THOSE SHARP BODIES, BRISTLING LIKE TEETH.
remember, a man cannot be a blade. a bomb cannot be a metaphor. fangs out, love.
Bright lights and dark skies, all just-out-of-focus.
All things considered, Locust thinks that she has been good tonight. Only a few sweet words, here and there, to pretty, passing strangers – only the occasional sip of something, not even enough to get drunk. (She thinks.) She feels – and she shouldn’t, at a party – tense. Perhaps it is the way her skin crawls when she looks around this place, or perhaps it is the stories she’s heard about Terrastella and its flesh-hungry water horses, or perhaps it is the way that she can’t seem to get the taste of the sea out of her mouth tonight. She doesn’t know why the taste of salt water is so strong tonight. Drinking doesn’t push it down at all. Perhaps it is the wind and the proximity of the sea, so near the court that she can imagine hearing waves over the music and the voices, as distant and predictable and painfully familiar as the beat of her own heart. But she cannot hear the sea, not over all of this noise. The sounds are phantom, pulsating somewhere between her ears.
She doesn’t know why she came tonight. Gods know – she is normally fond of parties. Drunken revelry, the chance to be distant from the ships and the sea and the blood on her teeth. Somehow, she hasn’t been in the mood for any of those things lately, and she feels like it is probably a sign (a bad one) that she has spent too much time on land and is getting a bit too soft for her own good. And perhaps, she thinks, as she stands staring at the massive fir tree in the entryway of the Citadel, that is why she is feeling so anxious tonight. There are unfamiliar faces everywhere, lightly blurred, and there is Locust, knife still strapped tight to her back leg (but, out of courtesy, flipped inward), unsure of what she is doing here and unsure of why she is doing it, but to get away from the sea for a while.
The press of stone to skin is all that reminds her that she is dangerous. That is the other thing – she has never much cared for being anonymous. Her reputation is normally enough to keep trouble at bay. Tonight…
Tonight, she thinks, as she finds herself face-to-face with some drunken block of muscle, dropping my name won’t do any good at all. She blinked (up) at him, distinctly unimpressed, and managed to catch the tail end of whatever he was saying. Something something something. Was she looking for trouble? She must be, running into him like that. (They’d barely brushed shoulders.) Now, now, isn’t that a pretty face-
The knife is out of its holster in a fraction of a second, hanging in the air at her side. It loops. Clicks. She leans amicably against one wall, watching the man with narrowed eyes. (Two other drunks at his side. They seemed to travel in packs.) She is clearly outnumbered and outsized, if they’re really looking for trouble, and they apparently are, but she is a pirate, and no stranger to this kind of situation. “I don’t suppose you’re still in possession of enough sense to know what this is, are you?” Her tone comes out flat; her eyes flick to the knife.
They seem more amused than intimidated, and she rolls her eyes, groaning. It felt like she had to do this with her newest crew every time they broke out the rum – so much for a vacation. Still, at someone else’s party, it would hardly be polite to strike the first blow, so, with a snort, she whirls on her heel and starts off in the opposite direction-
Only to feel the sudden, sharp sensation of teeth snapping closed around a lock of her pearl-entangled white hair.
Oh, seven hells.
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"Speech!" ||
