The love Vercingtorix feels for her is nearly inexplicable; the contradiction, the paradox, rips at his soul. But what is the lion without the buffalo, the wolf without the fawn? Does the shark not spasm in sweet ecstasy the moment stretches its jaws to strike a seal? Torix understands this inherent nature, the predator and prey, the way they belong to one another as wholly as an ouroboros belongs to itself. Perhaps there is no separation, not truly. And this is how he loves her; as a foil; a necessity; the separate piece that necessitates his survival.
His purpose.
This is the reason her presence settles him in a way no one else has thus far in Novus. It is a reassurance, whether she intends for it to be or not. See, her eyes seem to say, her bloodied jaws. See, these lands are not so different.
There are still monsters for heroes to fight.
Suit yourself. The roguish charm is so unlike the primordial grace of the Khashran. She goes on to explain further, her connection to this land. The way she phrases, the lands are not my birth home, but I consider the sea to be makes him wonder—
“Were you Made?” His intonation is as heavy as if he were to say God. Khashran could not be Made, in Oresziah. Only Born. But he had been alive long enough to hear the rumours of other water horses, and he finds himself fascinated.
And you?
Torix’s eyes find the shark corpse again. The seagulls are kept at bay, now, by their presence; but they stalk along the peripherals of their encounter, worse than vultures. He almost smiles. “I’m from an island far away from here. But now I’m a voyager, a traveller. I wanted to see if all the myths of magic and monsters were true.” The way he smiles, then, is boyish and nearly, nearly flirtatious. The gleam in his eyes seems to ask, which are you?
But, oh, he already knows.
The worst kind.
“speech” || @Lucinda
