WHAT IF DEATH IS JUST ANOTHER
PAIR OF HANDCUFFS
PAIR OF HANDCUFFS
For all the things Sterling has seen, the corn maze delights him.
He’d not ventured into the Sideralis Prairie, yet, in his time in Novus. He had admired it from the high walls of the Night Court, gazing out from time to time over the waving grasses, but the attractions of the city were too many and too new for him to care to wander elsewhere. Then summer had slipped into fall, and the prairie had turned from green to gold under the deep blue sky. This made him think of home, which made him bitter, and he had stopped looking at all.
But the first day of the harvest festival dawns clear and crisp and bright, and the streets of Denocte ring with laughter and excited talk of the activities. Adventure prickles down Sterling’s spine like a brisk autumn wind, and come afternoon he is glad to join the throng of horses making its way out into the fields.
He feels like a boy, now, nosing through the tall green stalks, the ears of corn winking like treasure from their husks. A part of him (a boring part of him, thinks the other part of him, which isn’t) supposes that he ought not stray too far, when he has work to be getting back to—but most of him has decided already to get himself totally and irresistibly lost.
It takes surprisingly few turns within the maze for the crowd to thin out, and only a few more until Sterling finds himself alone. He strolls along complacently for a while, passes a pair of unicorns necking in the thick of the cornstalks and offers an encouraging whistle; reaches a dead end and doubles back; takes the other fork, and starts to feel that old familiar eagerness, that creeping sense that he is looking for something.
The afternoon purples into twilight, and the shadows of the corn inch across the path, and Sterling feels his heart begin to skip with anticipation. He cannot shake the feeling that there is something waiting for him, up ahead—perhaps around this next turn, or just one more after that—
There’s a rustle behind him, and Sterling jumps, whirling, but it is only another horse, gleaming blue-gold in the shadows. “Sorry,” Sterling says, with an unselfconscious laugh, “I thought you were—something else...” And he trails away, tilting his head, listening. Now there is another sound, strange and heavy through the green walls of the maze, and it is not the sound of hooves, or the wind in the corn.
Sterling feels again that prickle of adrenaline, of yearning mixed with fear. He flicks a blue eye toward the stranger, and his grin is at once both anxious and hungry. “Do you hear that?”
He’d not ventured into the Sideralis Prairie, yet, in his time in Novus. He had admired it from the high walls of the Night Court, gazing out from time to time over the waving grasses, but the attractions of the city were too many and too new for him to care to wander elsewhere. Then summer had slipped into fall, and the prairie had turned from green to gold under the deep blue sky. This made him think of home, which made him bitter, and he had stopped looking at all.
But the first day of the harvest festival dawns clear and crisp and bright, and the streets of Denocte ring with laughter and excited talk of the activities. Adventure prickles down Sterling’s spine like a brisk autumn wind, and come afternoon he is glad to join the throng of horses making its way out into the fields.
He feels like a boy, now, nosing through the tall green stalks, the ears of corn winking like treasure from their husks. A part of him (a boring part of him, thinks the other part of him, which isn’t) supposes that he ought not stray too far, when he has work to be getting back to—but most of him has decided already to get himself totally and irresistibly lost.
It takes surprisingly few turns within the maze for the crowd to thin out, and only a few more until Sterling finds himself alone. He strolls along complacently for a while, passes a pair of unicorns necking in the thick of the cornstalks and offers an encouraging whistle; reaches a dead end and doubles back; takes the other fork, and starts to feel that old familiar eagerness, that creeping sense that he is looking for something.
The afternoon purples into twilight, and the shadows of the corn inch across the path, and Sterling feels his heart begin to skip with anticipation. He cannot shake the feeling that there is something waiting for him, up ahead—perhaps around this next turn, or just one more after that—
There’s a rustle behind him, and Sterling jumps, whirling, but it is only another horse, gleaming blue-gold in the shadows. “Sorry,” Sterling says, with an unselfconscious laugh, “I thought you were—something else...” And he trails away, tilting his head, listening. Now there is another sound, strange and heavy through the green walls of the maze, and it is not the sound of hooves, or the wind in the corn.
Sterling feels again that prickle of adrenaline, of yearning mixed with fear. He flicks a blue eye toward the stranger, and his grin is at once both anxious and hungry. “Do you hear that?”
AND MAYBE GOD IS JUST A COP
THAT WE CAN FAST TALK
THAT WE CAN FAST TALK
@August sorry this is weird ugh I was trying to make it ~spooky~ haha womp
