[P] falling in love is hard on the knees

[Acton]

Acton these violent delights have violent ends Somewhere, she says- well, he couldn’t help but laugh at that. Neither of them were fit to be parents, maybe - neither fit for anything but colliding again and again with each other like stars, leaving wreckage in their wake. Or maybe that was just their glory days.   “I hope I haven’t fucked up your life too badly, Bexley Briar,” he said in a voice that was almost-but-not-quite a whisper, and pressed a kiss to the skin above her nose (so near the streak of scar he’d put there, though that and the rest of her face is hidden by that bone-and-gold mask). For a moment it was enough to take his cunning, hunting gaze from the party-goers and let it rest on her, brighter than it had been. At least their daughter carried a weapon. Acton had never asked if she knew how to use it, but it felt like a safe assumption anyway. Probably she had been born with it strapped to her hip, like Athena sprang from Zeus (he could imagine it, anyway - he hadn’t been there for the birth. Hadn’t been there for anything important, he was beginning to understand, but everyone knew you couldn’t serve two loves. One always had to be a little underfed). Maybe it was just the scent of her, all sand and fire with coals too hot to smoke, that put him just a little more at ease. Maybe it was the way he could spot nothing more false than the lies the partygoers wore, their masks and clothes and pinned-up hair. But in any case the buckskin blew out a breath, and thought he isn’t here. Of course that just meant he was somewhere else. The fucked-up thing (well, one of) was the way his heart did a little pitter-patter, a little somersault, at the thought of the hunt. Acton had always loved a challenge - otherwise he would never have applied himself at anything, love or cards or fistfights - and wasn’t this, in some way, the greatest one of all? But the magician tried to pretend otherwise, tried to pretend it was fear and worry and not the adrenaline that always came with another Crow mission. At least it made him feel more like himself. “I’m gonna go check on a couple things,” he said, all casual, as though he hadn’t just told her (well, sort of) that his best friend might be going renegade, that he might have a new target for that knife he so loved. “Keep an eye out for him - I don’t know if he’ll try anything here but he attacked Isra a couple nights ago.” He did not want to step away; that’s what he told himself, that’s what he believed, even as he could feel prickly anticipation like champagne bubbles in his bloodstream, heady but sharp. Acton was ready to step out into the night, the summer air cloudy with bonfire smoke, thick with incense. But when he looked back at her, deadly and gorgeous in the strange and changing light, he almost stayed. “O will be fine,” he said, not knowing who he was reassuring. “But maybe if you see her tell her to keep her eyes open. Don’t talk to strange men, yada yada.” A smile at that; telling their daughter to be careful would be like telling a wolverine to look out, or a harpy eagle. “I’ll see you soon,” he promised, and turned away. @Bexley