Andras Demyan
"All you want to do is dance out of your skin into another song not quite about heroes, but still a song where you can lift your spear and say 'yes' as it flashes."
"All you want to do is dance out of your skin into another song not quite about heroes, but still a song where you can lift your spear and say 'yes' as it flashes."
Mateo stares at him in stunned silence. Andras smiles, one of those smiles that would be a grimace if it were deeper, with the ridges at the edge--and it is either because of the look on Mateo's face, or in spite of it, and I cannot guess as to which.
Andras watches him screw his face back into position, straighten his posture and say, okay.
He echoes, "Okay," he echoes, and gestures down the street with one wing extended, the other folded across his chest. "After you," Andras says before following Mateo back into the quiet city streets as the sun rises over their backs, burning the fog away from each building.
There are many things he considers asking, but doesn't (and Andras does not typically withold his opinion, so this is either a special treat or an unfortunate plot twist). Most of them start with why and a few of them end with this? us? a drink? Andras has not stopped to consider the early morning night or the standards of civilization and he does not stop to consider a single thing until the path they travel drops down a dark, narrow staircase, made even darker in the long morning shadow. If he stops it is only for a moment. If he says anything at all, it is not words, just uncomfortable stammering before he, begrudgingly, follows Mateo down.
Andras holds the door open with a wing as he steps over the threshold, into a room that looks at once very empty and very cluttered--and a few different things happen at the same time.
One, the part of him that is always thinking of the library, of its swooping curves and its clean lines and its rooms upon rooms of bookshelves neatly stacked full of lovingly kept and obsessively curated tomes, scrolls--this part of him starts screaming, some high-pitched keening at the shelves of books, some of them vertical, some stacked four-or-five-high on their sides, most of them worn and stuffed haphazardly into place (and I say haphazardly because Andras would say haphazardly, whether they are placed that way or not).
Two, another part of him is well aware of the dark, and the warmth in spite of the small fire trying its best to fill the space. This is the part of him that follows Mateo in what can only be described as rapt silence, thankful for the light obfuscating off his lenses so, though his back is turned anyway, the other cannot see Andras staring -- at Mateo, or the bookshelves, or the pillow that Andras folds himself onto after Mateo does the same. This part of him pulls his mouth into a thin smile. This part of him thanks the bartender even as she is all but jogging away.
Three, Andras thinks oh no, for what seems like no reason, over and over again, first as a single voice and then as a chorus singing a hymn to day drinking and his questionable life choices. He decides, Fine. We're doing this.
When the barkeep--Bronte,--drops the mugs before them, Andras picks his up and levels that stormcloud gaze on Mateo's, grinning like some wolf. "To friendship, such as it is," he adds, clinking the drinks together before knocking half of his back in one long gulp. Andras sets his drink bak down, adjuts his feathers, and says, as if he had been meaning to say it all along (and he hadn't), "You're going to do great."
Andras watches him screw his face back into position, straighten his posture and say, okay.
He echoes, "Okay," he echoes, and gestures down the street with one wing extended, the other folded across his chest. "After you," Andras says before following Mateo back into the quiet city streets as the sun rises over their backs, burning the fog away from each building.
There are many things he considers asking, but doesn't (and Andras does not typically withold his opinion, so this is either a special treat or an unfortunate plot twist). Most of them start with why and a few of them end with this? us? a drink? Andras has not stopped to consider the early morning night or the standards of civilization and he does not stop to consider a single thing until the path they travel drops down a dark, narrow staircase, made even darker in the long morning shadow. If he stops it is only for a moment. If he says anything at all, it is not words, just uncomfortable stammering before he, begrudgingly, follows Mateo down.
Andras holds the door open with a wing as he steps over the threshold, into a room that looks at once very empty and very cluttered--and a few different things happen at the same time.
One, the part of him that is always thinking of the library, of its swooping curves and its clean lines and its rooms upon rooms of bookshelves neatly stacked full of lovingly kept and obsessively curated tomes, scrolls--this part of him starts screaming, some high-pitched keening at the shelves of books, some of them vertical, some stacked four-or-five-high on their sides, most of them worn and stuffed haphazardly into place (and I say haphazardly because Andras would say haphazardly, whether they are placed that way or not).
Two, another part of him is well aware of the dark, and the warmth in spite of the small fire trying its best to fill the space. This is the part of him that follows Mateo in what can only be described as rapt silence, thankful for the light obfuscating off his lenses so, though his back is turned anyway, the other cannot see Andras staring -- at Mateo, or the bookshelves, or the pillow that Andras folds himself onto after Mateo does the same. This part of him pulls his mouth into a thin smile. This part of him thanks the bartender even as she is all but jogging away.
Three, Andras thinks oh no, for what seems like no reason, over and over again, first as a single voice and then as a chorus singing a hymn to day drinking and his questionable life choices. He decides, Fine. We're doing this.
When the barkeep--Bronte,--drops the mugs before them, Andras picks his up and levels that stormcloud gaze on Mateo's, grinning like some wolf. "To friendship, such as it is," he adds, clinking the drinks together before knocking half of his back in one long gulp. Andras sets his drink bak down, adjuts his feathers, and says, as if he had been meaning to say it all along (and he hadn't), "You're going to do great."
@mateo
they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
