I'M GONNA DO TIME BUT SHE LOOKS GOOD IN RED -
![[Image: apolonia_by_erasvita_dcmlqry_by_beccazw-dcnhnsj.png]](https://orig00.deviantart.net/4a1e/f/2018/265/e/7/apolonia_by_erasvita_dcmlqry_by_beccazw-dcnhnsj.png)
She feels his presence in the room like a rabbit feels a fox. Pure lucid evil.
They have crossed paths before. At the hunt, where he circled above in the hungry halos of a vulture; sometimes in passing throughout Solterra, brushing through the markets, the inner court, never exchanging more than a glance or a greeting. He has never quite made her feel safe. Something about how tall he towers over her or the heat in the gold of his eyes.
But Apolonia is more gun than girl and she makes herself feel safe when needed.
Over the heads of the crowd she sees the dark shine of Veer’s wings and the handsome curve of his head and slips her hurlbat from her sheath as easily as she would take a step or calculate a strike. There is no effort in it. There is no pause in her stride and no faltering in the path she marks. The weapon comes out smooth as water, twirls in a gentle circle at her side in a motion she’s practiced a million times before. She pulls her shoulders in, narrower and narrower until she might very well be a ghost, and watches carefully as he comes up next to her.
When he speaks she can’t help but grin a little, a bright dead thing.
Moon you aren’t, she answers dryly, and turns her eyes up to him with a look of wan disport. The dark lashes flutter like butterfly wings. Under the white opal of the mask and the dim light sighing down from overhead her gaze is a million meters deep - might be blue, might be yellow, might be black and totally endless. Maybe a black hole?
Her expression falls again to stone, though there is something easy about it, almost relaxed. She spins the hurlbat at her side like the orbit of a little sun and it cuts through the air with the casual sound of warning.
