[P] it's an old story, really

[Antiope]

when the shadows come
and cover the horizon
i will be the one to
slay all the giants

No, he tells her, his lips settling into something not-quite-a-smile. This, she thinks, tells her everything that she needs to know. He does not carry the smell of sun and sand, nor of forests and flowers or the pervasiveness of the sea and salt. He is certainly not from Denocte.

He is either from everywhere, or from nowhere, and how is it that someone from either of those things could not be lost Antiope wonders.

From the corner of her eye she sees the dragon tilt its massive wings and head toward them, long before its cry splits the air. It’s a painful sound, a sound that cuts through all the layers of her and settles deep inside. It takes everything in her not to answer it, one other-thing to another.

“Thank you,” she responds, taking a step forward with a roll of her shoulder. The night court Queen tilts her head slightly, “but one false step and it can quickly lose its charm.” The rocks are black, black, black, like the blade of her axe, and probably just as sharp. “I am Antiope.”

Normally she is not one to brandish her crown. Some days the attention that comes with her position still brings a prickle to her skin, but finding this strange man on her shores has her feeling possessive. For now she leaves off the title, however.

“Speaking.”

∞ | @Vercingtorix c;