b e x l e y
MADE A GRAVEYARD FROM THE BONE-WHITE AFTERNOON.
The cave is its own wild animal now and Bexley’s scream is ripped out of her, dissolved into a series of harsh, strangled gasps as she backs away from the writhing black figure, tail lashing, muscles coiled, head raised and teeth bared - and when she doesn’t think it can get worse, the beating of wings sounds to her left, and a tornado of thin-winged bats goes crashing wild through the cave. Bexley’s heartbeat is so loud in her mouth now that she can’t even shriek. Her nerves go wild live-wire under her skin. Shaking and terrified, she presses further back against the wall, and then, wide-eyed, she realizes that the tunnel is alive.
A yellow-white glow spreads cancerous across the walls. It throws everything into sharp relief - her own shadow, long-legged and spidery ahead of her - the many disappearing figures of the bats as they circle, then flee - even worse, the gaunt, curved figure of the man in front of her. He is something over-aged and nearly monstrous. But somehow, despite the bones and the sharp teeth and the blind eyes, he is a man, Bexley realizes, and at least she knows how to deal with those. With a grip on that steel will, she forces her breath to steady, her pulse to slow. Wide-eyed, she watches Turhan stumble and steady, and when he speaks, something like surprise overtakes her: I am full of poison.
Bexley’s brow shoots upward. Full of poison? He can’t be serious. Can he? Is that a metaphor or a means of escape? And then, if it is, why the hell does he think she’s going to eat him? As sharp as her teeth are, as wild her heart, Bexley Briar is no murderer. At least not one of old men and innocents.
If he is not both - and there’s no way to tell if he is or isn’t, really - at least he is one.
I’m lost too, she answers finally, her low voice echoing in the chamber around them, and at long last her muscles start to unwind, the harsh, battering-ram headache under her temples finally abating as she watches him and realizes danger may not be so imminent. It may not be imminent at all. When it comes down to it, if they ever really cross that line, Bexley is stronger, and younger, and has new magic coursing through her veins like amphetamines ,and she is made of star shine, and sunlight, and she is not afraid.
She is not afraid.
At least that’s what she tells herself, trying to stifle the electric fire in her stomach. And confused, I guess. Do you live here? The low timbre of her voice is tremulous, but the shaking is so faint it might just be imagined, especially by the brain of someone as addled as Turhan. For that Bexley is thankful.
@turhan <3
