Even as close as he is August almost misses it, the words that fall like a petal to the ground of the alley - but he doesn’t, and his ears twist back. For a moment he could feel the barbs in his mouth, sharp words to prick and cut with - but in the end he made his response desert-dry. “Yes, I’m sure Raum asked himself that same thing.”
It’s a good enough end-point to any conversation.
It is easier, when she stands and they’re both covered in sweat and blood and grit, like so many spars in years as faint as phantoms. Even easier, when they banter with their words in a way even more familiar. He watches her sweep her hair into a bun like he has a hundred times before, and waits for a feeling of de ja vu that doesn’t come. Maybe things are different now, he thinks - and wasn’t that the point?
“I suppose a castle is enough of an upgrade from a ship’s berth,” he says, matching the airiness of her tone, falling into easy step just behind her as they emerge from the alley’s mouth. When she asks for stories he procures a smile, another of the thousands he’s perfectly faked. “It’s no fun telling you if you’re just going to guess it all, Aghavni.” August sighs dramatically, even as he turns his own gaze to the sea, and where the unicorn’s turns wistful his own eyes only narrow, the flat silver of mirrors, or the surface of the sea.
He’d thought it would save him, or wash his true self toward him like a coral-encrusted sword turned up out of the surf. Instead, it had only brought him back here - to Solterra, to his princess’s side, to a role he had always played dutifully. He is about to say something else - some story from his time at sea, doubtlessly richly embroidered - when she says his name and his gaze is drawn to hers as inexorably as a tide to the moon, a thing to return to again and again.
August keeps his smile, now nothing but a curl of lips easy to lose in the deepening evening shadows. It isn’t until she continues that it fades, gone serious - an expression that has never suited him.
He already knows what his choice will be, even as he searches her emerald eyes for - what? Some sign that she’s offering more than she’s saying, that stay with me meant more than it always had? Of course his choice is what it always has been, though he tells himself that this is the first time it has ever been a choice at all, and surely that makes it different.
“As you wish,” he says, and his mouth curls like a fishhook into another smile. “Now, let me tell you about those sirens-" and he steps out into the street thick with shadows, with the light still on the sea, and waits for her to lead him to the castle.
@Aghavni
It’s a good enough end-point to any conversation.
It is easier, when she stands and they’re both covered in sweat and blood and grit, like so many spars in years as faint as phantoms. Even easier, when they banter with their words in a way even more familiar. He watches her sweep her hair into a bun like he has a hundred times before, and waits for a feeling of de ja vu that doesn’t come. Maybe things are different now, he thinks - and wasn’t that the point?
“I suppose a castle is enough of an upgrade from a ship’s berth,” he says, matching the airiness of her tone, falling into easy step just behind her as they emerge from the alley’s mouth. When she asks for stories he procures a smile, another of the thousands he’s perfectly faked. “It’s no fun telling you if you’re just going to guess it all, Aghavni.” August sighs dramatically, even as he turns his own gaze to the sea, and where the unicorn’s turns wistful his own eyes only narrow, the flat silver of mirrors, or the surface of the sea.
He’d thought it would save him, or wash his true self toward him like a coral-encrusted sword turned up out of the surf. Instead, it had only brought him back here - to Solterra, to his princess’s side, to a role he had always played dutifully. He is about to say something else - some story from his time at sea, doubtlessly richly embroidered - when she says his name and his gaze is drawn to hers as inexorably as a tide to the moon, a thing to return to again and again.
August keeps his smile, now nothing but a curl of lips easy to lose in the deepening evening shadows. It isn’t until she continues that it fades, gone serious - an expression that has never suited him.
He already knows what his choice will be, even as he searches her emerald eyes for - what? Some sign that she’s offering more than she’s saying, that stay with me meant more than it always had? Of course his choice is what it always has been, though he tells himself that this is the first time it has ever been a choice at all, and surely that makes it different.
“As you wish,” he says, and his mouth curls like a fishhook into another smile. “Now, let me tell you about those sirens-" and he steps out into the street thick with shadows, with the light still on the sea, and waits for her to lead him to the castle.
@Aghavni
August - -
there's a lover in the story
but the story's still the same
but the story's still the same
