[AW] ring like silver, ring like gold

[Eik]

She is tentative but yields to his request-- he inclines his head graciously as they make their way to the marketplace where a different sort of loud overwhelms them. The sounds of music are overtaken by boisterous haggling and laughter and drunken revelry. He notices, in a dark corner, a ring of dirt where two older Solterrans brawl to the pleasure of the loud crowd. His heart beats a little faster.

She reveals herself as Terrastellan- they are quickly becoming his favorite court, Solis forgive him. "Solterra." Is all he says in response. It is easy to mistake him as being born and raised Solterran by the scars that mark most every part of his body- but his voice carries the melodic rustle of a different language, an older one. It did not take him long to develop his grammar to suit Novus, but the slight inflection of his mother tongue remains.

He thinks suddenly of Calliope and the memories she stirred in him. Memories that leave him whiplashed and raw raw raw, nerves on end like channel surfing through white noise, like empty radio waves buzzing in every shade of black to white and back again. Indra stands in stark contrast to the humming frenzy of his private turmoil, a dream of grey and red, sharp and soft and mostly unknown. "I'll have whatever you're having," he says, not a man of esteemed taste. Everything is unfamiliar to him, anyway, and his thoughts are focused on Indra.

She is no salvation. She is just a woman at the end of one long day and the beginning of the next. But in his frazzled mind she becomes a beacon, a guide through the chaos and the noise. With this thought on his mind he orders two of the drink of her choice and downs the golden liquid as soon as it is set before him. It is earthy with chamomile and those yellow flowers he loves but never learned the name of, sweetened just right with a touch of honey, and most importantly hot with alcohol. "Good choice," Eik murmurs, although his eyes have a faraway look as he he searches for the words for what he really wants to say. He gestures for another round as the warmth grows in his belly, forgetting how just over a year ago he had never drank anything other than river or rain water.

The quickfire in his veins and the exhaustion of living swirl together in a dangerous combination. He's tired of small talk and pleasantries, he just (for once in his gods damned life) wants to know someone without all that gibberish and wasted time. Fuck laughter and music and dancing, he wants truth and beauty and never found them in anything but the grand open sky above him. But as soon as this thought strikes him he realizes it is incorrect-- He's found truth and beauty in people, too. Certain creatures who touch his soul in just the right way. In Novus there have only been four, but there must be more out there, more souls who call to him the way the ocean does.

He hopes Indra is one of them, he even dares to know it in that quiet place.

"Will you tell me a secret, Indra? Something nobody else knows?" The next drink is gone as soon as it arrives, and with his attention on the red-haired maiden it is not hard at all to ignore the appalled stare of the barmaid. He leans closer to his new companion so that they may share secrets even with the crowd around them thick as flies. Close enough that their breath mingles (clover, sage, chamomile) in the warm summer air.

-     -     -
There is no better way to know us
E I K
than as two wolves, come separately to a wood

@Indra <3