E     I    K

She walks with the confident, at-ease trudge of a soldier on patrol. She’s working tonight, as the rest of the court is carousing (some with joy, some with sorrow, most with a mix of the two) and blissfully trying to shed the worries and concerns of their daily lives. Money is flowing in the marketplace, all manner of goods and services being bought and sold. Magic flows too. He feels the familiar spark-crackle-buzz of it in his knees, in his chest, in his blood.

She knows he’s following her.

He senses it in the subtle tension that flares in her movement. She almost seems happy. Excited. A cat, living among mice, finally given an excuse to flex its claws. Or maybe he’s reading too much into the spring in her step and the arch in her neck. He doesn’t use his magic, not yet. He might not use it at all tonight. Ever since the kidnapping, these large gatherings make him nervous.

She doesn’t look back, but she stops to investigate a merchant selling flowers. She’s waiting for him. Or, she has a sudden interest in purchasing flowers.

Eik approaches casually and looks at the flowers with interest. “One of those, please. Just a single one.” It’s a white lilly– he doesn’t know the name of it. He floats a coin to the merchant and gently ties the flower to his mane. For Isra, later.

And then he turns to Antiope, who stands there with the dangerous poise of a lion. “Hello, Regent. May I walk with you?”


and you keep telling yourself
there is no smell of war in me
but why else would this feel like madness

I MISS THE GLOOM OF THE PRARIE MOON
“I assume you mean at my side?” Cool and composed, he would not have expected anything else of the Regent. Cool and composed, every time he saw her, verging on what one might call stony except for a sharp look in the eyes which suggested in the course of a split second she could transform into something very wild and, with no uncertainty, beyond the control of any man.

Naturally Eik was not afraid of such wildness. If anything he was drawn to it, same as he was drawn to the endless miles of dusty plains and the cloudless nights by the sea, for he was wild too. Time had worn him down, smoothed and sanded his edges like sea glass, but it had not broken him. Not yet.

The grey does not smile, but pleased amusement crinkles at the edge of his dark eyes. “Yes. Thank you.” Eik feels tension in his shoulders as they turn and walk further into the market, and he is not sure if it is because of the conflict he senses in her mind, or the sudden realization he had not prepared anything to say to her.

“I just wanted to learn more about my regime.” He speaks plainly and formally, soldier to regent. "Who are you, Antiope?" Still plain spoken, still formal, even though the question was surely not a conventional one. He glances at her from time to time, but mostly keeps his attention on the They walk slow and certain into the night, no rush at all to delve into the mysteries of the market.

“Also I…” He trails off as the market suddenly thickens around them. A troupe of dancers is moving through, brandished with colored veils and silks and flowers. “I need to know that Isra is safe with you.” He speaks to her directly with his mind, where he doesn’t have to raise his voice over the crowd.

THAT SEEMED TO KNOW MY NAME

I MISS THE GLOOM OF THE PRARIE MOON
“I was made from magic, carved from marble.” He can hear the truth in her voice, the impossible truth, and although he raises a brow in skepticism, it is more out of habit than anything else. Of course he believes her. He remembers first coming to Novus, wide-eyed and full of disbelief. He remembers how his definition of impossible had been challenged, time and time again, hammered thin.

“I am someone with regrets, and pain, and anger,” Is it just his imagination, or does she linger on the word anger? He thinks of Isra, and the smoke that billows behind her sky-blue eyes. Was the anger carved in to Antiope, lodged with intention in the crook of her hips or the curve of her belly? Was the rage planted in Isra, a seed buried in her drowning lungs?

Eik’s own anger was slow and steady but never quite certain where to direct itself; were the gods to blame for shaping women into weapons, or was it nature?

“But I also am someone who loves, and hopes.” He smiles sadly at the word hope; his great enemy. How much pain could have been avoided if he could have simply smothered the damned stubborn hope that burgeoned in his chest, relentlessly. But without hope Eik would not be Eik, and Antiope would not be Antiope, and the whole world would stumble to a halt because what’s the point of doing anything at all, without something to hope for?

Just as well as Eik knows hope, he knows honor. As Antiope continues to speak, he bobs his head in shared understanding of what it means to owe someone who sees clearly through all your monstrous depths and embraces you anyway-- who maybe even treasures you all the more for the length of your shadows. Honor was a fine code to live by, and better still to die by.

But when her eyes glow for a fraction of a moment, like a spark jumping from a bonfire, he wonders if she’s had to do terrible things, for honor, or love, or hope. And he wonders if they weigh on her, like his past weighs on him, or if the gods carved her so that the guilt and the shame would slide right off.

“Oh, I never doubted your prowess,” he almost laughs at the thought. Antiope would be terrifying to face in a fight, even for someone as careless with their life as Eik. “Just your intent.” His words still carry a Solterran lilt to them, and buried beneath that the faint color of a faraway land. (dusty grey earth, the darker-than-black depth of charcoal, crystalline blue-- the sky seemed so much farther away, there)

The spark in her eye is gone now, but it doesn’t matter. He knows it’s in her, waiting for the opportunity to show itself. Maybe even pacing back and forth, restless like a caged lion, eager for a fight. “And what is it you hope for?” He wonders aloud. It was the question that was circling his mind discontentedly, lately; what next?

THAT SEEMED TO KNOW MY NAME