Elchanan caught by guile, cut down by lust
Oh, couldn’t it have been anyone else? Novus is large and, more importantly, new; and Elchanan knows enough math to be aware he should be less likely to bump into Septimus than any random stranger. And yet here they are, poised across the pool from each other like Narcissus and his reflection. Elchanan’s eyes are deep-dark and inscrutable. His ears flicker back a little, toward the perfect knots of his mane, and his stance, though loose, is nothing near to comfortable. The space between them remains painfully large. Are you searching for the relic, too? he says, and Elchanan snorts, shaking his fine-boned head with something like derision. That long, washed-out tail snaps against his back legs like a whip. He moves forward slowly—so, so slowly—around the edge of the pool. His strides are measured, nimble hooves catching easily on the pattern of shore-rocks made dark by the lapping water. “I think,” he says, low and dulcet, “There are people much more in need of it than I.” His dark gaze drops from the treeline to meet Septimus’, and it narrows slightly. When he looks back down at the pool it is with a measure of indifference that could almost be called cold—
Except for the sly twist of his lips, and the fact that, a moment later, the guise is replaced by sheer surprise.
He’s distracted by a flash of movement. Concentric circles from a singular drop, disturbed by fins. His eyes turn, and— a fish with long whiskers and unnerving glassy eyes comes tearing suddenly out of the water.
Elchanan flinches, extends a wing to protect himself from the wave of water that comes up to meet them, but over the ring of feathers he sees it—the turquoise spot in the things head, glowing bright like a rune—and instantly his predator curiosity snaps into place. He tilts forward like a scale. It’s too late, it’s gone back into the water already, he can sense it swimming way, way down. A frown pulls at his lips. By now the thing is meters deep. It should be invisible against the pattern of dark rocks and mud on the bank.
But he can still see it. Every iridescent scale, every swish of its tail. Because the pool itself has started to burn with light.
Elchanan lets out something like a laugh, punctuated with a carnivorous smile. He dips his head low toward he is no longer distracted by Septimus or the indignance that was turning in his stomach only a moment ago. No, his sooty eyes are fixed with immense concentration on the path the fish weaves through the water: warmth comes in waves to burn against his face, but he leans ever closer. The bottom of the pool is out of view, white with simmering light. Oh, if he could only see -
He turns toward Septimus. For the first time since his arrival in Novus, his magic surfaces. The smile that twists its way across is lips is just slightly ethereal, his eyes too-intense, and when he speaks, his voice is lower and smoother than should be possible, sweet as honey, like dark, dark amber: “You want to go in.”
It is not in any way a question.
He watches Septimus for a long, long moment, those deep eyes bright and watchful, and when the wave of magic subsides and leaves all his nerves tingling with cold, he pushes his wings close to his sides and goes swan-diving into the pool.
The cold sinks into him like a set of jaws; all at once it rushes in to grab at him with needle-sharp teeth and Elchanan flinches as it settles in, shocked almost to gasping at the spears of frost that seem to think into his skin, but he steels himself and pushes forward, down, down, down.
At the very bottom of the pool, still a few feet out of reach, he is starting to see through the clear, frigid water to something godly, burning with light, pulling him in like a fish on a hook. |
