Raging, screaming winds thrust into the side of the grand castle that belonged to the White Scarab, howling and fighting with the currents flipping themselves over and over. It whistled between narrow alleyways, gusted over the cobblestone streets and paid no mind to what it might have displaced along the way. Abandoned stall carts along the market square were toppled, their wares long packed and taken home in fear of the coming storm, the one that now threatened to tear the very bricks from their place cemented into walls. Even the buildings lining the path trembled with the seething tempest that clawed its way over the Night Court and, more specifically, where she pushed through the deluge that whipped and stung against her copper skin. It brought her with it, the eye of the storm that made headway to the looming structure at the end of the street.
Or, maybe, they had it backwards and it was she who dragged the storm with her.
How long it had been, months and seasons?, since she again showed her diamond-plated face around the surface. Her arrival was unlike her last appearance in every aspect save for one: it was effortless, and despite the torrential downpour she walked through, with the wind begging to pull her away with it, she showed no signs of struggle, no indication at all that her grace was affected by nature's wrath. Her usually-braided hair was loose and engaged in a frenzied battle with the gusts blowing relentlessly, necklace and gems upon her twig crown never settling against her body. But no ounce of her desired to turn around, or to take refuge until it passed, or do anything aside from reaching the grandeur doors that murmured its encouragement to her. Inside, they wanted her in and back to a room that grew dusty from disuse.
She wouldn't refuse them.
And so the doors, heavy in their weight but made to be no more than picks with the gales crying against them, opened with a bang that echoed across the Scarab and demanded an immediate hush from all occupants inside. There were few, at the time of night in which she returned, but every eye was upon her and the ricocheting doors from the force at which they had opened. The nearest to the entrance scrambled to find safety elsewhere as the rain promptly drenched everything it could touch, licking its way through the dimmed interior. She stood unmoving, picturesque, statuesque, against a backdrop pulled straight from a movie: lightning flashing in all the spaces around her, lighting her slim frame from behind and turning her into nothing more than a silhouette, cream locks creased around all the dips and curves of her body. Her gems upon her brow glinted eerily in the snippets of light that snaked through, and her eyes were as turbulent as the scene outside with their colors that swirled endlessly. White-tipped ears were pinned. Her spotted chest was still.
She had sights for but one individual, and with all others gathered looking at her, she had the room. The hush was torn apart by the storm, both deafening in their own beauty. Time stopped there for them, for her, and finally--finally--the clips from her hooves against the ground resounded in a sharp staccato as she made way through the entry hall. Home.
And though she wanted nothing more than to head up the staircase off to the side, a darker part of the room that none dared to cross to, to a space with a red rose painted on the door, she stopped. Her movements ceased in the center of the Floor, playing card tables scattered about, and as she glanced around at those who looked back up at her, they jumped into action as if the veil had been pulled back and they were released once more into whatever reality they were part of. Chatter picked up, cards were shuffled, and all resumed as normal as things pertaining to gambling could be. Except for her, the 'normal' shifted into a different meaning and she sought only one among them. He was not visible to her, wherever he might have been, and so she spoke his name and simply waited; he would find her, she had no doubt.
the great object of life is sensation - to feel that we exist, even though in pain
♠︎ ♕ ♠︎
“Manon,” he said pleasantly, once he’d reached her side.
He hadn’t been there for her arrival, but it had not, as she’d assumed, taken him long to find out about it. One of the young staff came knocking hurriedly at the door of his office on the bottom of the first floor, as impressed as he was worried when he breathed The Red Rose is back. So quickly did he reach the floor that some of the expressions at her appearance still lingered on the faces of the patrons, curiosity and awe and things rather more lascivious. August knew she must welcome all of them.
He just wondered what made her so intent on finding him.
“You haven’t lost your flair for an entrance, I see,” he said, then leaned in near enough to smell the lightning and rain on her skin, to see the places where the gold gives to turquoise in her eyes. “You weren’t waiting for the storm, were you?” There might have been a part of him that meant the wryness in the words - she had not made things easy for her patrons, there for a few weeks, but the grin he wore was malleable as beaten gold, and his tone was teasing.
She might be a thorn in all their sides (and how many times had that joke been made?) but there was no denying that things were far more interesting with Manon around.
The wind moaned outside, leaning and beating its fists uselessly against the walls, and thunder grumbled in complaint. By now the bulk of the room had turned their attention discreetly away, and one of the younger waitstaff hurried up to them, bowing swiftly before asking whether either of them would like a drink. “Gin, thank you,” August told the colt, and quirked a brow at Manon.
Though it had been his recommendation she go to ground before, August knew that the woman was as uncontrollable as the squall outside, as impossible to direct. Whatever had brought her back doubtless meant another headache for him, yet still he grinned - such was her particular charm.
“So,” he began, once the boy was sweeping away again, “shall we retire to somewhere more private to catch up?”
How different her last time through those doors after a long hiatus had been, with her sweeping in in a much more quiet fashion, the day bright and the clouds blotting out the worst of the sun's harsh light. There was bustle and chatter and laughing that could be heard from outside those doors, and even into the marketplace the noise was swept away by all the commotion of wares selling and children playing. It was without as much grand gesture, without the threat of her wrath as nature followed suit.
Of course it would come as no surprise to her that he would hear of her quickly; those who knew her, or even knew of her, were sure to be swift on their feet and find someone who could contain the wild ways in which she moved. She was not usually one to leave destruction in her path (she was far too careful, far too conserved in her work to allow for such a mess) but that night was different from others--this time, she knew who she was on the hunt for, knew the one responsible for the chaos she had left the Scarab in. It was not of her choosing, and it had come quite unexpectedly; normally, she is invisible, and she ties her loose ends before they can get the better of her.
But, that time, it wasn't the end that needing tying. It was a girl who became involved in ways she should never have been.
The softly golden boy approached the richly red lady with much less fanfare than she had brought with her, and as those who chose to stay in the Scarab that night returned to their talks, their games, and perhaps things even she didn't want to think about then--the darker side of business was not for her that night. August's words were warm against her cool skin, and her eyes were lost in his until his question faded and she took over. "Now, we always knew I had a penchant for great timing. Let's call it coincidence." She sent a wink, lips tipping up as easy as his had into a smile she meant more genuinely than him. Her voice was the same slight roughness it had always been, and the gleam in her eye hadn't faded in her time away. But she wouldn't know August at all if she couldn't tell that maybe--just maybe--he was a bit dismayed at seeing her back at the Scarab.
The young boy that gave himself to them for the moment was not one she recognized; oh but how could she have thought time would stand still and everything would be just as she had left it? Almost a year... How? It was a couple months shy of reaching a full year since she was forced to leave, and then she was back and had to work to rebuild on all that she had missed. It was not all unlike the time before that, too. A never ending cycle for the one who chose to run with the more unsavory way of trade.
"Make it two, if you wouldn't mind," and before she could even complete her request he bowed and was off to fetch their drinks. She turned back to the Scarab's lead male and motioned for him to proceed. "So quick to be alone with me, August, you really must have missed me," coyly, purring, of course her words were meant more in jest than truth, but she would be lying if she said she hadn't honestly missed him, and those other patrons of the Scarab that called it home. "Lead the way, and I shall follow." Her baby blue gems swung softly against her cheeks with the light swivel of her head, imitating the bow the server gave them moments before. It was only up from there, and she figured with the sensitive nature of their soon-to-be discussion they would be heading to the upper-most floor the Scarab provided; but to his room or hers, or even another, she would let him decide.
IT WAS RAINING, AND HE WAS LOSING HIS BLOOD,
he was losing his brain, in a cold place, in a ditch
The first storm of the winter arrived with a blustery vengeance on the evening Senna's caravan slipped across the glacier-cut gorge keeping Day from Night.
Dark clouds hissed out sheets of sleet and raced each other across the skies. The windows of the gold-chased caravan were sealed shut with beeswax, but when dawn broke, a gust of howling wind cut through the wax like a hot knife through butter and spit snow into the lashes of the pensive nobleman within. He drew his fur-lined cloak tighter around him. The white falcon perched on the sill ruffled her feathers peevishly and tucked her beak into the crook of her wing.
Dunes of sand slowly gave way to mounds of snow. Frost choked the air and froze the tears from smarting eyes. The fine mahogany spokes of the wagon accumulated mud like interest, and thrice was the small procession forced to a halt when a wheel sank into the maw of a snow-choked hole. Each time, Senna swept silently out, stripped of his cloak, to heave at the wheel with his men.
Despite it all, they made good time. Before gloomy noon could slip into icy evening, the caravan pulled up the winding alley that led to the heart of the city, and the white pearl nestled within.
"Father!" Senna looked down as a bundle wrapped in cloth was pushed into his chest, the witch-green eyes of his daughter cutting through the haze of snow.
"The Night's winter is bitter," she hummed, voice muffled beneath an ermine stole wrapped snugly round her throat. An iron handle stuck out of the cloth, and Senna placed the bundle as a wrapped bedwarmer just as its warmth began to seep deliciously into his bones.
"Is this your way of reminding me my age, Aghavnu jan?" he grunted, but his lips edged into a faint, tender smile. "I have missed the cold; Solterra has but one season, and it deadens the senses. But let us not linger."
Nodding with mirth, Aghavni made for the Scarab's doors—held open by a red-cheeked serving boy, shivering in his sapphire satin—her father close behind, Nestor's talons digging lightly into his cloaked shoulder.
They walked in silence, until Aghavni could bear her news no longer. "Manon is back," she remarked, glancing shrewdly at her father as they turned down a lantern-lit hallway. Candles were kept only in the areas the patrons frequented—they were a pain to keep lit, all ten thousand or so of them, even with Vikander's magic. If nothing else, Senna was a fair employer.
"Is she?" He had known, of course. The Enchantress' perfumed message had drifted through his window in the shape of a dove that burst theatrically into flames when read. And according to the flaming script, the Red Rose had received his gift with grace.
"I shall never understand why you favor her so," said Aghavni, with a great sigh. She had written her father of what the woman had done to the child—who had turned out to be older than she, but that was besides the point—so she turned to him now, narrow-eyed yet cautious. She was sharp, sharper perhaps than he had been at her age, and despite her occasional brashness knew the merits of saying too little versus the latter.
"She is an old acquaintance," Senna said after a pause. "And she is skilled, in ways I am not. You will learn, Sol, that some battles cannot be won by force. They are won by subtler things—a cobra in a basket, a rose with death-touched thorns. Temptation. Seduction." His voice, deep as rivers in spring, echoed gravely down the carpeted hall.
"If anything, you would not want her as an enemy."
« ❦ »
August had found her first, but the boy accepted dismissal with a bow and good-humoured grin. Yet Senna's gaze had lingered as August strode away, burdened by a depth of concern the nobleman would never deign to show.
A year—and all the hardships of that year—had hardened August. A newfound edge sharpened his laughing eyes, and shadows gathered at the corners of his storyteller's lips.
Aghavni had not mentioned anything to him, but doubtless she knew the reason behind August's unease. But loyalty had sealed fast her lips. Stemming his sigh, Senna resolved to seek them both out come evening.
He turned to Manon and his faint smile solidified into one of ease. Clearing his throat, he swiped an amber glass from a passing blue-suit's tray and touched it to his lips. To keep the sleep (there it pressed, insistent, at the edge of his mind) at bay for a few hours more.
"Manon," he said at last, breath fogging the rim of the crystal goblet.
The whiskey burned down his throat and left his mouth with a hint of sweetness. Denoctian brews preferred saccharine over the malted bitterness Solterrans so favoured; it was a welcome change, and strangely calming. The goblet clinked as Senna set it down, drained, on a walnut cabinet lined with rows and rows of dripping wax candles.
"I hope the Enchantress did not give you too much trouble," he remarked, low but carrying through the din. His gaze flickered steadily over Manon's sculpted cheekbones to the crown of thorns wound through her starlight hair. It lingered for only a moment, for swiftly after Senna tipped the point of his horn towards the mouth of the winding stairs.
"Come. I admit I am a bit weary after traveling, and my office will make for better conversation than here." His jaw set, and the shadows seemed to deepen in the hollows of his cheeks and eyes.
Until a flicker of rare amusement crossed his lips, and he added jauntily over his shoulder: "And I am eager, old friend, to hear the story of how you got away."
He had been, in nearly every sense of the word, a savior to the girl who had lived in the brothel; she was alone, so alone in a cruel world under the thumb of a woman who made her believe she was cared for, cared about, when really her only interest was in the business. How naive that girl had been, to think she had a mother that wanted her, to think that she had a gentle hand guiding her, to think anything at all but the truth: her father left her (and how that hatred would grow...), her mother never doted upon her (and how twisted like her she would become...), and the brothel owner turned her into a weapon (what a deadly weapon she was...).
And then Senna was there, a younger version of himself and all the ways he carried a promise to her on his back; how they had met so long ago and he gave her a reason to get out and put herself to better uses. "Better" was a relative term, but really with her so was everything else. They would find a way to fit together in shapes she hadn't ever learned of, and perhaps it would be the first time she ever felt anything but spite toward another individual.
She would go on to feel many, many things about him.
He offered her refuge in his grandeur establishment meant for a 'no questions asked' lifestyle, and fell into its arms quicker than any other place prior. Young, but not innocent, she could ask for nothing better, and with stars in her eyes she pledged loyalty to the only man she would for years to come. He was unlike those of the streets, unlike a father that was more prideful than considerate, and maybe, maybe... there would be a day that she could capture his heart too.
But he had things to do and she had revenge to seek, and on his many leaves of absence from the Scarab while he traveled back to Solterra, and his house, she found other ways to occupy her heart. He never minded her dirty jobs or feigned disinterest in her work; he seemed to accept her fully, and in return she provided the Scarab with business and kept their patrons entertained and wanting more. She would leave him her roses and one-off letters and wish his safe returns, secretly hoping that their future would amount to more than memories and just-missed arrivals and goodbye-less departures.
It would seem that day, though, on the day of her return from a semi-imposed exile (not the first she had experienced in recent times), he, too, would be there to greet her.
She hadn't noticed the larger dark shadow slip across the floor while her words hung like a fog between her and August, though he didn't offer an immediate reply and seemed to shut himself up tightly quite unexpectedly. Silently she wondered what she could have said to zip him up so, but with a flourish of motion he was gone, and instead...
Senna.
To say the world around her ceased movement and time slowed and her vision only had room for him wouldn't have quite covered the intensity of the crashing of her heart against rusted ribs, the way her legs felt weak and her mind struggled to find purchase. How long... how long had it been since they last crossed paths, since he had managed to find time away from Solterra to personally visit? He had left everything to Aghavni, to August and Vikander, and she was sure that she would have had to go to the desert in search of him some day first. But he stood there, with her, in a quiet, dying night's bosom, and he rendered her helpless. She would have cursed out loud if she wasn't trying to preserve her image.
He seemed to have aged eons since their last meeting, but she would never dare ask about it. What sorts of horrors had you seen, Senna, out where the beasts roamed free and the sun never quite set? But he was made all the more handsome for it, wearing the weariness like the crown upon her brow. He was timeless.
She watched him like a predator does their prey, but without the lingering threat of death over their heads--all appeal without any of the destruction, rare for a woman who wore chaos like blush across marble cheeks. Maybe he brought out the peace in her.
He mentioned the Enchantress and she was trust back to the moment her name rang across the market square and Senna's name appeared on that parchment. Her heart skipped, and she realized that she never actually thanked him for the gift. "Senna, I..." Had she ever actually given thanks before? Had she been grateful for anything, anyone, outside of him? Maybe she couldn't recall because her thoughts felt hollow, or maybe it was because the beating of her heart was drowning out everything but the sight of him. She couldn't recover quickly enough by the time he was ready to move on, but not from her it seemed, as he invited her up, and up, and perhaps they wouldn't ever have to go back down.
"Wherever you shall go..." I will follow, but she held her tongue and the glint in her eye might have been enough for him to understand. "Got away," were his words and she laughed softly toward him as they moved up the stairs and left those flickering candles behind to melt in their path. "Which time, dear friend?" She countered his inquiry, then quickly covered her dagger words with a sigh, "Though I suppose they have all ended the same. There are few individuals more charming than me, you know," and the stairs were narrow so it was likely he wouldn't have caught her wink as they pressed side by side and their skin lightly brushed, and his feathers inadvertently covered her speckled back (narrow, but not so narrow as to keep her behind him). He was cheeky, certainly, but she knew his cards and could read his hand just as easily as he could hers.
She knew better than to ask about Aghavni, about the dealings in the Scarab, about his personal life as head of House Hajakha, and perhaps there were better times for talk of business. So she picked up a small humming tune to accompany their way up the floors, time spinning and spanning and not quite real. At the top, she stopped and allowed him to pass before her, giving a sarcastic bow of her head and murmuring a soft "After you, " though making a point to stay close behind.
