I'm the hero of this story
I don't need to be saved
I don't need to be saved
She moves a little closer and it reveals another faint scattering of markings on her neck, her shoulder. She moves a little closer and her scent, warm and dusty and wild, reveals itself over the spice and perfume and sweat of the marketplace. It doesn’t surprise him at all that he prefers it. In all likelihood he could hate it and still prefer it.
When she offers to help him, he considers her with an arched brow, his silver eyes flat as mirrors. Or maybe it’s hers that are the mirror, since he can read nothing in them but his own thoughts, his own empty wanting.
“I’d like that,” he says, and pushes away what he knows Aghavni would think (nothing good, he is sure). What this stranger might think, too, if she knew it wasn’t a friend he was looking for, or what he planned to do if he found him. When the pegasus moves another few inches closer their noses almost touch; he bends his muzzle toward her and then away, as though suddenly shy, though he is anything but. August still can’t quite get a read on her; she seems at once wary and hunter-intent, a falcon that could be lured with blood or startled away with one too-quick movement.
When he speaks of the merchants he casts an eye over them, too. It reminds him of being on the gambling floor of the Scarab, or maybe in one of the back rooms with the dancing girls; he knows that even those who have their eyes turned elsewhere are still watching. As for the rest, they make him think of hyenas, hanging back, waiting for a weakness or any kind of in.
August is not going to give them one, no matter the charms of their wares. And when the stranger answers his smile is a sharp thing, glad to know she feels the same - though he’d meant more they’d pressure her to buy than sell. In his country, or this one, or any other, such diamonds signaled wealth immeasurable. He wonders again who she is - a youth of some ancient Solterran house, looking for excitement beyond her family’s estate? In that case, she was probably waiting for the right time to pay him back for his remarks. So be it; he’d welcome the excitement.
“That the spirit,” he says, and gives her a smile curved like a scimitar. “Time to get out of here, anyway - our quarry disappeared that way.” He indicates the eastern end of the street, in the direction of the heart of the city, and begins again to walk. August notices but doesn’t remark on the gazes that follow them, sharp enough to draw blood.
“I’m August,” he tells her, tossing the name over his shoulder like its weightless - which it is now, here and everywhere.
@Warset
