IF I CANNOT INSPIRE LOVE,
I WILL CAUSE FEAR.
I WILL CAUSE FEAR.
D
espite it all, Caine does not mind the stranger’s presence as much as he thought he would. He will never admit it, but loneliness has always eaten at him more than it should.
“I have a real weakness for theatrics. Far more than finery.”
The ache for his illusion magic comes to a point as sharp as a rose’s thorns — how he misses the flames that blaze from eyes gone gold, the dragon of fire that twists like a soaring kite across the midnight sky — he had been so close to perfecting it. There is nothing else Caine would like more than to show the smiling man just how much he agrees. But then he sees the glint in those amber eyes, the teeth beneath those pulled lips, and is reminded that he is the one that should be wary.
A strange reversal of roles, he thinks with a smirk.
“Then we are more similar than both of us realize,” he replies with a shrug, silver eyes shifting away from the jewelry to stare curiously at the man in front of him. Perhaps he should be wary — perhaps it had been a mistake to visit the markets, where all sorts of trouble could simply waltz up to him like this one had.
Perhaps, perhaps. A word that only matters, when there is something to lose.
“But if you’re looking for something…”
“A gift?” Caine laughs, then, all music and boyishness, his silver eyes flaring in youthful amusement. “I have never given a gift to anyone before, and I don’t think now is the time to start.” There is no one for me to gift. They are all either dead, or bastards.
“However, I am looking for something. If left to my own devices, I would’ve wandered the markets until dawn — the plight of a foreigner.” The confession rolls smoothly past his tongue, though his words are not without their edge; he isn’t from here, and there is no point pretending otherwise. If this man wanted to play a game of words, then Caine will gladly give it to him.
Black wings fold behind him like a trailing cloak as he moves from the shadows of the booth to the light of the streets, onyx feathers gleaming under the glow of a thousand torches. “A weapons booth, then. Of the cutting kind, specifically.” His smile, when he gives it, is feral; all teeth and sin and starlight.
A dangerous game he plays, but Caine never dabbles in anything less.
@Acton | "speech" | notes: caine doesn't know what the word 'subtle' means
