Vikander,
I hope this letter finds you in good health.
Business brings me back to Denocte unexpectedly, though I cannot stay long. The Solterran court is too busy stirring itself into a blood frenzy for me to leave it with any peace of mind.
By midmorning, my caravan should be well through the Arma Pass. I have much to discuss with you, old friend. I hope you will spare me an afternoon.
I will await you in the Room on the lowermost floor, at the very end of the hall. I'm sure you know the one — it conceals the passage leading down to the Denoctian catacombs, and out of the kingdom entirely.
I hope this letter finds you in good health.
Business brings me back to Denocte unexpectedly, though I cannot stay long. The Solterran court is too busy stirring itself into a blood frenzy for me to leave it with any peace of mind.
By midmorning, my caravan should be well through the Arma Pass. I have much to discuss with you, old friend. I hope you will spare me an afternoon.
I will await you in the Room on the lowermost floor, at the very end of the hall. I'm sure you know the one — it conceals the passage leading down to the Denoctian catacombs, and out of the kingdom entirely.
YOURS SINCERELY, SENNA
don't you think
that I'm bound to react now
my fingers definitely turning to black now
♠︎
that I'm bound to react now
my fingers definitely turning to black now
♠︎
The letter was brief, and the calligraphy just a bit scrawling, but it would have to do. The sun was beginning to gild the domed ceiling of the tower in hues of orange dusk. It would be nightfall soon, and his caravan was waiting below.
Time was, as always, the enemy.
The seconds ticked slowly by as Senna waited for the ink to soak completely into the thick parchment. When his quill came away dry, he rolled the letter into a tight spiral and, from the cushioned depths of a carved wooden box, drew out a heavy silver ring, dabbed a bit of flame-melted wax to the spiral's lip, and pressed the ring's emblazoned surface into the cooling golden seal.
"Your leg, Nestor." A white falcon perched by the open window turned her pale beak towards him witheringly, before returning to her keen survey of the rippled sands below for signs of desert mice. Barely more than appetizers, really, but they entertained her well enough.
Why don't you summon for a tasty little messenger dove to do it? Her black-void eyes narrowed at the shifting of sand five stories below, but it was just the shadow of a passing guard.
"Vikander will feed you." At the mention of a familiar name, Nestor finally tore her piercing gaze away from the sands and settled it darkly upon the stallion's gold-accented brow. After a moment of stony silence, she extended a yellow talon roughly out.
Am I a pet to be fed? Her voice resounded through his mind with a harsh grating of affront. I will hunt on my way to him. Senna stifled a sigh. The falcon was in a mood, today.
He tied the letter to her leg with red string, knotting it three times for security. At the breakneck pace Nestor flew, a flimsy knot meant a lost letter and a wasted effort. "Wasted" was not a word the Hajakhan noble liked to hear, much less utter by his own lips.
"Do be a bit more delightful to the warlock, will you?" he said, stepping back as Nestor began to beat her grey-mottled wings. The gust she generated blew sheafs of parchment off the desk, and strands of his hair about his eyes.
The white falcon released a piercing shriek before lifting off. But we are never delightful, was Nestor's smug reply, before she tucked in her wings and plunged into the night.
Crimson eyes followed her descent, until she was swallowed by the dark. When the falcon alighted seconds later with a twitching mouse tail trailing from her beak, the nobleman's humorless lips winged just a touch upwards.
Senna's hooves echoed gravely down the damp, stone-walled corridor.
The torch hovering by his shoulder wavered when he sidestepped a puddle of what he hoped to be water (the catacombs had not been used in decades — he doubted that many Denoctians knew of its existence) and, frowning into the gloomy dark, he turned quickly down one labyrinthine fork after the next.
To his utter irritation, his caravan had been stopped at the queen's gates (though she was missing, was she not?) to be searched. The soldiers had ushered him along with muffled apologies after he'd drawn out papers stamped with the dragon emblem of a prominent Denoctian noble house — he had procured it years ago off the black market, and it had proven to be a noble investment — yet still, he had been delayed, and the last rays of afternoon were giving way to the lavender haze of Denocte's wine-and-woodsmoke nights.
He paused when he reached it at last. A door with a scarab beetle painted into the softening wood, the hinges near rusted off, loomed ominously in front of him. Carefully, to extend the life of the hinges, he eased the door slowly open and stepped inside.
A fraying, moth-eaten carpet cushioned his footfalls. This far down, where the twisting hall of Rooms rarely hosted anything alive, he had not deemed it necessary to waste gold on luxurious decoration.
Senna's eyes strained to adjust to the darkness. The shadows writhed away from his torchlight when it fell upon them like a blood-starved leech.
"Vikander. I hope I have not made you wait."
@Vikander | "senna" nestor | it's a senna! and a (grumpy) nestor!
