[AW] The mechanics of cheap melodrama

[Raymond]

Florentine might get a tiny bit older every time the red stallion crossed her path, but she seemed somehow like a fixed point around which worlds revolved. Perhaps it was the reality-warping dagger she wore sheathed at her neck - a weapon more unpredictable than any Rendari blade. He did not trust it; he did, at least, trust her for the time being. Even in the shadow of the strange edifice that had about it all the trappings of a gilded cage, that echoed the scheming whispers of countless schemers past.

Raymond's expression offered only steel for the asking. Ruth was not stalking the surrounding overgrowth to kill the flowers in Florentine's hair, and however inviting her smile he was not of a mood to be swept up in the sunshine of her innocence.

He straightened, voice low and grating with an undertone of dangerous, smoldering...something. "She fell into the rift." Only that. Florentine did not need described for her the details of the chaotic moment that replayed itself perpetually in some hellish corner of his mind, and as far as he was concerned anything taken by the rift would not be given up so easily even to a horse with such a strange implement as hers.

The rift was a jealous dog. If Ruth was taken, she was dead, collar or no collar.

"I hate to cast a long shadow across your doorstep, but when I got here I had the choice of either this tower or a swamp and I left my hip waders by the crater." The red stallion joked easily under stress, though in that moment it rang ever so slightly hollow. The quip pushed the conversation forward every bit as forcefully as a demand.

Raymond.
and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around

@Florentine