In his volatile world, Acton had never had much of a relationship with steady things. All of the Crows had been like him, in one way or the other – each teetering on some different edge, fuses that needed little encouragement to light.
He was unused to the kind of deep calm of someone like Jezanna, a weighty peace that he could feel tugging like gravity. The stallion was not wholly sure what to make of it – once, not so long ago, he might have scoffed at it. Now…
“Seems like a good time to change that,” he answered, indicating the markets around them with a flick of his ear. “Lots of new leaves turning over lately.” Of course there was the unspoken weight that pressed his words into something near sardonic – leaders missing, gods returned – but the movement of another of the little dragons caught his eye, and at the tail end of his words his lips crooked into a smile as he watched it.
They, at least, seemed to prefer the changes – and he liked them a helluva lot bigger than the overgrown cousin of theirs he’d met.
At her question he glanced at her again, startled anew by the paleness of her eyes, which glowed like marsh-lights, like moonlight on fog. There was the immediate temptation to answer her flippantly, and almost he let something snide or joking slip from the tip of his tongue – but then his mouth drew a thoughtful line.
“Home, I guess. To see what’s left of it.” He did not just mean the city around them, which was much unchanged –
but the Crows, and Reichenbach, who had been home almost as much as any place was. With them gone, where did he fit?
It felt strange to tell a truth to a stranger, especially one that made him feel so vulnerable, so boyishly foolish and borderline naïve. New leaves, he supposed.
“How about you? Looking for anything you can’t find from a vendor?” There was little her strange gaze gave away, but he searched her features anyway, and wondered what similarities two Denoctians so different could have between themselves.
@Jezanna
