Tucson. The stranger’s name — and his accent, though to which corner of the earth it originated from Messalina had not a clue — took her by surprise.
Kept busy by her duties in Delumine’s citadel day in and day out, she barely had the chance to meet anyone, much less someone as utterly foreign as he. She had never met a man like him, with his drawling tongue and roguish, freely given smile, even in Algernon.
Nevertheless, she returned his smile (if a bit numbly; her face could barely move) and resisted the urge to curtsy. He didn’t seem the type that welcomed extravagant mannerisms, and she surely wasn’t the type to push it down another’s throat. Secretly, though she would never admit it to herself most days, Messalina found the stiff formality she had been raised on more and more draining by the day.
“Now, if only y’had the wings. There’s just isn’t much in way of towns hereabouts—‘cept for a, uh, soldiers’ output, a little ways off. The Court isn’t too far, but flyin’ sure does make it faster. Yer choice though, darlin’.”
She curled ever further into the scant warmth of her thin cloak as she considered his offer. The Court seemed like the most rational choice whichever way she thought about it. The idea of spending a night in a soldier’s output, alone and much too vulnerable for her liking, worried her. But the cold… she couldn’t feel her hooves. The winters in Algernon had been harsh enough for even Mother to warn Messalina of the dangers of being caught in a snowstorm.
The frostbite, the eventual disorientation. The feeling of fire, before everything dulled and died and the body sank into eternal sleep.
Messalina bit her lip and stole a glance at Tucson through her lashes, gazing broodingly at his much too friendly smile. Yet, he didn’t seem like he could hide nefarious intentions behind those bright brown eyes, and what he said did make perfect sense.
She had two choices: freeze to death on her trek to the Court, or follow the man warily to the soldier’s output. When she considered it that way, it could not have been an easier choice.
“Soldier’s output it is then, Tucson.” She rarely addressed anyone by their name so early into an acquaintance, but he had requested it of her, and Messalina would be as obliging as she needed to be. Hesitantly, she added: “I hope it is near — I can barely feel my limbs. If I had not run into you...”
Relief showed too clearly on her features when he offered her the flask. She raised her brow at him before taking it and raising it to her lips without hesitation. She swallowed the liquor in eager gulps, relishing the fire as it spread down her throat and flushed through her shivering body. Careful not to drink too much, out of politeness and more so out of caution, Messalina handed the whiskey back to him with a grateful nod.
“Thank you. And I might not look it, but I can handle my liquor very well.” A glittering lie — already she could feel the slight wooziness of the whiskey saturating her blood — but what else could she say? That she would faint like a wet behind the ears girl-child? She could handle liquor, in limited amounts.
And it had chased the cold away like magic, if only for a moment.
When the man threw himself off the cliff without so much as a warning then, Messalina's first horrific thought was that she had drank too much of the whiskey. Her horror only grew when she found that her step did not wobble, and her head did not ache, when she ran to the edge of the rock.
“Sir!” she shrieked, only to stare open-mouthed when she saw his wings flick open mid-fall. His triumphant yips echoed up towards her, halfway drowned by the howling of the wind.
Within the space of a heartbeat, he landed jovially besides her, perfectly unharmed. Her heart thundered in her chest as she calmed her fraying nerves. “Don’t mind me,” he said, slick as a poetry-spouting bard, and Messalina burst into astonished laughter.
Tears formed in her eyes, and she flicked them away before they could freeze. “Were you not afraid?” She had been shocked beyond the point of caring, and the warmth of the liquor loosened her tongue. “What a display. I have never seen anyone do that before.” Vaguely, Messalina wondered if it was wise following someone who could throw themselves down a snowbank quicker than she could blink. It was disarming, and on any other night she would have thought the entire situation preposterous.
“Y’ve decided where y’wanna go? Soldier's camp, or the Court?”
“Soldier’s camp,” she nodded. She felt his eyes settle on her satchel curiously, though he did not ask about it even when she saw the question burned into his eyes as clear as day. As they made for the camp, her trailing a few steps behind despite their matched height, she realized that she had never introduced herself.
“My name is Messalina. I come from the Dawn Court, and was on my way to Terrastella before this terrible blizzard blew in.”
@Tucson | notes: I LOVE him
