b e x l e y
I'LL BE YOUR SLAUGHTERHOUSE, YOUR KILLING FLOOR
There is no season that can truly steal the sun from Solterra. Even in the dead of winter it glares from overhead, omniscient and stubbornly painful; today is no different, and Bexley is glazed in warm yellow light when she slinks out of her chambers and toward the center of the court, the sun strangely bright for how low it’s dipped past the horizon. Streaks of pink and violet bruise the deep-blue sky. In the heat, clouds wither and dissipate. Under the watchful eye of the sun Solterra simmers and flares and fades like an ember, until it is covered in the satin drape of darkness and bodies can move through the streets unnoticed, as easy as a fish slips through water.
Bexley is one of these fish, winding her way through the alleys with a practiced kind of poise. After so many months of wandering the Court, it is second nature now to turn corners without looking, to recognize streets simply by the pattern of their cobblestones, to not feel nervous even when tracked by the scoundrels of Solterra, knowing her status and the scar that splits her face is enough to make most of them back away. For the most part, her path is uninterrupted. No one bothers to even try impeding it.
Until she bumps into the girl in the middle of the street.
Turning a sharp corner, Bex has to slam to a stop to avoid falling into the stranger, braking so hard dust sprays up from the half-moon marks her hooves make in the dirt. Gods, she spits without even checking who it is, maybe don’t stand in the middle of the street like that - her lip is still curled with irritation when that blue gaze snaps upward and meets Mantis’, glowering under a carpet of dark lashes. Heat simmers in her irked expression. Almost she keeps moving, tempted to brush past the girl without another word - but then she realizes that this person is new, so new that even the Regent doesn’t recognize her, and pauses in place.
No one can say Bexley shirks her duties.
Anyway. Bex rolls her shoulders, tries to smooth out the displeasure in her expression in favor of a tight-lipped smile. You’re new, hm. Welcome to Solterra. Watchfully, she stands in place, gilded in the darkness, curious and cool.
She says nothing of the girls’ lures, the lupine glow of her yellow eyes. Novus is full of even stranger things.
@mantis
