our dead drink the sea
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"Lord Senna."
Strange, thought Senna, as he turned his head into the glare of the dying sun.
Who in Terrastella—who in Novus, except perhaps his own well-taught daughter—would address him by title? It wasn't the young Commander. He would recognize her voice. Out of habit, Senna nodded curtly to the slender backlit figure and brought a wing up to shield his eyes from the light. He couldn't make out the shape of her features enough to recognize her, though logic told him anyone who wandered here was likely Halcyon.
How Terrastella grows on me by the hour, he thought wryly, as the stranger came to a halt steps away from the lapping tide. Perhaps he would purchase an estate in Vespera's gentle court someday, when the Scarab earned back its debt. Gift it to Sol as a birthday present, a place for her to retreat to whenever she wanted. Permitting she allowed him use of it as well, of course.
How he tired, sometimes, of politics. But... such thoughts were dangerously persistent once entertained. Fell the hydra's head, and from its neck sprouts two more.
Nestor's gravelly intrusion, alarming any other time, saved him from journeying farther down the forbidden tunnel.
Who is it? She was but a black speck hovering above the glittering waves a league and a half away, too far, even with her falcon sight, to see the girl any better than Senna could. Stay where you are, he bade her, teeth clamping down on his tongue.
Ever since the fiasco in Solterra, Nestor had been a strung wire aching for an excuse to snap—and snap savagely. She would screech in bloodcurdling abandon whenever anyone got within perceived striking distance of him, and if they were foolish enough to disregard her warning, he would have to knock her from the air with his wing or the hilt of his scimitar before she could dive down and rip out the fellow's jugular.
He hadn't allowed her to remain within a league of him since, to her unspeakable fury and hurt.
She is not a threat. She was considerate enough to make sound when approaching, he placated, though he doubted it would have any effect. There came no reply. The speck above the water remained hovering. He breathed out a weary breath.
“I trust you have been comfortable during your stay so far?”
He stepped back from the water and allowed a thin, glancing smile to settle upon his lips. "I have. I had not expected to be given accommodations for joining the search," he said. "Commander Marisol is generous."
He glanced upwards when the sun slipped silently behind a stormy cloud, blanketing them in a sudden, relieving dark. The girl's pale coat glowed like a second moon in the newfound night. Ivory antlers sprouted from her forehead. He found himself staring into a pair of white-lashed lavender eyes, as keen—if not more so—than his own.
"Your presence here," he began slowly, moving his gaze back out to sea, back out to the circle of black rocks rising out of the water like a wicked faerie ring. "Means that my guess came closer than I dared believe. Forgive me, for I do not know the proper title to address you by."
The waning light of the moon glazed Senna's eyes in a sheen of silver when he turned it back to hers. "Good evening, Theodosia."
@Theodosia | "senna" nestor | notes: addressing senna by title adds an immediate 10 points to his impression of you apparently ;D
