Acton

 
If things had gone even a little differently, this might have been his home.
 
The thought had dogged him all the way north, worked its way into the back of his mind like a burr in his coat. Raum had been right – he would have belonged in Day, with the sun pressing fingers on his burnished skin, the sparks already behind his eyes. Acton had not been made for shadows, though he could wear them like a second skin.
 
But Solterra could never have embraced him the way that Reichenbach and the Night Court had. He was not made for following orders, and gods knew the trouble he’d be in with someone like Maxence as sovereign.
 
And so Acton longed even as he loathed, banked embers just waiting for a touch of breath to ignite.
 
This afternoon, the buckskin wound his way through the corridors, sunshine into shadow and out again. It made the act feel furtive even though he wasn’t trying to hide; Raum had told him visitors could come this far – though Rostislav’s seizing might have changed things. Acton wasn’t worried (though that was a poor measurement of anything, as he never was). All he wanted, today, was to look around.
 
Just a crow’s inborn curiosity, nothing more.
 
At first his mind glided past the sound of hoofbeats, marking them as nothing more than the echo of his own. This canyon was full of strange sounds; the wind moaned low and mean, or wailed high and soft, and slow-circling birds called down insults or greetings, and occasionally some stone came loose and clattered down a sheer rock face. This last always made Acton’s blood quicken and muscles tense, though he knew well enough of such chain reactions to know any damage would be done well before he could react.
 
But when he paused to draw in a breath – two – and the footsteps continued, he could feel his hair rise like a finger was being traced down his spine. He felt like he always did moments before a performance began, a twin mixture of eagerness and apprehension, sweet and strange as one of Mila’s potions.
 
The buckskin put on his best smile as the ringing footfalls neared, and a shadow fell around the corner ahead.



@Seraphina 

Acton

 
At the same time she was taking him in and finding him wanting, Acton was running a practiced eye over her. The mare was nothing if not striking; it was difficult for the eye to find a place to linger. From the iron band around her neck to the pale markings that striped it and her legs to her most unusual eyes – one gold as day, one bluer than any sea he’d seen – she was impossible to ignore. And he knew who she was. Raum’s rundown on the hierarchy of Solterra had been brief, but like everything the Ghost did it had been more than adequate.

Seraphina, the Day Court emissary. She’s no fool.

No; she did not look like one. Everything about this scene was different than when he’d last met a Day Court mare – hot sun, not cool and whispering night; trapped between red canyon walls instead of open plains that smelled of woodsmoke; himself the interloper and not the suspicious native.

But the biggest difference of all might have been the mares themselves.

Probably that was a good thing.

Probably.

His dark ears flicked forward at her question, and though he held her gaze he eased his own stance, making his shoulders and hips loose, unthreatening. It did not take much; he only bore one scar (not earned from a fight), and he had always been more dancer than brawler.

Physical combat was not his preference, and certainly not here, not now.

It was difficult, but he kept every ounce of arrogance out of his voice. Everything from his tone to his posture gave the picture of spread arms, hands open and palm-up. I come in peace. “I came to speak with Rhoswen. Raglan would have been the more obvious choice, true, but our Silvertongue just gets so tongue-tied around Rhos. He can barely get out ‘hello.’” Acton smiled, the curve of his lips not really a lie; their youthful messenger did have an awful crush on Rhoswen, gods help him.

Finally he broke eye contact, long enough to duck his head in greeting. Nothing showy, just a nod – but Acton’s restraint could only last so long. When he met those eyes again (eyes he found utterly fascinating, and just a little unnerving), there was a glimmer of wickedness in his own. “Speaking of – hello. I’m Acton, indeed of the Night Court. I assumed we were still welcome here – or is that only bound and drugged?”

It seemed impossible that the canyon could be so silent, but Acton had always done his best living (and made his worst decisions, the other side of the same burnished coin) while the rest of the world held its breath.



@Seraphina 

Acton

 

She was as unmovable and cold as the walls that rose around them, and he wondered if the sun ever touched her, warmed her into something more pliable. It did occur to him that he might be the cause for her impassiveness (he was certainly no stranger to rousing any number of emotions), but that only raised the question of whether he should keep pushing, or back off.

Normally the answer would be an easy one. But his meeting with Raum – and Maxence’s with Reich – were still fresh on his mind. He might have a careless tongue, but he didn’t intend to injure anyone else with it. Today.

He rolled a shrug at her comment on Rhoswen, utterly unaware that she didn’t know of the woman’s past with the Night Court sovereign. The two were as good as siblings, and to Acton it was common knowledge. She might have defected only recently – a year or so – to the Day Court, but there was no question that her loyalty was to the sun-god. “I suspect you’re right,” he said, and might have commented further when the gunmetal-colored mare continued.

The idea of walking with her to Solterra’s capital was not without its appeal. But Acton had never intended to go so far, particularly under constant scrutiny, and his invention of a needed conversation with Rhos now seemed foolish.

“Hmm,” was his only response at first, as though weighing her offer. He didn’t move as she circled him, putting him in mind of a lioness or a vulture; he only flicked his tail, followed her genially with his burnished gaze.

He did not let his disappointment show when Seraphina failed to rise to his bait; it seemed a specific skill of Solterran women. “So I’ve learned,” he answered as she continued back to the fore, but his mind was distracted, still weighing his predicament. “They don’t go well with Denocte’s long memories. Sometimes I’m glad I’m a foreigner. Are you native to Solterra?”

As if Reichenbach and his Crows hadn’t won Acton’s loyalty more thoroughly that any nationality could; as if he didn’t throw himself into their battles as much as any Dencotian. But that, too, had little to do with the Night Court itself, and everything to do with the gunpowder-black of his heart.

His gaze swung back to her, and her silver coat made him think of Raum. He doubted this interaction was enough to put the Ghost in danger, but showing up at the Day Court might be a different matter.

“The pleasure is mine, Seraphina,” he said, stepping up alongside her, and then raised a brow. “More than you know. You see, I’m supposed to ask Rhos about ideas for an upcoming party. Reichenbach has always valued her opinion, and he wants our upcoming festival to be more, ah, sophisticated than our usual.” Another shrug; he cast his glance back to the jagged-topped stone walls, catching the silhouette of a bird wheeling out of view. He couldn’t tell if it was a buzzard or an eagle. When his gaze fell to the silver mare again, it was accompanied by a soft laugh. “But if you could save me the trouble and ask Rhoswen to send Reich her thoughts, I’d be grateful. I wasn’t keen on crossing your desert to ask about decorations.”



@Seraphina <3 excuse the blergh, I was writing during work

Acton

 

Still she did not thaw; where the palomino had been all fire, every emotion flickering like lightning across her skin, this mare seemed as restrained as the collar she wore. A collar that his gaze lingered on, his mind wondered over, until she asked him about his past.

Then he looked away, eyes on the tawny walls of the canyon, rising up and up.  

“I escaped an…unfortunate situation when I was a boy and fled in the first direction I turned to. Luckily it led me to Denocte.” For the first time his smile faded into nothing; in his mind he saw the bars, the walls of the prison like the walls of the canyon like the walls of the theater he’d always performed in. The silver line of scar he bore across one shoulder seemed to twinge and he twitched his shoulder as though bothered by a fly. Acton kept his lip from curling at the memory of receiving it, but only just. And then he shrugged, a roll of burnished shoulders, and cocked a brow at her. “No shortage of sob stories in Novus, though.” Nor were they likely to end; the wheel had a way of rolling on.

He was not quite grateful for the conversation to move on, but he was glad – his past had long ago become more of a scar than a scab to worry at. Rhoswen, though – that was a much easier topic, not least because he seemed to be one of the few who didn’t carry some sort of torch for her (a match for some, a flare for others).

“She’s certainly better at it than most of us boys,” he agreed, genial smile returning, and let it remain even when Seraphina made her offer to chaperone him back. He thought immediately of his meeting with Bexley Briar, of how he had made her the exact same offer.

Hopefully this chance meeting would end on more friendly terms than that had.

Acton occasionally did foolish things, but that did not make him wholly a fool. He knew what she meant, and nodded anyway. “I appreciate it,” he said, even as he cast a final gaze toward the Dawn Court capital before turning around, his shadow slanting before him. “There are all sorts of nooks and crannies, aren’t there?” All kinds of places perfect for secrets.



@Seraphina <3

Acton

 

He noted that she made no move to offer insight to her own past, but for once he made no effort to needle her, to pry. He had a long walk home to conjure up all sorts of possible pasts for her; for now he only nodded. Whether she meant the universal you or the specific, she wasn’t far off the mark.  

“Yes,” he agreed, “but that goes for anything else you’d care to look for, too.” Life is a rich tapestry, Dunnigan, the merchant who’d bought his sentence, always said, and though Acton would never admit to agreeing with him he knew what he meant. Everywhere you turned your eyes there was light and there was shadow, and the one you focused on was up to you.

Of course, sometimes there was a damned heap of shadow. And sometimes you had to make your own light – something Acton was particularly adept at, though less on the ‘optimism’ side and more on the ‘colorful explosives’ one.

Maybe it was optimism, though, that had him interpreting her next comment as just a shade shy of humor. It was close enough for Acton, and he grinned, even as he wondered if her follow-up had a second meaning. He would not forget her suspicion – nor the fact that she was right to feel it.

Raum was proof of that. He was proof of it.

A shame, really, since the buckskin was warming up to her. If she found out what he was doing here, what kept him circling Day Court, neither of them would have to look to far for tragedy.

Parties were much more pleasant things to think about.

“Ah, see. You hit the nail on the head with ‘effort.’ Merrymaking we like, but planning it…” He shook his head as if the thought itself was distasteful. Of course, it was mainly the Crows he referred to, and not the Night Court as a whole, but for Acton, interest in others dropped off sharply outside his motley crew of family. Besides, if he gave her the impression that Denoctians were lazy fun-seekers and little else, well. All the better.

His eyes drew across the landscape as they walked, near opposite of each other in their hair and coloring, but twins in wearing dust and sweat. A black-tipped ear twisted at her emphatic agreement; this time his grin was a secret thing, a bite at the inside of his cheek. What a terrible, dangerous, foolish game he played – but oh, what fun.

It was easy to picture the bodies she mentioned; what was impossible for him was to see himself or Raum among them. He glanced at her, expression serious for a moment before he arched a brow. “Well, you have my admiration there. Doesn’t seem like an easy place to dig a hole.”

Maybe they just ceremonially heaved bodies into caves; there were certainly plenty of those, he’d noted on his way in. And now he ran a practiced eye over them, dark crevices like dark promises, until he heard Denocte. Then he turned his amber-eyed gaze on her again. Already he couldn’t remember which of her eyes he’d seen first – the golden or the electric blue.

They’d had stories, where he came from, that someone with two different-colored eyes could tell when you were lying. Acton had always loved the tales, but never believed them.

Again he nodded, picturing the foothills sloping away to craggy peaks, all the places you could fall. All the things that would eat you, or the snow that could trap you for weeks until you starved to death. Oh, it was lovely, lovely and treacherous, like all the things he loved. “I suppose you’re right, though it’s a different kind of danger. I guess the moral of it is – must be gods-damned nice to have wings.” His short laugh echoed off the canyon walls; it sounded lonely, almost ghostly.

Another turn or two and things had begun to look familiar; a cooler breeze was blowing in, carrying a hint of winter. Again he caught her eye, and his expression was nothing like the one he’d worn on first meeting her. “I think I can manage from here, Seraphina. You’ve got my thanks for passing on word to Rhos. Tell her we all say hello.”

He would wait until he was well out of sight to breathe a sigh of relief.


@Seraphina zomg so long and hopefully not shitty