Anyone else might’ve been a little more worried about a stranger unceremoniously dumped in a desert. Bexley, for all her sociability, for even the practiced way she flashes her smile like a sickle, has spent so long in the now-comfortably hot embrace of the desert that she does not even think of how dry Maximus’ tongue might be, how much he might be sweating, or how weak he might be feeling. It’s a thought that hasn’t crossed her mind since she very first entered Novus. To her, the omnipresent wash of sunlight, and and the blinding kind of heat that comes with it, are so constant they’ve lost the ability to even make her break a sweat.
Which is why she notices the cold so immediately.
The sky above them bruises a deeper blue, streaked suddenly with faint gray clouds; Bexley tilts her gaze upward to watch the change, feeling a barely-cool breeze against her exposed throat, and blinks in a nervous kind of surprise. Even fall weather in Solterra doesn’t bring this kind of chill. Especially not in the middle of the day.
(For a moment, she laments the loss of her magic so much it causes a physical ache in the pit of her stomach, wondering what it would feel like to be able to warm herself against the cold, or what she’d be willing to do for the ability to light their way once again.)
Teeth grit, she lowers her head to her chest. Snow flecks her hair, melts against the gold of her skin, fizzes in her lungs as she breathes it in, hoarfrost already spreading silver streaks over the too-cool sand. She is plowing forward now with a grittier kind of determination. Hurry up. Her voice is not unkind, but neither is it as steadily playful as it has been. First rule of Solterra… snow is bad news.
She plows a path through the wall and into the city.
Scandalized citizens flood the streets, silent in dread or keening with confusion, heads tilted to watch the flurry as it comes down, and as Bexley wriggles a way through the crowds to make a path for Max she snaps in the ear of more than one awe-struck resident, snarling Move! or Get inside, so authoritatively that most scatter at the sound. The vast majority of them know her, or know of her - Solterra’s golden girl, the scar-faced Regent - and have the good sense to take her advice, fleeing toward the nearest shelter with only a murmur of dissent. The rest at least move out of her way.
Sorry, she calls over her shoulder, slowing so Maximus can catch up and shaking a layer of ice from her hair. You came at kind of the worst time ever. I’ll explain, but first things first -
With that, she turns a sharp left, headed on a straight path for the citadel.
Which is why she notices the cold so immediately.
The sky above them bruises a deeper blue, streaked suddenly with faint gray clouds; Bexley tilts her gaze upward to watch the change, feeling a barely-cool breeze against her exposed throat, and blinks in a nervous kind of surprise. Even fall weather in Solterra doesn’t bring this kind of chill. Especially not in the middle of the day.
(For a moment, she laments the loss of her magic so much it causes a physical ache in the pit of her stomach, wondering what it would feel like to be able to warm herself against the cold, or what she’d be willing to do for the ability to light their way once again.)
Teeth grit, she lowers her head to her chest. Snow flecks her hair, melts against the gold of her skin, fizzes in her lungs as she breathes it in, hoarfrost already spreading silver streaks over the too-cool sand. She is plowing forward now with a grittier kind of determination. Hurry up. Her voice is not unkind, but neither is it as steadily playful as it has been. First rule of Solterra… snow is bad news.
She plows a path through the wall and into the city.
Scandalized citizens flood the streets, silent in dread or keening with confusion, heads tilted to watch the flurry as it comes down, and as Bexley wriggles a way through the crowds to make a path for Max she snaps in the ear of more than one awe-struck resident, snarling Move! or Get inside, so authoritatively that most scatter at the sound. The vast majority of them know her, or know of her - Solterra’s golden girl, the scar-faced Regent - and have the good sense to take her advice, fleeing toward the nearest shelter with only a murmur of dissent. The rest at least move out of her way.
Sorry, she calls over her shoulder, slowing so Maximus can catch up and shaking a layer of ice from her hair. You came at kind of the worst time ever. I’ll explain, but first things first -
With that, she turns a sharp left, headed on a straight path for the citadel.
Bexley
my dragonfly, my black-eyed flower -
my dragonfly, my black-eyed flower -
