be more than delighted. Alecto spoiled them rotten...

But that's all in the past.
Everything is.