[P] tiger-lily, tiger-lily --

[Septimus]

WHEN I RISE UP, LET ME RISE JOYFUL, LIKE A BIRD--

There is a crowd on the beach.

Apparently, most of Novus’s population feels more comfortable on the shore than in the woods – he can’t blame them, though his reaction is mostly the opposite. Septimus does not feel uncomfortable anywhere on this island, which is too much like home to provoke him to anything more than well-deserved caution, but the wide-open expanse of the beach makes him uncomfortable. He feels far too exposed, out there; he is sure that there are dangers on the island, and they are perhaps more numerous in the forests, but, in the forest, there are places to hide. Out here, if something came barreling from the woods or creeping from the ocean, it would likely catch you – and there would be nowhere to go to escape it, save to run blindly into the danger of the woods.

But, he thinks, rather morbidly, as he examines the shoreline, there would be plenty of bodies for the beasts to go after, not necessarily his – and he did have wings, though he doesn’t trust whatever magic occupies this place to not ground him again, as it had on the bridge.

The shore doesn’t matter. He is searching for the relic, which means that he has to go inland – which means that the froth of mortals washed up like seafoam on the sand are not his concern.

With a toss of his antlered head (which makes the stones on his antlers gleam rather nicely in the mid-afternoon light), Septimus wades into the crowd, brushing shoulder and flank with tangled passerby. Somewhere, in the midst of it, he becomes vaguely aware of - someone - at his side, fiddling with the jewels. He tosses his head again, rather sharply, and extends his wings a hair, pushing the crowd back at his sides.

He slips out of them and into the woods, his strides extending gracefully the moment that he moves from sand to grass and dirt and fallen leaf; although he was in the forest only yesterday evening, it seems to have changed entirely. The trees are different. Their leaves – different. Deciduous, not coniferous. The trees are more evenly spaced, but the foliage on the ground is more dense – full of saplings, bushes, and weeds. This is of no consequence to Septimus. He strides forward with all the even certainty of a deer, marveling at the way the trees split the light into shafts – stripes of dark and light.

But he still feels eyes on his back – and, if he listens carefully, he thinks that he hears the soft crunch of hooves against leaves, somewhere behind him. Septimus stifles a snort; perhaps the thief (or so he assumes) from the beach had followed him out. If that were the case, well, then it was certainly his duty to catch them. Couldn’t just let one run around the island, stealing jewelry from unsuspecting passerby without any sort of consequence.

(Stealing from him, anyways.)

Septimus slows to a halt near the roots of an ancient, gnarled Ash tree, with branches wide enough to block out the sky in an extensive radius around the trunk. He might have sketched it, under different circumstances; he might still, once he’s dealt with his follower. For now, he steps across the roots and then, abruptly, lies down atop them. Once there, he closes his eyes, as though attempting to take a moment’s rest…

(A ridiculous notion, under the circumstances – Septimus could be rash, but he was no fool, and he knew well that there were forces at play that were far beyond his current capabilities.)

When he hears the sound of approaching hooves, drawing closer and closer still, he looks up, green eyes blinking open – at a figure. She is a little blonde slip, cream-coated and pale-haired with brilliant green eyes. The girl – for she is a girl, barely on the cusp of adulthood; he suspects that she will grow into something lovely, but, for now, a gangly hint of youthfulness still clings to her features, like a rob – is so small and lithe in frame that it almost makes Septimus smile; she is a bold creature, going after him, with his antlers and significantly larger frame. (Or perhaps she simply underestimates him because of his spectacles.) She must be about the age of some of his younger sisters, if they were mortal, and she certainly doesn’t look poor enough to need to steal. Her frame is not gaunt from hunger, and, in fact, she is rather adorned, with those spires in her hair. Septimus is tempted to gift her one of the green gemstones dangling from his antlers anyways, to reward her for her boldness.

He flashes her a sharp-toothed, cheerful smile – and he makes sure that she can see his canines. “I’d have thought that anyone brave enough to steal with a god about would be a better thief,” he observes blandly, meeting eyes that are as jewel-green as his own.

---

@Aghavni || <3

"Speech!" 

@

[Aghavni]

tear me to pieces
skin to bone

—

She could not find her father in the crowd.

Aghavni bit down on her lip, cross. Granted, she wasn’t meant to be looking, but her eyes were accustomed to searching for things they didn’t have the business to seek. She couldn’t not do it. The habit – she lacked a stronger word for it, so ‘habit’ would have to do – wasn’t something she could just… turn off, like twisting a leaky faucet shut.

Mother-of-pearl brooches, diamond-choked hairpins, her father’s ruby horn – things that liked to glint under the sun, her magicked-green eyes liked.

But her eyes had always liked, even when they’d been grey. My sly little magpie, Mother had called her. Or so Father had said.

They'd left separately, despite her protests. Father – Lord Hajakha, she reminded herself with a sigh – had journeyed to the island at blue dawn, the sun-softened leather of his traveling cloak pulled low over his brimstone eyes. She'd informed him that, though dashing, the cloak did nothing whatsoever to conceal his glowing horn. He'd responded with a withering smile before he’d sheathed his scabbard to his hip (a fine weapon – he’d let her hold it once, but that was as far as she’d been allowed to go) and stepped off into the drowsy gloam.

Her working theory was that some part of her father wished to be recognized, and that the cloak was really, as she’d vocalized, just a dashing accessory. 

The shriek of a seabird gliding low over the shore drew Aghavni's eyes to the distant tree line. Yet before bright green could settle upon lush green, they caught instead on the winking facets of a floating emerald pendant.

Several floating emerald pendants, hanging from – her fervent gaze trailed up and up and up – the immense antlers of a towering bay stallion. The effort of looking at him as he passed, all of him, strained her neck.

The stallion seemed young, at least younger than Father, and wove through the crowd effortlessly despite his size (or was it because of his size? she would never know). And before he could stride too far away, Aghavni crept after his swishing tail to follow in his wake. 

Her curiosity was a hungry creature. Though she indulged it as much as she did any of the alley cats that sometimes slipped through the Scarab’s doors, feeding them scraps or whole slices of ham on festival days, there was one thing her curiosity creature would not stand for: inaction.

And as any creature-keeper with a shred of decency would do, Aghavni spoiled hers. The stallion’s antlers had been strung with a legion of glittering green jewels. Surely he wouldn’t miss the absence of one. 

There’d been something else, too – something about him, in the brief glance she’d gotten, that had seemed… unearthly. Like a blade with magic worked into its very metal, its spell undetectable unless you tilted it under the light at just the right angle –

She'd done this enough times to know just how far away she needed to be to escape notice, yet still be near enough to keep her quarry in view. Thoughts of Father, the Scarab, August Minya Raum, were pushed aside to make room for her newest pursuit.

So focused was she, that Aghavni barely noticed when they crossed from crowded beach to sentient forest. So focused was she, that Aghavni didn’t think much of it when the man sidled over to a sprawling ash tree, sank down cradled like a wood sprite in its massive roots, and closed his eyes. It had never been this easy before, but –

A lingering awareness in the back of her mind declared, boldly, even if he catches me, he will surely see me as harmless. A girl barely come of age. And harmless she was, for she only wanted his jewels.

“I’d have thought that anyone brave enough to steal with a god about would be a better thief.” 

Aghavni flinched, startled eyes staring wide and unblinking into a gaze as young and ancient and green as the sea-borne forest. A curl escaped from her tightly-pinned mane as she froze suspended over him, a wraith aghast at being seen. 

He'd awoken, or he'd never been asleep at all. Clever man. Hesitantly, she drew away, looking from the dangling emerald earrings she’d intended to take (she’d only seen them when she’d approached, and had stifled a delighted gasp at their magnificence) to his bemused, fanged smile.

Father had fangs too, though his were thinner – and sharper. Harmless, she told herself, with a burgeoning smile. She hadn’t needed Father to tell her that all men could be simplified into one of two things: a lamb wrapped in the skin of a wolf, or a wolf draped in the fleece of a lamb. She’d learned it for herself.

“Who said anything about stealing?” she replied, voice as light as a lark. And about gods, but Aghavni filed the troubling comment away for later. Smiling, she brushed the loose curl back into its bun before settling herself right down in the roots besides him, taking the time and care to arrange her limbs into delicate formation. Like an expensive porcelain doll. 

She leaned forwards to stare wryly into his blithe, verdant gaze. “I would’ve asked. But then you fell asleep.” Wolf or lamb. What would he be?

@Septimus | "speaks" | notes: this was so! fun! to write <3

rallidae

[Septimus]

WHEN I RISE UP, LET ME RISE JOYFUL, LIKE A BIRD--

A smug smirk pulls at the corners of his lips when he looks up at her. How could it not? She looks like a deer in the headlights, blinking big green eyes at him with something that is almost desperation – a mouse in a trap, so shocked to be caught by her tail. She seems to hesitate, taking a nervous step back, and her eyes – such big, green things! – dart from his dangling earrings (Were they what she was after? Well, she was lucky that she hadn’t managed to take them, for he most certainly would have hunted her down over it, and he wouldn’t have been as lenient as he is being now.) to his teeth, and finally to his eyes. She seems to consider, and he allows her to do it, his stare never leaving her birdlike form. He wonders how old she is – he’s never been good at guessing mortal ages, and he’s not entirely sure how mortals age in this world anyways. Best he can guess is that she’s barely still a girl, rather than any numerical value; an adolescent on the verge of adulthood, still dressed in the trappings of youth. (He wonders, oftentimes, how old most mortals think that he is. If he wore his age on his skin, he is sure that he wouldn’t find himself in such troubling situations so frequently, but Septimus’s fae influences have always been a more subtle thing, all but outweighed by the presence of his mortal blood.)

She seems to come to some sort of decision, a smile working its way across her pale lips; under the circumstances, it strikes him as surprisingly effortless. Who said anything about stealing? Her voice is light and soft, even airy – as though she is entirely unconcerned by the circumstances. He isn’t sure, yet, if she thinks that she is clever or that he is foolish. (Perhaps it is some mixture thereof.) She settles on the roots alongside him, a dainty and doll-like creature, and he wonders what she’s playing at by lingering; perhaps she thinks that she can still get what she wants, if only she’s charming enough. Septimus, unfortunately, is not particularly susceptible to charm. He is several thousands of years too old for that. She leans forward to stare him right in the eyes, and he has to give her something for her shamelessness, or her boldness, whichever it might be; most petty thieves would have dashed off the moment they were caught, particularly after he flashed his teeth at them (with the suggestion that he might just be able to use them), but this little girl, perhaps as a result of her youthful naivete, decided to remain. He inclines his head at her, unwilling to break her stare.

I would’ve asked, she says, but then you fell asleep. He considers his response for a moment, his expression plainly disbelieving; the look in his eyes suggests that he is wondering if she really thinks that he is so easily fooled, though he doesn’t say it aloud. Instead, he just allows the silence to drag out between them, speaking volumes that he isn’t willing to put into words.

Finally, he speaks. “Like you tried to ask earlier?” Septimus inquires, arching his brows at her; amusement plays at the corners of his lips, a ghost of a smile. If she were any older, he would be far less entertained by the situation. However, she is still a girl, and she reminds him of his sisters, so he opts to treat her a bit more softly than he would otherwise. (She should be quite thankful, he thinks, that he has a soft spot for people who remind him of his relatives, particularly his younger siblings. She even looks similar to some of them, with those bright green eyes – as green as his own, but a few shades paler.)

He debates, for a moment, if he should reward her for her boldness. It probably isn’t a good idea – he shouldn’t be rewarding her efforts to commit a crime. However, he also doesn’t care much for the green gems that line his antlers, and his mother, he thinks, would say that the fae reward the tactfully bold. (With the key word, of course, being tactfully.) He unhooks one of the green stones from his antlers with a flourish of his telekinesis, and flings it in her direction; he knows that it won’t chip or break, even if it hits the ground. “Catch. For persistence’s sake.”

He can’t give her the earrings, of course, though he knows that they are what she’s really after. His mother would hardly be pleased, and, once he regained his magic, he knew that he’d need them as a conduit if he ever hoped to escape this land and commence his travels.

(He wonders, then, what her response to his offering will be – knowing that it is not what she wants.)

---

@Aghavni || I love her, and I had so much fun with this response??? 

"Speech!" 

@