[AW] a plague on both your houses

[Apolonia]

I CAN SEE THE FUTURE, IT'S A REAL DARK PLACE -

The grin this stranger flashes at her is unsettlingly bright. Almost Apolonia doesn’t trust it - almost she leans back in careless suspicion, letting her wiliness overcome her - but she is composed enough not to let it show and instead she flashes a smile back at him, tight and sharp though it may be. On her it looks strange, a sickle wreathed in flowers. But it’s a little warmer than the stoniness that comes to her so naturally.

Thank you, she says, and somewhat balefully sinks to her knees on the cushion by the table; as her weight falls, the curtain of blue-black hair against her neck slips, and for half a moment her third eye slips into view. The bright blue blinks and blinks and blinks, unused to the light, flickering frenetically, uneasily around the room, and just as quickly as it appeared it disappears again as Apolonia shifts a new dark curl in front of it.

She meets Basil’s gaze with a cool, two-toned gaze, so intense it almost dares a question to be asked. Some part of her hopes they have the good sense not to listen. 

O blows a breath over the steaming saucer of tea as it simmers away on the table and flicks an ear at the stranger’s introduction. Basil. Nice to meet you. Apolonia’s voice is unnaturally gravelly, too deep to seem normal, at first, from the mouth of a girl as young and as slight as she is, but the more one listens the more it seems to fit - the way she sprawls her long legs uncaringly across the floor, the bright challenge in her eyes, the scent of sandalwood on her skin. My name is O.

The hurlbat at her hip glimmers in the light, dark and steely.