MADE A GRAVEYARD FROM THE BONE-WHITE AFTERNOON
❀
The desert is supposed to be her home, but Bexley walks it as though she is a prisoner.Head bent, ivory hair pinned back against her neck, blue eyes fervid under the warm glint of the dawn overhead, the golden girl’s steps are purposeful and preeminently feline. Her movements cut with resolve and, underneath that, irritation. The yellow eye of the sun - halfway hidden though it is by the lip of the desert horizon - is near-torturous, though not for its heat. Fuck you. She aims the thought at it with a bitter kind of disbelief, still jarred by the realization her magic has been taken away from her.
She remembers nothing of the first few moments after Solis stole her powers, just the overwhelming kind of blackness that always comes with shock. And a feeling of emptiness. Of un-becoming, or growing backward - like she’d lost a part of herself that had only just become familiar. Seraphina’s voice and the stirring of the crowd around them had brought her back to wakefulness , but not exactly to life. Many minutes later she had gone storming off to find Acton, failed miserably, then found a secluded foot of the woods to attempt to use her charms, light up like a Christmas tree, blow sparks, set something on fire, anything, but it had all been frustratingly unsuccessful, pathetically, even, so pathetic she’d almost wanted to cry.
But she hadn’t. Herself, at least, she still retained some modicum of control over. Was that a victory? Was it really remarkable, or had she gone so long unchained, wild, reckless, that reeling it all back in was a triumph only to her?
Either way. That small success is the only one she has to spur her forward now, slogging her way back to the Day Court through miles and miles of endless desert.
So entrenched is Bexley in her own bitterness that she doesn’t notice the stranger until they’ve all but bumped into each other. It's dizzying to realizes her seeming aloneness has no real permanence - the sight of another pair of hoof steps in the sand, her head snaps up, her shoulders tense, her gaze zeroes in on the stranger. You foolish girl, Bex chides herself, coming to a full stop, narrowing her gaze. Pay more attention -
You look lost, she says abruptly by way of introduction, a defensive way of saying hi when she's incapable of saying the actual word. Either way - he does look lost. Maybe not more than the average visitor, but he’s obviously new, no Court-smell on him, no self-possessed confidence, and every newcomer could fall as easy prey to the Mors as the next. As obviously intense as ever, Bex glances coolly at his oversize ears, the silver gleam of his coat, the tiny, bleached skull, hanging desert-white against his chest, and smiles - a drawling kind of smile, all syrup and sharp teeth.
Her irritation has finally subsided, replaced by a predatory kind of curiosity. It’s better than the alternative.
