the great object of life is sensation -
to feel that we exist, even though in pain

♠︎ ♕ ♠︎


It’s a strange group of feelings, as he explores the island - a mingling of excitement and fear, like betting at a high-stakes table and not knowing the next card that’s about to turn over. One that could just as easily kill you as win you everything.

August is not used to not knowing. Knowledge is his favorite currency, secrets his favorite coin; when they’d all stood on the bridge together, a little city of horses in a line, for every one he recognized he rolled their hidden wants and sins through his mind like a litany. It was a balm, in a way, a game to occupy his mind instead of working at this mystery like clumsy fingers at a knot.

He doesn’t trust this paradise. That’s the easiest thing about the situation, the distrust - why believe a hand that’s already seized you by the throat more than once, no matter how nicely it offers a gift? But he is still a boy who dreams of adventure (that is his own secret, never shared) and it doesn’t feel like fear, the way his heart races at each new discovery. Even the birds are strange, and not just their stones-for-eyes, their trailing fire, the way they must be a portent of something, some other world bleeding into Novus. No, it’s their singing that sticks with him, new and lovely, and it at last soothes away the sound of that dread heartbeat, a hundred thousand berries pounding and dying and dead.

He isn’t sure at what point he became alone. When the silence descended (at least, it felt like silence, though the wind blew and the waves licked up on the shore, and so on and so forth, a veritable chorus of noise) it had seemed to touch the horses, too, and many had wandered away in small groups, in pairs, and singly. At some point Minya had been beside him, and not long ago he had seen Boudika, and he knows this island is thick with those he knows - yet it might be deserted but for him, here in the thick jungle. The shadows are cool over his golden skin, and the pale skein of his hair is crusted with salt. August is usually beautiful, and intentionally so, but after days of waiting and milling and wondering he is near filthy now. It doesn’t bother him; it’s only for the Scarab he takes that kind of care.

Through the trees there is a flash of gold (darker and more burnished than his own) and pale hair. As he picks his way nearer - graceful and near-silent by nature, and not specific intent - his mind begins to place her, to catalogue her as he does everyone he comes across, because one day they may be useful. But before he quite can (before he can make out the scar, old but still livid down her cheek, or the wild-empty look in her eyes) something else catches his eye. A flock of birds, small and still and intent on the stranger. August doesn’t yet look too closely; he knows whatever he sees will make him uneasy with wonder.

Instead he clears his throat, steps forward through the tangling vines and caressing leaves. “You’re being watched,” he says easily, and his silver eyes move from the watchers to Bexley Briar.

the great object of life is sensation -
to feel that we exist, even though in pain

♠︎ ♕ ♠︎


The birds’ melodies sound more like something that might drift and tremble high on the bonfire-smoke of Denocte, aimless and vivid as a thrown spark, and all at once fall back to silence. More than that, constant as the now-dead heartbeat of the wall, is a livewire hum that he seems to catch only on the backs of his teeth or the cords of his throat. It is magic, it must be, but the boy in him is surprised to find it is no pleasant feeling. No fairy tale described this, the way dread mingles with beauty. 

He should be less naive, by now. 

Her smile catches him the same way, beauty and dread, because he recognizes her as soon as she turns. Bexley Briar, exiled Regent of Solterra, lover of a dead man. August hadn’t known Acton, but like most of Denocte he’d known of him - he’d eaten up stories of the Crows’ exploits like bread, as a boy. Them and their roguish king, back in the brief glory days when the stars might just have been another set of diamonds for the stealing. How darkly their story had ended. And here before him the last remnant of it, save for the killer himself. Finding her feels like its own treasure, though the thought sinks and settles in his belly heavy as sin. 

“By me,” he allows, with a little dip of his chin. “Alas, I am far less interesting, and likely less dangerous, than everything else on this island.” All the while he watches her, eyes as silver as the backs of mirrors, as cool as his skin beneath shadows. But not you, that gaze says, and try as he might the boy can’t feel guilty for his sharp curiosity. Knowledge is one of the few things he allows himself to both want and have. 

He wants to grin at her comment, her easy wryness, but at first he only lifts a brow. “I’m told it makes me look more dashing,” he answers, and the line of his mouth curls somewhere between demure and impish. It is no lie - he had been told that, once, and had pretended to be well-pleased instead of rolling his eyes - but in truth the piercing had been the result of too many drinks and a dare in the back rooms of the Scarab one evening, years ago. “Though it’s got nothing on that scar of yours.” For a moment his breath catches, holds, a fluttering thing behind his teeth as he wonders whether her expression will turn sour or sad or angry, and he is surprised by how much he hopes it doesn’t.

Then August steps forward through the undergrowth, ferns brushing soft against his belly and legs, into the orbit of her unearthly glow. 

the great object of life is sensation -
to feel that we exist, even though in pain

♠︎ ♕ ♠︎


She plays the game well - he wonders if she can play it better than he does, layering words and tone to build layers of meaning, compliment, dare, double entendre. Likely she can; how else would she have climbed so high? But August is competitive too, golden boy he is, everything coming easy to him -

Well. Almost everything.

“I’ll do my best,” he says grandly, and only smiles at her snort. Her unearthly glow (he ought to know what her magic is, but his focus has been sliding, lately) shields it a little, but closer up he can see how worn thin she is. Hunger and travel have made her lean, or maybe it’s grief; he knows what too much love can make you, when you lose it. It is a weapon like any feeling too strong, and one that can be turned too easily on yourself.

When her eyes go to the tattoo on his shoulder he says nothing, though his smile curls broader as her gaze narrows. August does not give his secrets away for free; let her wonder, let her ask.

He inclines his head a fraction at her next comment, though he doesn’t drop his eyes - too busy watching that spill of gold that hisses as it hits the dirt. He wonders if it burns against the skin, if it could catch in the dark ferns and burn the island down, if she wanted. August wonders what it is she wants here at all, if it is the Relic or if, like him, she isn’t yet sure. “I’ll bet. In that case, I’m happy to compliment any other feature you care to pick. Hardly fair for one to get all the glory.”

They are near enough one another now that the stretch of a muzzle could see them touching, but August keeps to himself. He’s mindful of that shower of sparks, content to be near enough to test the warmth of her, measure the blue of her eyes, note the band around her throat. At her question he glances back at the birds in question, still eerily watchful - he almost wants to shoo them off, see how they respond to a threat. But the risk isn’t worth it, not when he still knows so little.

“I’d be curious to hear what they say,” he answers idly, and turns his grin back on Bexley. “But my name is August. And what should I call you?” The question is cool, polite, mild enough it might be honest ignorance - but his silver eyes suggest otherwise. I know, it says, but I’ll pretend anything you want.

the great object of life is sensation -
to feel that we exist, even though in pain

♠︎ ♕ ♠︎


She’s a small sun, hidden away beneath the canopy, and he wonders if all the creatures of the island find her strange and unknowable. Like she’s the magic, savage thing, and not them. Though this then makes him wonder if all the horses are viewed as invaders, and may yet be treated as such - gods know they’re ill-prepared for an organized attack, so far from shore, thrown together in a foreign land.

Best not to think about it. If this was Tempus’ doing, and He wanted them dead, then there wasn’t much use in worrying.

August observes the moment when his tattoo clicks in her mind, and though he smiles - a Cheshire kind of smile - neither of them say anything. When their eyes meet again he arches a brow, curls his smile into a little grin at what she says. As she looks past him (at what? his imagination conjures a thousand things, perching behind him in the undergrowth, but her expression suggests nothing dire) his lambent gaze touches once more along her, as though her body is a map that might tell him where she’s been. He thinks, unbidden, of Anghavni informing him of Raum’s upcoming visit to the Scarab. What might Bexley Briar do, if she knew?

“You have lovely shoulders,” he says, airily. “Like the first dunes of the Mors.” Golden and smooth-sloping, perfectly unmarked. He might have reached out to touch one, a new dare, if she hadn’t chosen that moment to meet his gaze again, and when she leans back he echoes the movement. August barely bats an eye at the giving of her name (and the compliment after), but he admires her for not pretending.

At her question his gaze strays away, touching light and swift as a dragonfly over all the oddities around them. If you didn’t focus on a singular part, nothing seemed terribly out of order. It wasn’t until you started paying attention that things got…unusual. “What, stay home and miss all this?” There’s a hint of wryness, in his tone, but August means it true enough; there has always been a part of him begging for adventure, and a part that reminds himself that the Scarab is enough of one. Every day a new problem to solve, a dozen situations like the heads of a hydra that need stamped out, another net to cast and line to test. Enough to keep him occupied, enough to keep him happy - but he still can’t drown it, the boy inside him who wants the open ocean, who wants a sword fight, who wants mysteries met with steel and wits.

But these things he keeps shut away, where they can’t betray him.

It’s a different kind of honesty he opts for, when he turns back to her and rolls a shoulder in a shrug. “When the eruption began, I thought it might be it - the end. Might as well go to meet it.” Better to go out and meet your death than have it set on you on the road; better to make an adventure of it than cower and wait and always wonder what was happening just over the crease of the horizon.

Had he (does he) really believed that this island was an extinction? Standing here with her, it seems laughable. But August does not laugh, only regards her, and feels the heat roll between them like trapped sunlight, like a tremor under the sea. “Your turn.”

the great object of life is sensation -
to feel that we exist, even though in pain

♠︎ ♕ ♠︎

He had, of course, been expecting the snort. Such a foolish, bad-poetry compliment is its own kind of subtle weapon, another way to put her off guard. A little flirting that says oh, I’m harmless, I’m nothing at all - a grin and a wink. Now, tell me about yourself. August can do this kind of bartering all day, and enjoy it ninety-nine times out of a hundred.

Never mind that he’s still not sure what he wants out of this - the whole world or a pocketful of gold. He’s always been willing to meander a little, if the path is interesting enough.

She repeats him and he arches a brow at her, his moonlight-on-pavement gaze saying only see? What else was there to do - wait for someone else to find the riches, discover the secrets, build the new world? Wait for whatever flavor of doom to slouch to your door? Sometimes, August is fatalistic. Sometimes - probably - he is stupid. But let it never be said that he is not a man of inaction.

Except it is Bexley that then surprises him. Except it is his turn to laugh, bright as a bell, that smile she’d wanted it. But before he can shake his head - no, no, I meant the world - she touches him and August is reminded that he’s not the only one playing a game.

He begins to wonder if there’s a way for both of them to win.

The golden boy goes still beneath her touch as though it were a felling blow and not the brush of a butterfly wing. For a moment there is only his breathing, and the smile curling further along his lips, and the way the light falls through the blue of her eyes like shallow water at the edge of the world. August always makes himself forget how good it feels to be touched, but his body cannot be so coerced. He’s hungry for it, the way he always is - the desire to take and give, until he’s satisfied, until he’s exhausted, until he forgets what it’s like to live alone inside his skin. And then, almost immediately: starving again.

August is not so stupid to not know what he feeds himself is all empty calories. Not even golden straw can be spun into grass. It never stops him from wanting to eat his fill.

His white lashes lower as he regards her for the space of a breath, and then he’s touching that smile to the place where her throat meets her neck, tracing a line from her jaw to the jewelry she wears to the curve of her shoulder, warm as a dune beneath the sun. She is dappled, too, by the light through the crowded canopy; they must look, to the watching birds, like moving treasure, discarded wealth. He still hasn’t answered her question.

“Bexley Briar,” he says at last, to buy himself time, to say her name in a way that feels like claiming because she had done the same with his. He can feel his pulse running quicker, the way it does before every spar. Even in a pause only long enough for her name he wants to be touching her again. “You should take note that I’m a terrible loser, but a very good friend.”

August doesn’t usually give himself away for nothing, but Bexley Briar is hardly that. And anyway, the world might still be ending; who the hell wants to die alone?