Calliope's arrival, swift and sinister as an advancing stormfront, was inevitable. As he never doubted her convictions, neither did he doubt her memory or the habits they had laid down across their bloody history. There was a certain mysticism to the practice. All it took to summon a primal instrument of retribution was a handful of runes scattered ritualistically across the canvas of reality.
This is not your blood.
"It's good to see you too."
The red stallion offered the shell of a quirky smile, unable to shed that customary self-confident flourish even in the grips of his preoccupation. The blood doesn't matter, that look said, and it didn't. If it mattered, she would never have known about it because he'd have washed it off like an offensive stain clinging to the threads of a nice shirt.
At least he had the decency to rein in his driving instinct to lead off with an ice-breaker. He wasn't sure how much line she'd let out for him since his last transgression, and he expected (given their history) that he was bound to transgress sometime in the future. They were both of them too wild for it not to happen occasionally; Raymond respected her enough, however, to push his limits without also trampling them completely.
But he was still Raymond.
"While I was laying low in Manyembo, a local mare asked if I ever considered going back home, seeing what's left. Sure, I'd considered it, I told her," he rolled his shoulders in an emphatic shrug, "but what I went back to would no more be home to me than Manyembo. I had no choice but to keep moving forward." Some stains don't come out. Some thorns pierce too deeply to come out clean. No one can step into the same river twice.
His smooth minstrel's voice dropped like a stone into the bitter (and complicated) curl of his lip. "Our friend Florentine doesn't seem to agree. She thought she could use the rift to bring my cat back from the dead." The anger was still fresh, edging so near anguish but for his own rage that the flower maiden could not help but meddle dangerously in the lives and affairs of others. If she died, it'd be her own fault, and he'd suffer for it anyway.
"I wish I could say she failed, but...you know the rift," he laughed, shaking his head. There was no mirth in the gesture.
This is not your blood.
"It's good to see you too."
The red stallion offered the shell of a quirky smile, unable to shed that customary self-confident flourish even in the grips of his preoccupation. The blood doesn't matter, that look said, and it didn't. If it mattered, she would never have known about it because he'd have washed it off like an offensive stain clinging to the threads of a nice shirt.
At least he had the decency to rein in his driving instinct to lead off with an ice-breaker. He wasn't sure how much line she'd let out for him since his last transgression, and he expected (given their history) that he was bound to transgress sometime in the future. They were both of them too wild for it not to happen occasionally; Raymond respected her enough, however, to push his limits without also trampling them completely.
But he was still Raymond.
"While I was laying low in Manyembo, a local mare asked if I ever considered going back home, seeing what's left. Sure, I'd considered it, I told her," he rolled his shoulders in an emphatic shrug, "but what I went back to would no more be home to me than Manyembo. I had no choice but to keep moving forward." Some stains don't come out. Some thorns pierce too deeply to come out clean. No one can step into the same river twice.
His smooth minstrel's voice dropped like a stone into the bitter (and complicated) curl of his lip. "Our friend Florentine doesn't seem to agree. She thought she could use the rift to bring my cat back from the dead." The anger was still fresh, edging so near anguish but for his own rage that the flower maiden could not help but meddle dangerously in the lives and affairs of others. If she died, it'd be her own fault, and he'd suffer for it anyway.
"I wish I could say she failed, but...you know the rift," he laughed, shaking his head. There was no mirth in the gesture.
Raymond.
"he's an outlaw loose and runnin'," came the whisper from each lip
"and he's here to do some business with the big iron on his hip."
"he's an outlaw loose and runnin'," came the whisper from each lip
"and he's here to do some business with the big iron on his hip."
@Calliope
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