the woods are lovely, dark, and deep
but I have promises to keep
and miles to go before I sleep
but I have promises to keep
and miles to go before I sleep
H
is ears prick towards her when she laughs, ghost of a thing as it is. There is nothing musical about it (she is not that type of girl, is she?) but it is soft and breezy and – gone before he can blink. “Once this is all over, perhaps,” she says, and he hums. She speaks of a hopeful future, one where things can be over (is he living one? is his time with the Garde really, truly, over? like the closing of a chapter, some say. were it only that easy.) and he finds himself wanting to believe in it. “I think we’ll both be able to manage it.”
Caine has never thought much about the future. If there was such a being as a creator, a holy maker, then Caine is surely a boy who was never made to have things like futures. Not that he ever minded. He has always thought himself beyond such mortal longings.
Now – he is not so sure.
She tells him of the Elatus Canyons, and he nods along at her explanation for choosing them as a hideout. A logical choice, but – he bites down his grimace as another torrent of wind whips sand into his eyes – off-putting is not a word he would’ve used. Sand falls like snow from his mane when he lowers his head for a vigorous shake.
“Teryrs?” He straightens his back, satisfied with the amount of sand he has dispelled, and angles towards her. Caine has heard the Solterran tales of the desert beasts enough times to recognize the word, though when he says the name his tongue glides awkwardly over it. Something about the Solterran ‘r’ – a curling of the tongue, a gutteral expulsion of breath – makes it difficult for him to replicate. “Have you ever seen one?”
She is so acclimated to the desert – moves through the swallowing sands with nothing short of a bobcat’s grace – that he asks the question with her answer, a short yet telling “yes”, already in mind. Frowning, he tries not to acknowledge how keen he is to hear another one of her stories.
He had not wanted to tell her about his past. He hasn’t really, his answer had been vague enough to infuriate even himself but – when Fia halts in front of the cave and turns to look at him, with the even, solemn gaze he has come to expect from her (strange. when has he ever come to expect anything of anyone? he has just met her. it is not logical.) Caine stiffens.
His bones weigh a thousand tons, and his hooves are anchors in the sand. “I understand.” He does not doubt her. “but I wouldn’t be so quick to call it selfish. Choosing – isn’t selfish, and, even if it were…we are in Solterra.”
He returns her almost-smile. He wonders if she’ll believe him if he tells her that at least in Solterra, the snakes do not masquerade as lambs. They are unashamed in their violence, undeterred by their ambition. They do not run. They fight and they bleed and they die, and it is this primordial pride, shedding their own blood, becoming their own monsters, that Caine has never found fault in.
“You could find far more selfish, profitable causes without so much as looking for them.”
“Fighting a revolution is not the most profitable way to spend my time, that is true. Now that you have pointed that out –” he lifts his brow and his smile is all teeth. He pauses, appearing to reconsider. “But – you are just starting to think me a generous assassin, and I am in need of a new image, so that is payment enough.” He shrugs, and his lips tilt down just a little – his perfectly polished veneer flickers – but perhaps it is just another trick of the desert. “Selfish, you see?”
He steps into the darkness of the cave before his smile can betray him again.
“Alshamtueur.” Light pours into the cavern and casts dancing shadows on the walls. “I’m afraid that it isn’t much to look at, now…” Caine walks up to a pile of crates tucked neatly in a corner. The light from Fia’s flaming sword is just enough to cast everything in a film of weak gold. One crate is filled with packaged food rations, and another, with its lid slightly ajar, reveals a collection of carefully stacked and polished blades. “…but we’re only just getting started.”
Other crates are stacked sporadically around the expansive space, and his eyes drift to the various breaks in the wall – entrances to tunnels – that branch off into what he suspects to be other rooms.
“Did you do this all yourself?” His voice echoes along the walls. As a boy locked in the marble and walnut corridors of Agenor’s mansion, Caine had always relied on books and (rarely) Agenor’s lessons to offer him glimpses and whisperings of other worlds. Worlds of shadow and intrigue, adventure and secrecy.
And now that one is in front of him, his very blood hums with dormant fascination.
“Come along – I’ll show you around, and we’ll see to that scrape of yours… and I’ll explain the job I have for you along the way.”
Her voice rouses him from his thoughts. Business. He is here because she has summoned him, and she has summoned him because she requires an assassin. He has almost let himself forget it. “It was a shallow scrape, it doesn’t even hurt,” he says mildly, but he trails after her anyways.
He makes a list of the things he has yet to make known to her, things like his enchanted map, to remind himself further that this is a job.
The future is yet to come, and his occupation (a pretty way to put it) has yet to change.
@Caine | "speaks" | notes: here we have caine slithering out of serious talk with his usual grace
