It is a good hiding place. The canyons walls had done a good job of disguising the sound; it isn’t until he steps between those twin serpents (their eyes on him, unseeing, remind him of the eyes of sand of the not-snake on the island) that it all washes in and August, taken aback, only stands for a moment to get his bearings.
There is a festival air to the crowd, a kind of nervous frenzy that ripples through them. It feels the way it always did before a big tournament at the Scarab, when the liquor had been flowing for hours and the pot grew and grew until everyone could see their fortune in the next flip of cards. The problem always came later, when all fortunes but one turned to anger and despair. Even so it isn’t until he hears a sharp squeal, then the unmistakable sound of flesh meeting flesh, that he realizes where he must be. And that’s almost enough to drive the winged mare from his mind.
August steps further into the crowd, before his obvious newness draws too much scrutiny - but he doesn’t make it far before the people part and she emerges, glowing faintly, his Virgil who brought him to this questionable wonderland. Up close she is no less savage and magnificent; at her greeting he only grins and ducks his head in a mock bow, and August is a fool, because he isn’t at all concerned that she’d recognized him and come to find him.
Not even at the simmer in her lion-gold eyes, with red painted like a dead world’s sunset beneath them; not even at the way her wings lift to close them off from the world.
“To see where you led me,” he answers, as calmly, even as his heartbeat picks up at the waking want of the crowd and the way she towers over him. His blood feels like it’s humming, now, and every cell aware, like the run through the desert was just a warm-up. Like there’s something more, something better. And even when she reaches for him, he only flattens his ears at the pull of her teeth down the skin of his neck, and snaps his tail the way she snaps her wings, and bares his own teeth but does not touch.
August should know better. How many fools has he seen at the Scarab, stripped of their money and dignity, insisting to play before they knew the rules? But surely there are no rules here, or none but one - the oldest one, the law of blood.
“Is this it?” he asks, and the silver of her eyes meets the gold of hers, a wealth of need. Her skin is hot from the run through the desert, hot from the pressing crowd, and he wants that blood that runs just underneath, so near the surface, just like his own. “Or do you have more to show me?”
He is ready to gamble it all.
@Amaunet
There is a festival air to the crowd, a kind of nervous frenzy that ripples through them. It feels the way it always did before a big tournament at the Scarab, when the liquor had been flowing for hours and the pot grew and grew until everyone could see their fortune in the next flip of cards. The problem always came later, when all fortunes but one turned to anger and despair. Even so it isn’t until he hears a sharp squeal, then the unmistakable sound of flesh meeting flesh, that he realizes where he must be. And that’s almost enough to drive the winged mare from his mind.
August steps further into the crowd, before his obvious newness draws too much scrutiny - but he doesn’t make it far before the people part and she emerges, glowing faintly, his Virgil who brought him to this questionable wonderland. Up close she is no less savage and magnificent; at her greeting he only grins and ducks his head in a mock bow, and August is a fool, because he isn’t at all concerned that she’d recognized him and come to find him.
Not even at the simmer in her lion-gold eyes, with red painted like a dead world’s sunset beneath them; not even at the way her wings lift to close them off from the world.
“To see where you led me,” he answers, as calmly, even as his heartbeat picks up at the waking want of the crowd and the way she towers over him. His blood feels like it’s humming, now, and every cell aware, like the run through the desert was just a warm-up. Like there’s something more, something better. And even when she reaches for him, he only flattens his ears at the pull of her teeth down the skin of his neck, and snaps his tail the way she snaps her wings, and bares his own teeth but does not touch.
August should know better. How many fools has he seen at the Scarab, stripped of their money and dignity, insisting to play before they knew the rules? But surely there are no rules here, or none but one - the oldest one, the law of blood.
“Is this it?” he asks, and the silver of her eyes meets the gold of hers, a wealth of need. Her skin is hot from the run through the desert, hot from the pressing crowd, and he wants that blood that runs just underneath, so near the surface, just like his own. “Or do you have more to show me?”
He is ready to gamble it all.
@Amaunet
August - -
there's a lover in the story
but the story's still the same
but the story's still the same
