they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
and told you to find peace.
A
figure appears at the top of the falls, between one heartbeat and the next. Caine’s eyes strain to pierce through the dark. He is able to make out the faintest trace of substance before a cloud moves to blot out the moon, plunging the land into blackness.
He shifts uneasily in the dark. Not for the first time that night, Caine wonders if he’d made the right choice to come. Alone, without a soul knowing his whereabouts... as it has always been, and shall always be. A wry gleam dances through Caine’s silver gaze when he finishes the thought. If either of us should be afraid… His dagger presses coolly against his midnight pelt.
Well, at the very least, he will not leave empty-handed.
He snaps at once to attention when a voice, low and foreign, drifts from beyond the veil of shadows. “And what a raven you are.”
Surprise flits across Caine’s eyes when the utter reaches him over the roar of the rushing water. Female. That was unmistakably female. He does not have time to dwell on the revelation, before —
He sees her. There, at the foot of the waterfall. For a moment, they simply watch each other, neither moving a muscle. His gaze sweeps over her form, or what little he can see of it — a scarf of pale yellow cloaks her features in shadow.
We are each entitled to our secrets, he muses, though he is not deterred — with an artist’s eye does Caine pick out the details she is unable to hide behind cloth.
She is slender, but tall — an amalgamation of sharp angles and smooth, elegant lines. He notices the predatory grace of her gait when she moves again, nearer and nearer. The precise, severe way she holds herself. When she draws close enough to touch, he regards the armor she wears like skin, studies the scabbard slung low across her back.
The pieces of a puzzle dangle tantalizingly in front of him, waiting to be put together. She moves like a soldier. Composed and commanding. Though Caine sees only darkness beneath the girl’s hood (girl, because she does not feel much older than he — though he can’t say what exactly it is about her that makes him think so), he feels the weight of her gaze on him, as scrutinizing as his own. He wonders, with sudden curiosity, what she sees when she looks at him.
“It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?” When she speaks, her voice dips in a silken Solterran accent.
She turns away, brushing past him, and her boldness at turning her back on a stranger — paired with her odd question — elicits a faint smile from Caine.
“I’ve never stopped to admire it.” He looks towards where she gestures. "But, I suppose it is.”
“When I was still a guard, and most of my job seemed to consist of escorting wayward travelers across Solterra, I always tried to bring them here at night. They often found the deserts barren and lifeless, but I’ve always thought them the most breathtaking place in Novus. There are so many easily lovely places, but the desert requires you to search for its beauty.”
Her accent is low and musical in his ear. For her to hold such fondness for a kingdom of heat and ash and violence — just who, exactly, are you? Caine wonders, as he listens. His eyes gleam in the night, corvus-keen. Considering her words.
Never has he thought of the Sun Court as beautiful. Perhaps, though, he has just never bothered to look.
When she turns back towards him, on a whim, Caine leans forward just slightly. He is taller by a hand, so he lowers himself just slightly. He is keenly aware of the blade strapped to her back, of the nonchalance she wields like an even deadlier weapon. But she has not been cautious around him, and neither will he.
When Caine locks his gaze on her, eyes narrowed in feline amusement, he thinks he sees a flash of blue and gold staring back at him through the dark.
“Forgive me. I’m getting ahead of myself.”
A dark brow raises when he hears the beginnings of rage leak into her voice, though his expression remains inscrutable. He waits.
“Thank you for coming. I won’t leave you in suspense – my name is Fia, and I intend to kill our king.”
He had considered the possibility of regicide, when he’d puzzled over the letter sender’s intentions earlier that day. And if this Fia had been so keen as to be able to track his movements like she’d claimed (an impossible task, he’d once thought — he was reconsidering many things, this strange night), she would’ve known that he’d been collecting as much information on the ex-Crow as he could glean. Tough work — hence the sleepless nights — but he’d found out enough to know, with grim certainty, that Raum’s intentions were as black as the magic pulsing through his own veins. Perhaps even more.
A bloodthirsty king was volatile. He would drag his court and his people to the ground with him. Solterra would burn, again and again and again. Why do I get the feeling, Caine thinks darkly, that that is exactly what Raum wants?
"Fia.” A smile ghosts across his lips. "My name is Caine.” He does not draw back, though he should have. This close to her, his flickering magic aches to know the memory of her dreams. It struggles inside him, and Caine, tired of fighting, lets it win.
"Bold intentions," he says, after a moment of silence. Questions fly through his mind, but he asks her only one. "Tell me, then — why do you think he deserves it?” A tendril of magic snakes out from him. It sinks its teeth into her anger. What has he done to you?
@Seraphina | "speaks" | notes: our poor suffering children unite in their suffering :')
