[AW] little pilgrim;

[Apolonia]

TIL THE PROPHET'S ARISEN -

O is not really one for sympathy. The worry in her heart is not one for Seraphim’s health, or the good of the commonwealth, or how her mother will fare with being ousted from a years-long position she’s held onto with an iron grip. It is a worry for how Raum will ruin the desert. What will happen to the little collection of coral and bleach-white teeth O keeps on her windowsill. Whether or not she will ever get a chance to really use the hurlbat at her hip, and whether she can ever call it justified.

She sniffs a little. The wind that roars through Solterra seems an accurate enough reflection of the desert’s state, one of complete and wild unrest. From the corner of her eye O watches Elif slink through the alleys like a tomcat, narrow, sharp-edged, and when Elif’s green eyes catch hers all O offers is a little white smile, bright as the sting of sand against their legs. 

Hm, she says. Well - and thinks for a minute about it, watching her hooves on the cobblestone. She’s had the axe strapped to her hip so long it feels almost foreign to think of a time she was not in possession of it. The dark curve is hers, the sharpness of the edge-blade, the handle freckled with mica, all hers: her pulse spikes a little bit as she tries to wonder what she would look like without it. It is not a pleasant thought.

I found it, washed up from the oasis. Flecked with pearl-white foam, in a wet half-moon in the sand, and it had called to her like a songbird calls to one of its own. She presses the blade a little closer to her skin, like wrapping herself in a blanket. And then brushes her muzzle against Elif’s narrow shoulder as they turn a sharp corner into the heart of the market, darkly suspicious, teeming with a hot, wet kind of fear.

She’s easily and completely distracted by the wares of the weapons market for the next few minutes, poring over knives with bright handles, slightly curved swords, the stand of whips she’s not surprised (almost amused) to see Elif watching with intent. The world goes quiet for a little while while the girls stand shoulder-to-shoulder in comfortable silence. Until Elif’s voice sounds. And she lifts her head to look at whoever it is and is already bristling in defense when she sees him.

Tall, too tall, and dark dark dark, and even from here she can see the bright orange of his eyes like pouring amber. O steps forward and presses her shoulder to the narrow slat of Elif’s ribs, and instantly, too quickly, slashes the hurlbat out from her side and sends it spinning in the air at her side, right between her and Elif and the stranger. It whines a little. Who? she asks, bitter as it is accusatory. And the hurlbat whines a little louder.