Private here's to your perfect weapons

if you wanna start a fight, you better throw the first punch

He regards her from booze-lidded eyes, from beneath the shadows that stretched across the festival bar, and he bites back anything else he might have to say. It is not a mercy, nor a desire to spare her, somehow -- but instead he is simply exhausted, unable to form the words that he thinks might help her understand.

Perhaps he simply cannot bare that sort of weakness, the thing that he is seeking that he recognizes in her. Maybe he simply can’t find the right words for it.

“Keep telling yourself that.” He tells her instead, taking the bottle that the bartender offers and turning to leave instead. All of a sudden, being here doesn’t seem as enticing, and seeking out a fight just seems like it will be entirely too much effort with his persistent shadow -- and finding a lover for the night even less worth the effort. “Don’t fuckin’ bother following me, I can find my way back home just fine.”

it coils like a molten snake,
and cuts you like a sharp knife.
this desert heat is a hunter—
it will ruthlessly take your life.

When Mathias took the bottle and pushed away from the bar, Teiran watched him. Oh, he might find his way home but she wondered how long it would take, how much more he could possibly drink before then. He seemed strangely less like himself. His remarks hadn't been as scathing as they normally were. Perhaps it had just been the alcohol.

The soldier waited a few beats for him to begin to push his way through the crowd, grasping a bottle and whatever was left of himself at that moment. Her sage green eyes hung on his retreating frame, and then she stood and followed. She'd watch him for a little bit perhaps, at a distance, and then maybe find her own way home. Parties really weren't her thing.

@~~Mathias~~ closing!