[P] [FALL] Man of oil

[Antiope]

hold your breath, close your eyes, turn your ear to the sky

She knows who he is, of course. Has seen him on Isra’s elbow many a time in the court. She has seen him stand in stark contrast to the queen’s dark hair and earthen skin; the moon and stars to her shadows and night. But, what Antiope wants to know is why he is following her.

Down every crowded street, past every merchant stand, he is there just behind her. Even when she can’t see him she can almost feel him. It’s an ability that never leaves you, like an extra sense, from years on the battlefield. He passes over the adumbral streets like a ghost.

Why?

She pauses at the flowers, finally, sapphire blue eyes sharp and bright and clear as they look over the variety of blooms. One in particular does catch her eye, a deep and vibrant flower whose colors shift from indigo to violet. The man at the stall tells her it is a Gladiolus. The color reminds her of a goddess who had given her magic, and her spine stiffens a little at the thought of gods and god-things, even if she is one too.

“Hello, Regent. May I walk with you?”

Antiope lifts her sea blue eyes, darker in the night, and the firelight all about them gleams off the sharpened edges of her axe. “I assume you mean at my side?” she responds, watching him with the lily in his mane and his eyes as deep and dark as her stripes. “Please, join me.”

The tigress turns away from the stand, away from the flowers that remind her of all of the things that she is trying not to be and all of the things that she would like to be instead. The altars are beyond them, where the crowd thins and grows more silent than seems natural, and somewhere she can hear the sound of children laughing, probably playing the games that have been set up. Her heart, she finds, is both happy and sad. “What can I do for you?”

"Speaking."

@Eik <3

credits