august
Not for the first time, August was glad to be living alone in a city full of strangers.
This way there was no one to see him rise as the moon did, the light rose gold in the little room he rented, the walls still holding the heat of the day. There was no need to make little excuses or wry jokes about the scabbing scratch along his cheek or the limp that hadn’t yet left him from his inelegant foray into Solterra’s fighting pits. It was several days past, but the embarrassment still burned as much as the scrapes and bruises did. And when he slipped out into the rapidly cooling night, there was nobody to ask him where he was going - which was good, because he wouldn’t have an answer for them.
It felt better, walking in the semidarkness as most of the city slept. It made him feel just a little closer to Denocte having the same stars overhead, and August knew already he would have to return home soon. He couldn’t stay away from the Night Court forever, though he hated to leave with Solterra the victor. You couldn’t win every hand.
For a few hours he wandered, including a foray out into the desert night to test his leg beneath the watchful eyes of the jackals and owls. By the time he returned to the streets near where he was staying his limp was more pronounced, but he didn’t mind the exhaustion and soreness that came with it; it meant he would sleep well, at least. Now it was late enough to be early, and the most ambitious of the birds were already beginning to chirp; a couple hours and the city would be bustling again. But for now it was only August - or rather, August and the figure ahead of him, who stumbled with a scrape of hooves and paused to lean against a sandstone wall.
The golden stallion paused, brows knitting. His first thought was that the stranger was drunk - a common enough ailment in any part of Novus at this time of night. But then they continued, and he noted the limp, and the moonlight was enough to show the dark places of blood. The figure was ahead of him, and facing away - it would be easy enough to double back, to slip down a side road, to pretend he hadn’t seen anyone at all.
But he was not so callous as that, and he was more curious, too, and so he stepped cautiously forward, closing with the stranger until he was close enough to call out softly. “Hey - you alright there?”
we drink the poison our minds pour for us
and wonder why we feel so sick
and wonder why we feel so sick
@
