[AW] midnight tempest [white scarab]

[Manon]

And don't tell me what to do

Don't tell me what to say

Raging, screaming winds thrust into the side of the grand castle that belonged to the White Scarab, howling and fighting with the currents flipping themselves over and over. It whistled between narrow alleyways, gusted over the cobblestone streets and paid no mind to what it might have displaced along the way. Abandoned stall carts along the market square were toppled, their wares long packed and taken home in fear of the coming storm, the one that now threatened to tear the very bricks from their place cemented into walls. Even the buildings lining the path trembled with the seething tempest that clawed its way over the Night Court and, more specifically, where she pushed through the deluge that whipped and stung against her copper skin. It brought her with it, the eye of the storm that made headway to the looming structure at the end of the street.

Or, maybe, they had it backwards and it was she who dragged the storm with her.

How long it had been, months and seasons?, since she again showed her diamond-plated face around the surface. Her arrival was unlike her last appearance in every aspect save for one: it was effortless, and despite the torrential downpour she walked through, with the wind begging to pull her away with it, she showed no signs of struggle, no indication at all that her grace was affected by nature's wrath. Her usually-braided hair was loose and engaged in a frenzied battle with the gusts blowing relentlessly, necklace and gems upon her twig crown never settling against her body. But no ounce of her desired to turn around, or to take refuge until it passed, or do anything aside from reaching the grandeur doors that murmured its encouragement to her. Inside, they wanted her in and back to a room that grew dusty from disuse.

She wouldn't refuse them.

And so the doors, heavy in their weight but made to be no more than picks with the gales crying against them, opened with a bang that echoed across the Scarab and demanded an immediate hush from all occupants inside. There were few, at the time of night in which she returned, but every eye was upon her and the ricocheting doors from the force at which they had opened. The nearest to the entrance scrambled to find safety elsewhere as the rain promptly drenched everything it could touch, licking its way through the dimmed interior. She stood unmoving, picturesque, statuesque, against a backdrop pulled straight from a movie: lightning flashing in all the spaces around her, lighting her slim frame from behind and turning her into nothing more than a silhouette, cream locks creased around all the dips and curves of her body. Her gems upon her brow glinted eerily in the snippets of light that snaked through, and her eyes were as turbulent as the scene outside with their colors that swirled endlessly. White-tipped ears were pinned. Her spotted chest was still.

She had sights for but one individual, and with all others gathered looking at her, she had the room. The hush was torn apart by the storm, both deafening in their own beauty. Time stopped there for them, for her, and finally--finally--the clips from her hooves against the ground resounded in a sharp staccato as she made way through the entry hall. Home.

And though she wanted nothing more than to head up the staircase off to the side, a darker part of the room that none dared to cross to, to a space with a red rose painted on the door, she stopped. Her movements ceased in the center of the Floor, playing card tables scattered about, and as she glanced around at those who looked back up at her, they jumped into action as if the veil had been pulled back and they were released once more into whatever reality they were part of. Chatter picked up, cards were shuffled, and all resumed as normal as things pertaining to gambling could be. Except for her, the 'normal' shifted into a different meaning and she sought only one among them. He was not visible to her, wherever he might have been, and so she spoke his name and simply waited; he would find her, she had no doubt.

They always did.

"August."

open for anyone of the scarab to approach!

CREDIT