little pilgrim
the Indian's axed your scalp.
the Indian's axed your scalp.
He gives her nothing but more insults, more words spoken soft as dull silver but that are meant to cut oh, so sharply. When he threatens her she is at least wise enough not to respond, not to rise to his provoking, not to even tip one black ear back as a sign of her bright hate. Neither does she sigh in relief (though she wants to, even as her heart still hammers like a jackrabbit’s steps, away and away) when he turns to the window. It is the hardest thing she has ever done, to do nothing, but dying here would only satisfy the expectations of everyone who told her she was too rash, too foolish, too bullheaded.
At last he speaks of Seraphina. Only now does even her breathing pause, her heartbeat jump - she stares at him, the cold arch of his neck and the sharp line of his cheek - and it does not occur to her that he might not be giving the truth. What lie could be worse than a body that could not be burned?
Elif can’t bring herself to thank him. Stiffly she bows, more stiffly turns away. She waits for the cold burn of his gaze on her back, but it does not come; she forces herself not to glance back at him, to see if he still stares out the window like there are ghosts all around him and he is the only real thing.
It pains Elif to leave having said nothing, done nothing, to move Raum at all - not even to anger. The man seemed as unchangeable as an ancient statue in the desert, immune to all but time and the slow scouring of wind and sand. She might have wondered if he could feel anything at all, were her heart not full to bursting itself. She brims with grief, with anger, with confusion and dread. As her whip is returned, tightly coiled, the maelstrom within is already affecting her magic; a breeze finds her, riffles along her feathers and her short hair, carrying with it the scent of the winter desert.
If the guards note this strange wind they say nothing, and she stares them down with her angry green eyes until her weapon is secured once more on her hip, feeling like nothing so much as a viper, coiled and ready to strike.
But there is no fight for her here, not today.
Not until after she sees the Steppe for herself.
@Raum worst closer ever D:
