BEXLEY BRIAR
Under a thick mat of lashes, the Regent’s blue gaze grows cool and almost bemused as she waits so many long, long moments for Moira to speak, for an acknowledgment, for a reaction. Yet the world is quiet around them. Heartbeats pass in stunning silence. The girl stares and stares and stares, and Bexley stares right back. All her life these kinds of looks (and kinds even worse) have followed her, sometimes from friends, more often from strangers, and the warm weight of Moira’s yellow gaze - as unfamiliar as it is - doesn’t have the same effect on Bex as it might on a lesser woman.
Then the girl nods, and the faint smile washed across Bexley’s lips deepens slightly. I’m sure you are, she agrees with a dry edge of humor, Though, truly, I hope I never have to bear witness to you proving it. The comment might’ve come off bitter if it wasn’t accompanied by a quick, almost-flirtatious wink, one that Bex offers with a practiced casualness before turning, in an elegant arc, toward the well. In the corner of her eye, she sees the smile on Moira’s face, and it almost mirrors the one on her own.
It’s been weeks - months, maybe - since any interaction came as easy as this one. Since her promotion, even the most basic tasks have become infuriatingly difficult. Bex has turned from a social butterfly into something cocooned and near-militaristic, totally conscious of the target on her back, the anger in her blood, the weight of the Day Court’s future slung across her shoulders, and now is the first time in forever that she feels that weight torn away. Instead of war and betrayal and the scent of smoldering wood, Bexley is thinking simply of the flickering torchlight overhead, incense and light harp floating through the air, and the girl at her hip, so beautiful and trouble-free.
What a relief.
A desert! Bexley responds in light surprise, head turning over her shoulder to catch her company’s gaze. She raises a brow. It wouldn’t happen to be the Mors, would it? I happen to know our insomniacs very well. Something like humor puts a lace edge in her voice. She turns forward again, moving in a casual saunter through the dissipating crowd. The night is growing darker, and in it Bexley is a gilded flame, slipping easily in and out of the insubstantial shadows: still her eyes, that fervid blue, glow like lanterns in the dimness. I’m Bexley Briar. Nice to meet you, Moira.
With that she draws to a stop and begins to wash the stains from her skin.
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