lysander
He falls still as a figure carved from marble as her horn traces its deadly edge against his skin. Oh, it is still not fear that his heart stutters and jumps with, not fear that makes his flesh prickle when her horn passes by, light as the touch of a spirit.
If he is lucky, Lysander will never find himself at the killing point of this creature again again.
No; she is not man, not monster. She is a woman and a weapon and more frightening than either.
He does not attempt to answer her words. Instead he only meets her stony gaze, one eyebrow raised, and inclines his head just barely, just enough. Lysander cannot help but wonder then (out of cold curiosity and keen interest both) what form her death would come in, some day, years and miles and scars from now. Perhaps it would never come at all.
Once again her judgment fails to stir him; the copper stallion has long been comfortable with what he is. Just as she could be nothing else, he is well set in his ways, a wheel that’s been turning for centuries. He knows well the scent of blood, knows even what it is to die (if such a death as his have been can be considered that at all, impermanent as they are) but battle was never his way.
“My body has only ever been a vessel for more important things, regardless of what world I walk in.” With a shrug he steps forward again, though he is ever mindful of her horn, her eyes. But then a corner of his mouth pulls down, wry, and he tilts his head as if testing the weight of those curving antlers. “Though perhaps you are right, and that is true no longer.”
Blood is to be paid in blood, she says, and for a second he allows himself to imagine it: crimson gilding his antlers, scarlet flecking the bronze of his coat. Would the night king fall as silently as he had? Would his companions? Lysander thinks of a knife half-hidden by the snow, a broken blade reflecting a thin gleam of moonlight.
There is something satisfying in picturing it, and he lets the pleasure curl low in his belly, deep and dark and cool.
But then, at last, his gaze is snared by something that creeps across the ground like a dying man’s hand. Carefully, slowly, he eases forward, examining what grows there in the dappled shadows and sunlight. The blossoms were tiny, translucent as moth’s wings, and they shivered beneath his breath. The plant has four leaves, patterned like the back of a snake. Contractorium mortem - devil’s lace. Lysander grins, and it is a private, savage thing.
Delicately he bends his antlers to the soil, and he is grateful indeed for telekinesis as he gently plucks the blooms and leaves and winds them around the pale tines. Once he’d worn a crown of ivy – this does not feel so different, though it is far more deadly.
When he straightens again, it is to turn toward Calliope, toward the Dusk Court. His smile lingers, his eyes as bright as the leaves that crawl along his antlers. “Well, I have found what I came for. I hope that you do too, unicorn.”
He does not think he will mind the long walk back.
@Calliope closing this one here, but I'd love to see them talk again
