As dusk falls in the streets of Denocte, the sounds and smells of the Night Markets dimly climb to a roar, a gradual sort of glee that lifts from a dull hum along the cobblestone. The rats disperse and congregate in their otherwise dens, long slipped from underfoot of the many who fall in line to traipse the gilded paths. Twilight passes along the corridor and slips between the crags – the alleys, dotted with the unknown, slip quiet breaths beneath the pretense of shadows. They pass on like smoke, lifted and weary, as fickle eyes scatter the retreating daylight and settle easily upon the patrons who litter those roads pleasantly unaware. It is a variety in tow – the rich, the poor, the orphaned and the privileged, where between them a penny or a bushel spared sets them apart in their griefs; and their value. Those webbing breaths sigh then to find a heavy purse or satchel, and from sigh come quivering lips and twitching fingertips deft and nimble, steps light and sweeping until they are a faerie sprint between unsuspecting bodies, all equally warm and well fed and ever so clueless.
But it wasn't him that strayed from the alleys that afternoon, zig-zagging the enterpreted throng of wealthies that all chattered and chuckled and carried on as if nothing phased them. This evening, he felt, was well enough to be enjoyed from the perspective of one satisfied with himself in whole, however falsified the image was. There was always more, a need for more, a hunger for more, endless want, tameless desire, more, more, more, screaming into the void with frothing lips that were chapped with ravenous craving.
This relief was short lived for the not-prince of the Wilds, (as it should be, relief was an unattainable splendor for the wicked) but he did not know until he was well into the deep of the marketplace. There was no reason for him, he of all ghosts who loomed in the paved streets, to be singled amongst the many. In a sea of ingenuine royalties, he is a shadow among them, a far cry from their decadent showcases of extravagance – he was invisible. Of sorts – surely a gaze or two strayed to where he walked, their tedious eyes falling over the strains of gold that he naturally beheld, stricken over his shoulders and veining from his chest like cracked marble inlaid with precious glimmering stone. Their eyes carried to his sharp features – regal, handsome, youthful virile whose tenacity was matched with a darker tone. Indeed, shadows clung to the sharpest points, so that when his eyes met theirs they could not help but feel the chill of his disdain wash over in a subtle wave. Despite his anonymity and lack of such flamboyant expression, there was a magnetism of one set of eyes that did not find him simply easy to look at.
Those eyes did not pass briefly. They clung to him, like a hawk clings to a mouse.
And Erasmus is no mouse.
For a while he strayed, aware of the feeling – that unsettling heat that rides his spine and creeps up the curve of his neck, whispering in his ear. you do not belong. You should be dead. it calls to him, and suddenly the blood in his veins too, call to him. The superficiality of the world around him suddenly is deadened to that particular gaze he feels, and in his peripheral he drinks in the spectator without visible concern, while his flesh is ignited with the deluded thousand pinpricks of beetle bites, prickling like a wolf's hackles. And then - “You,” it calls louder than his mind, but not loud enough to turn his head. “You!” Louder now, it matches the uproar that rises in his skull and the fury that tears through to meet it. He is aware of a few other other eyes now, eyes that turn to snatch the source of the yelling and then singled to its subject – but surely not him? They pass back to the markets, and Erasmus is invisible again to all except one. And yet, “Erasmus!” He does not look, but he cannot stop his ear as it snaps back to catch the desperation called in his name – and it is as though his eye has grown wider, or perhaps he has actually turned his head, or he has grown a miraculous set of eyes that behold all from behind his horns – but he can see this spectator better now. He is roan, dusty but not disheveled, as though the sheen of dusk marks him nicely, holographic and cool. The man is severe, dressed well but not with the regality of those who surround him, disgusted with his proximity. His choice of fashion is remarkable to none but Erasmus. He is of the Wilds.
Erasmus's gait is smoother now, he suddenly realizes – a canter, but not nearly fast enough to cause concern of those around him. The man is still calling – his name follows him over and over, but it is just a whisper now, thrown beneath the furious blood that boils to the surface and pounds in his ears. The wind bursts against his chest and the night asks if he would like wings? It is a jest, some part of him half laughs while the rest screams. No dagger, no bow, poor child. A soldier without a weapon is as good as dead. You should be dead. You should have drowned. He turned his head finally, escaped from the collection of witnesses in the Markets, and a dagger scrapes against the bridge of his nose. Searing pain – hot and sudden and petty as a papercut, the blood dribbles down and collects at the corner of his lips. The hunger returns.
His mind catches the dagger as it slips past him, and his hooves skid into the grasses, upturning the damp soils. Like clockwork the moment is broken down for him, as all his battles are: he pivots, and with him pivots the dagger, rough and new and horrible in his grasp, it is some artless piece of work that he assumes could have only been carved by the poorest blacksmith who dared call himself one in all the Wilds. It was nothing like his dagger that was swallowed by the sea, smooth and beautiful and sharper than a gryphon's claw. But it moves with him still, however reluctant it is, and as he turns he watches the man too, skid but feet from him. He can see him fully now. All arrogance and brawn and brut-ish grins that surpass the immediate tinge of terror that slip into his eyes now as he watches his dagger turn against him. Erasmus does not miss the bounty paper strapped to his side, he knows it well. And as he brings his gaze from that bounty picture to the face of the hunter, he plunges the dagger into the man's chest as deep as it will allow. It is not deep enough – it is blunt and poorly made, and seems to cause nothing but discomfort and awe.
The hunger crawls up from his gut and rises like fire in his throat, and as he clenches his jaw, he can feel the rage tunneling through like a massive current. He is a spectre, a wild creature of conjured shadows that shift and swim in the dying light – and nestled beneath their shade unclench his fangs, caught in the glint of the moon. He digs deep, deep enough to stifle the hunter's agonized cry, deep enough to feel his pulse between his jaws and pounding in his skull. And he drinks. And drinks. And drinks. And there is nothing, then. The body becomes too heavy, and he releases as it collapses to the ground with a solemn thunk. His tongue lapped where the blood remained, pooled against the softness of his lips and dribbling down his chin as he admires the dead. The initial shock is a cool high – it moves over his body with a shiver, and the consolation that rises to greet him is bittersweet. For a long moment, his mind is quiet for once in a long time, and he revels in it. But the dark creeps in through the cracks and edges, and bids his wares with a cold touch. Habit calls him again, and he loots the limp body, shredding the bounty paper to pieces.
He withdrew the blade, though it didn't seem much use to him, it was worth pawning to the shops that bothered to scrape the barrel enough to barter for it. It was still hand-crafted, and he had a silver-tongued way of glorifying things far beyond their own expectations. He also selected a sun talisman from his person, whether it was his own or something he found off another hapless bounty, another item of no more use to him than a bartering chip. Even finer were the coins he rattled from the satchel and stuffed in his own, pleased with the winnings. But the most curious of all – he carried an odd card, one that didn't seem to quite suit him. Erasmus flipped it back and forth, admiring the art on it, his brows furrowed as he analyzed it. The stakes are high, but the pot is full. Will you try your hand tonight? The inscription was cryptic, and moreso the words beneath it, but what appealed to him the most was the insignia of a scarab on the front. As he stared at it, he remembered seeing a dark stone scarab placed somewhere in the marketplace, but the memory was brief and insignificant, some image stolen from time in one of his wanderings.
----------------------- THE WHITE SCARAB -----------------------
The moon was high in the sky when he found the doors of the White Scarab. It was waxing and half full, gleaming down with a grin that smiled fondly upon fortune – and upon his own fortunes, he was sure. It flowed against the knocker, pooled in the round semblance of the beetle's wings, glimmered in a soft reflection of the alleyway lit in the lunar pallor. His gold struck from the dark, webbing and distorted in the mirrored stone. This, this, he recalled passing while he traipsed the quiet corridors during his frequent meanderings through the streets of Denocte, eager for explorative conquests, eager for food and drink and whatever pleasure awaited him in its stead. How odd it was, that he had never cared to linger his thoughts on such a place then, long enough to truly see – as he now observed those spiraling towers, windowless and intimidating, exotic. His gaze flowed over their height before resettling over the knocker, and he is underwhelmed to find that there is – in fact – no true knocker. There is nothing for him to grab onto, no knob or ledge or lever that he can see, and so for a moment he only stands and considers.
It is quiet. Too quiet for any place of particular circumstance, unless it was a trap or abandoned stead. The vague description on the card could leave that determination on either, and he wasn't all that interested in discovering the former. And if it was abandoned, then why? The door was clean and the knocker polished, the street's dust clapped with what looked like many hooves other than his that both led in and out. But how?
He slid the card back out of its keep and flipped it once more, but the way in which it blocked the beams from the moon revealed a slot he hadn't noticed. Erasmus paused, considering his first two assumptions and the grave possibilities of one, and looked back to the card. It displayed no note of aging, the edges were as sharp and unfolded as any mint card, and it seemed as though a pretty care was placed in its conception. Not too old to be owned by an abandoned lot, and far too quality to be in the possession of a measley gang for their lure and holding. A few quiet breaths rose and fell with his chest as he thought, the gold scythes of his eyes running over the card a minute more before he slipped it into the slit.
A soft click, and he drew back as wings struck out from the knocker's sides, and the doors gaped wide.
Calculative eyes peered in through the darkness, and his lungs readily breathed in the perfume of incense that enveloped him at once. “Come in,” bid softness from the dark, or the breeze itself – that as he stood, caressed past him in loving stroke, slipping from the roll of his chin that was still faintly stained with the taste of blood. Against his better nature, his body moved without his knowing – his muscles flexed and strode, his hooves plodded against the stone tile beneath him and shirked of reluctance even as the doors clattered shut behind him.
The corridor was dark, dimly lit by the cascade of a few candles, and through the darkness he could see that the place was far from abandoned – and if it was a trap, it was a wealthy one, well decorated. And somewhere within he could hear the hum of conversation, not whispers but true conversing, casual syllables that he could barely make out until he found his way into the den. He paused, and he thought that he had felt someone brush past him – but when he looked there was nothing, only the candlelit corridor that seemed to move with the dancing light from the burning wicks. Before him lay extravagance, one sort of luxuries that he had never encountered before – and he thought, this may have been something he would have known, if he cared for the lavish lifestyle of royalty. But the Wilds could never have afforded such gallantry as this, they were a small tribe in a realm of vast nothing. They knew nothing but the warring tribes and the brushlands that went on for as far as you could see. Even the deep of the woods were scarcely traversed, and it was a wonder to them that Erasmus could have ever survived.
At his left, a slender woman arrived, dressed tastefully ornate, and he almost expected to see a look of disdain in her gaze as she looked him up and down – as he didn't care much for fancy 'drobe, and he didn't have the mind to even braid his long mane except when he needed it out of his way – but nothing changed, and her expression was effortlessly delighted. “Your pleasure tonight?” he almost couldn't figure out whether it was a question or an offer, but he supposed it was the first. A brow raised, as did his chin, regarding her from above with scrupulous inspection. “what is this?" And almost directly – “Follow me.” a quaint grin, and she turned from him through the den. He followed her, admiring the architecture and playing his eyes over those who enjoyed their stay. Many seemed to occupied to acknowledge him, which pleased him well enough, whether in their drink or food or gambling or romance. She led him through the Floor, through the Lounge, and briefly exhibited the Rooms and their manners, detailed their expectations for his stay and clarified that wealth was to be had where wealth would roam. The coins in his pocket jingled merrily, and the girl was pleased. With no further questions he bid her off and took his time to wander freely, though secured his sights on the risks of the Floor.
The Floor---------------------------
Erasmus found an open table and pried the Dealer for an explanation of the rules – each player is drawn five cards. You bid your fortunes. And you hope for a good hand. Satisfied, he seated himself at the table and laid down the antler-hilt dagger and a few gold coins. That provided, he waited for more players and offers, his half-moon eyes warily scraping from silhouette to silhouette as they passed through the room. At his side he clutched the bag tight, well full with fellow coins and the gold sun pendant that were hungry for the table.
But it wasn't him that strayed from the alleys that afternoon, zig-zagging the enterpreted throng of wealthies that all chattered and chuckled and carried on as if nothing phased them. This evening, he felt, was well enough to be enjoyed from the perspective of one satisfied with himself in whole, however falsified the image was. There was always more, a need for more, a hunger for more, endless want, tameless desire, more, more, more, screaming into the void with frothing lips that were chapped with ravenous craving.
This relief was short lived for the not-prince of the Wilds, (as it should be, relief was an unattainable splendor for the wicked) but he did not know until he was well into the deep of the marketplace. There was no reason for him, he of all ghosts who loomed in the paved streets, to be singled amongst the many. In a sea of ingenuine royalties, he is a shadow among them, a far cry from their decadent showcases of extravagance – he was invisible. Of sorts – surely a gaze or two strayed to where he walked, their tedious eyes falling over the strains of gold that he naturally beheld, stricken over his shoulders and veining from his chest like cracked marble inlaid with precious glimmering stone. Their eyes carried to his sharp features – regal, handsome, youthful virile whose tenacity was matched with a darker tone. Indeed, shadows clung to the sharpest points, so that when his eyes met theirs they could not help but feel the chill of his disdain wash over in a subtle wave. Despite his anonymity and lack of such flamboyant expression, there was a magnetism of one set of eyes that did not find him simply easy to look at.
Those eyes did not pass briefly. They clung to him, like a hawk clings to a mouse.
And Erasmus is no mouse.
For a while he strayed, aware of the feeling – that unsettling heat that rides his spine and creeps up the curve of his neck, whispering in his ear. you do not belong. You should be dead. it calls to him, and suddenly the blood in his veins too, call to him. The superficiality of the world around him suddenly is deadened to that particular gaze he feels, and in his peripheral he drinks in the spectator without visible concern, while his flesh is ignited with the deluded thousand pinpricks of beetle bites, prickling like a wolf's hackles. And then - “You,” it calls louder than his mind, but not loud enough to turn his head. “You!” Louder now, it matches the uproar that rises in his skull and the fury that tears through to meet it. He is aware of a few other other eyes now, eyes that turn to snatch the source of the yelling and then singled to its subject – but surely not him? They pass back to the markets, and Erasmus is invisible again to all except one. And yet, “Erasmus!” He does not look, but he cannot stop his ear as it snaps back to catch the desperation called in his name – and it is as though his eye has grown wider, or perhaps he has actually turned his head, or he has grown a miraculous set of eyes that behold all from behind his horns – but he can see this spectator better now. He is roan, dusty but not disheveled, as though the sheen of dusk marks him nicely, holographic and cool. The man is severe, dressed well but not with the regality of those who surround him, disgusted with his proximity. His choice of fashion is remarkable to none but Erasmus. He is of the Wilds.
Erasmus's gait is smoother now, he suddenly realizes – a canter, but not nearly fast enough to cause concern of those around him. The man is still calling – his name follows him over and over, but it is just a whisper now, thrown beneath the furious blood that boils to the surface and pounds in his ears. The wind bursts against his chest and the night asks if he would like wings? It is a jest, some part of him half laughs while the rest screams. No dagger, no bow, poor child. A soldier without a weapon is as good as dead. You should be dead. You should have drowned. He turned his head finally, escaped from the collection of witnesses in the Markets, and a dagger scrapes against the bridge of his nose. Searing pain – hot and sudden and petty as a papercut, the blood dribbles down and collects at the corner of his lips. The hunger returns.
His mind catches the dagger as it slips past him, and his hooves skid into the grasses, upturning the damp soils. Like clockwork the moment is broken down for him, as all his battles are: he pivots, and with him pivots the dagger, rough and new and horrible in his grasp, it is some artless piece of work that he assumes could have only been carved by the poorest blacksmith who dared call himself one in all the Wilds. It was nothing like his dagger that was swallowed by the sea, smooth and beautiful and sharper than a gryphon's claw. But it moves with him still, however reluctant it is, and as he turns he watches the man too, skid but feet from him. He can see him fully now. All arrogance and brawn and brut-ish grins that surpass the immediate tinge of terror that slip into his eyes now as he watches his dagger turn against him. Erasmus does not miss the bounty paper strapped to his side, he knows it well. And as he brings his gaze from that bounty picture to the face of the hunter, he plunges the dagger into the man's chest as deep as it will allow. It is not deep enough – it is blunt and poorly made, and seems to cause nothing but discomfort and awe.
The hunger crawls up from his gut and rises like fire in his throat, and as he clenches his jaw, he can feel the rage tunneling through like a massive current. He is a spectre, a wild creature of conjured shadows that shift and swim in the dying light – and nestled beneath their shade unclench his fangs, caught in the glint of the moon. He digs deep, deep enough to stifle the hunter's agonized cry, deep enough to feel his pulse between his jaws and pounding in his skull. And he drinks. And drinks. And drinks. And there is nothing, then. The body becomes too heavy, and he releases as it collapses to the ground with a solemn thunk. His tongue lapped where the blood remained, pooled against the softness of his lips and dribbling down his chin as he admires the dead. The initial shock is a cool high – it moves over his body with a shiver, and the consolation that rises to greet him is bittersweet. For a long moment, his mind is quiet for once in a long time, and he revels in it. But the dark creeps in through the cracks and edges, and bids his wares with a cold touch. Habit calls him again, and he loots the limp body, shredding the bounty paper to pieces.
He withdrew the blade, though it didn't seem much use to him, it was worth pawning to the shops that bothered to scrape the barrel enough to barter for it. It was still hand-crafted, and he had a silver-tongued way of glorifying things far beyond their own expectations. He also selected a sun talisman from his person, whether it was his own or something he found off another hapless bounty, another item of no more use to him than a bartering chip. Even finer were the coins he rattled from the satchel and stuffed in his own, pleased with the winnings. But the most curious of all – he carried an odd card, one that didn't seem to quite suit him. Erasmus flipped it back and forth, admiring the art on it, his brows furrowed as he analyzed it. The stakes are high, but the pot is full. Will you try your hand tonight? The inscription was cryptic, and moreso the words beneath it, but what appealed to him the most was the insignia of a scarab on the front. As he stared at it, he remembered seeing a dark stone scarab placed somewhere in the marketplace, but the memory was brief and insignificant, some image stolen from time in one of his wanderings.
The moon was high in the sky when he found the doors of the White Scarab. It was waxing and half full, gleaming down with a grin that smiled fondly upon fortune – and upon his own fortunes, he was sure. It flowed against the knocker, pooled in the round semblance of the beetle's wings, glimmered in a soft reflection of the alleyway lit in the lunar pallor. His gold struck from the dark, webbing and distorted in the mirrored stone. This, this, he recalled passing while he traipsed the quiet corridors during his frequent meanderings through the streets of Denocte, eager for explorative conquests, eager for food and drink and whatever pleasure awaited him in its stead. How odd it was, that he had never cared to linger his thoughts on such a place then, long enough to truly see – as he now observed those spiraling towers, windowless and intimidating, exotic. His gaze flowed over their height before resettling over the knocker, and he is underwhelmed to find that there is – in fact – no true knocker. There is nothing for him to grab onto, no knob or ledge or lever that he can see, and so for a moment he only stands and considers.
It is quiet. Too quiet for any place of particular circumstance, unless it was a trap or abandoned stead. The vague description on the card could leave that determination on either, and he wasn't all that interested in discovering the former. And if it was abandoned, then why? The door was clean and the knocker polished, the street's dust clapped with what looked like many hooves other than his that both led in and out. But how?
He slid the card back out of its keep and flipped it once more, but the way in which it blocked the beams from the moon revealed a slot he hadn't noticed. Erasmus paused, considering his first two assumptions and the grave possibilities of one, and looked back to the card. It displayed no note of aging, the edges were as sharp and unfolded as any mint card, and it seemed as though a pretty care was placed in its conception. Not too old to be owned by an abandoned lot, and far too quality to be in the possession of a measley gang for their lure and holding. A few quiet breaths rose and fell with his chest as he thought, the gold scythes of his eyes running over the card a minute more before he slipped it into the slit.
A soft click, and he drew back as wings struck out from the knocker's sides, and the doors gaped wide.
Calculative eyes peered in through the darkness, and his lungs readily breathed in the perfume of incense that enveloped him at once. “Come in,” bid softness from the dark, or the breeze itself – that as he stood, caressed past him in loving stroke, slipping from the roll of his chin that was still faintly stained with the taste of blood. Against his better nature, his body moved without his knowing – his muscles flexed and strode, his hooves plodded against the stone tile beneath him and shirked of reluctance even as the doors clattered shut behind him.
The corridor was dark, dimly lit by the cascade of a few candles, and through the darkness he could see that the place was far from abandoned – and if it was a trap, it was a wealthy one, well decorated. And somewhere within he could hear the hum of conversation, not whispers but true conversing, casual syllables that he could barely make out until he found his way into the den. He paused, and he thought that he had felt someone brush past him – but when he looked there was nothing, only the candlelit corridor that seemed to move with the dancing light from the burning wicks. Before him lay extravagance, one sort of luxuries that he had never encountered before – and he thought, this may have been something he would have known, if he cared for the lavish lifestyle of royalty. But the Wilds could never have afforded such gallantry as this, they were a small tribe in a realm of vast nothing. They knew nothing but the warring tribes and the brushlands that went on for as far as you could see. Even the deep of the woods were scarcely traversed, and it was a wonder to them that Erasmus could have ever survived.
At his left, a slender woman arrived, dressed tastefully ornate, and he almost expected to see a look of disdain in her gaze as she looked him up and down – as he didn't care much for fancy 'drobe, and he didn't have the mind to even braid his long mane except when he needed it out of his way – but nothing changed, and her expression was effortlessly delighted. “Your pleasure tonight?” he almost couldn't figure out whether it was a question or an offer, but he supposed it was the first. A brow raised, as did his chin, regarding her from above with scrupulous inspection. “what is this?" And almost directly – “Follow me.” a quaint grin, and she turned from him through the den. He followed her, admiring the architecture and playing his eyes over those who enjoyed their stay. Many seemed to occupied to acknowledge him, which pleased him well enough, whether in their drink or food or gambling or romance. She led him through the Floor, through the Lounge, and briefly exhibited the Rooms and their manners, detailed their expectations for his stay and clarified that wealth was to be had where wealth would roam. The coins in his pocket jingled merrily, and the girl was pleased. With no further questions he bid her off and took his time to wander freely, though secured his sights on the risks of the Floor.
The Floor---------------------------
Erasmus found an open table and pried the Dealer for an explanation of the rules – each player is drawn five cards. You bid your fortunes. And you hope for a good hand. Satisfied, he seated himself at the table and laid down the antler-hilt dagger and a few gold coins. That provided, he waited for more players and offers, his half-moon eyes warily scraping from silhouette to silhouette as they passed through the room. At his side he clutched the bag tight, well full with fellow coins and the gold sun pendant that were hungry for the table.
